Each American knows the name of John Wilkes Booth - the actor, who gunned down President Abraham Lincoln in a terrorist action in the spring of 1865. At the same time few Bulgarians have heard of Asen Daskalov – a Macedonian terrorist, whose tendency to show mercy resulted in two unsuccessful assassination attempts and finally cost his own life...

Asen Daskalov was born on 19 February 1899 in the town of Radomir, Shopa region – a wild spot amidst the Balkans, still known for its wayward and unruly citizens. After finishing high school, in 1920 Asen went on with his studies at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” as a student in law. He was one of the founders of the Vardar student society, along with several of his fellow students and the notorious Ivan (“Vanche”) Mihailov – the future leader of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization /IMRO/. In the spring of 1921 Asen Daskalov gave up his studies and left the university, determined to get totally devoted to the revolutionary activities of IMRO. In order to become a member of the organization, the young man repeated the feat of ancient Roman warrior Mucius Scaevola – he held his hand over the flame of a candle, until everyone around felt the smell of burning flesh… In his memoirs Ivan Mihailov recalled that Daskalov was “a top rifleman, ready at the same time to jump into any risk… He tended to take chances either. In flash actions he was like a true tiger!”

The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization was a revolutionary national liberation movement in the Bulgarian lands under Ottoman rule /nowadays parts of Macedonia, Greece and Turkey/, which operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Founded in 1893, initially its goal was to gain autonomy for Macedonia and the Adrianople regions of the Ottoman Empire, but later on it became an agent, which served Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics. It fought the Ottomans using primarily guerrilla tactics, actually quite successful, even establishing a state within state in some regions, including its own tax collectors. The organization had a political wing and the strong support of Sofia as well, though it was often not shy away from purely terrorist actions and assaults.

However, after the signing of the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, officially documenting Bulgaria’s defeat as an ally of the Central Powers in WWI, the government of Aleksandar Stamboliyski and the Agrarian Union tried to improve this country’s diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia and Greece. The activities of the IMRO were an obstacle to this policy and so the pm suddenly restricted those, thus incurring the anger and hatred of the recently restored and then-headed by Todor Aleksandrov organization. It answered with terror and the death sentence of the premier was issued. Asen Daskalov was selected to execute it, despite his unsuccessful attempt to kill with a bomb a political activist of the Agrarian Union a couple of months earlier… Or maybe he got his second chance this way.

In February 1923 Sofia celebrated the 65th anniversary of Bulgarian theatre and a festive show was attended by PM Stamboliyski and three of his ministers on February 4. At the peak of the play a female voice screamed “Bomb!!!” and a deafening explosion followed. It turned out later on that the terrorist had taken a seat in the first row, right in front of the premier’s box. However, a lady spotted Asen taking out the bomb and screamed, thus warning the four politicians, who managed to react and flee. The view of the scene of the crime showed later that metal pieces of the “odrinka” type hand grenade had stuck in the wall at the level of Stamboliyski’s head and chest… At the same time the terrorist had successfully managed to escape through the main exit, despite the policemen and firemen crowded there. Hence for the controversies.

Above all, the IMRO had never forgiven an unsuccessful assassination attempt and actually Daskalov should have been dead after the first failure two months earlier. Moreover, the miraculous release of the premier and the three ministers without a scratch caused the suspicion that Stamboliyski himself might have ordered the attempt, in order to have a reason to deal with his political opponents and with the IMRO in particular. Furthermore, Asen Daskalov found shelter against any prosecution later on… under the roof of a distinguished member of the Agricultural Union, which was a fact, very controversial though. On the next day the opposition claimed via newspaper headlines that the assassination had been staged – a typical tactical maneuver of the agrarian government back in those days, which was actually one of the reasons for the 9 June 1923 coup d’etat and the execution of the premier on June 14.

However, Stambolyiski’s nephew and later on a pm himself for a week – Konstantin Muraviev, threw another, much more interesting version on Daskalov’s series of “bad luck”. In his words, in early 1923 the latter told an agrarian activist they both knew that he had been ordered to kill Stambolyiski, but didn’t want to do it. To prove his words, Asen told the man another story – how in early 1923 he and other two IMRO activists had ambushed the pm on a bridge above the Vladaya River, obstructing the road with a wagon, full of coal. Aleksandar Stambolyiski looked so calm, yet vulnerable inside the car with no bodyguards that Daskalov felt pity and refused to shoot at such a man. He withdrew the trio with the pretext that he had spotted cops.

No matter what the reasons for the Bulgarian John Booth’s mercifulness were, a couple of years later, on 10 August 1925 he paid for it. Asen Daskalov was gunned down on the Sofia-Petrich night train, allegedly by the order of his former pal Ivan Mihailov. The body of the young and atypically merciful Macedonian terrorist was found at the Batanovtsi station.
At the same time the career of Ivan “Vanche” Mihailov was on the rise. In fact half of Europe would cower just by hearing his name across the entire 20th century, up until his death in Rome in 1990…