Dimitar Ganchev was born on 21 March 1875, in the Bulgarian city of Ruse, which was then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.[1] After graduating from school in Ruse, he went abroad to study the natural sciences at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland.[2] In 1897, he became a member of the so-called Geneva group – an anarchistic revolutionary circle led by Mihail Gerdzhikov and Petar Mandzhukov.[3] He moved to Skopje, where he worked as a teacher and joined the Internal Macedonian-Adrianople Revolutionary Organization (IMARO).[4]
In early 1903, he was elected as a delegate to the Solun congress, which decided to carry out an armed uprising against the Ottomans. According to Lazar Dimitrov, Ganchev was in favour of the uprising.[5] Ganchev then disguised himself and went into hiding in the village of Dolno Sonje, where he organised a rebellion against the Ottoman Gendarmerie.[4] Ganchev was arrested and imprisoned in Skopie on either 28 April[5] or 7 June 1903.[4] He was sentenced to life imprisonment, under article 58 of the Bulgarian criminal code.[4] In 1904 he was released from prison, under an amnesty procured by the Bulgarian government, and later became a teacher in Razgrad.[4]
With the outbreak of the First Balkan War, Ganchev enlisted in the Bulgarian Army as a volunteer.[6] On 17 October 1912, he was killed in the battle of Bunarhisar.[1][6]
