On July 5, 1916, Hristo Makedonski died in the city of Ruse - the man who saved the banner of the detachment of Hadji Dimitar and Stefan Karadzha.
"Tell me, sister, where is the Karadzha?
Where is my faithful company?
Tell me, or take my soul, –
I want, sister, to die here!"
This is how the genius of Hristo Botev describes the self-sacrificing path of the detachment of Hadji Dimitar and Stefan Karadzha.
Hristo Makedonski himself was born in 1834. in the village of Gorni Todorak, Kukushko (today Ano Theodoraki, Kilkis, Greece). He studied at the Greek school in his native village and was engaged in trade. Together with his comrade Manol Nakov he became a haidutin in the detachment of Stoimen Voivoda, operating in Maleshevo, recalled from VMRO - Ruse.
In 1862 he joined the First Bulgarian Legion of Georgi Rakovski in Belgrade and fought with the Turks during the bombardment of the city. After the disbandment of the legion he left for Romania. In 1864 – 1865 he was at the head of a small detachment, which, on behalf of Rakovski, toured the Bulgarian lands.
Later, in the period 1867 – In 1868 he also took part in the Second Bulgarian Legion, and after it was disbanded in the spring of 1868, he crossed over to Romania.
Later that year he joined the detachment of Hadji Dimitar and Stefan Karadzha. In the Battle of Vyshograd, Georgi Chernev, the standard-bearer of Stefan Karadzha, was killed, after which Hristo Makedonski took over the banner.
After their defeat near Mount Buzludzha, Makedonski with two other chetniks (Pencho Stoyanov and Iliya Nikolov) managed to avoid Turkish losses and passed almost unnoticed through Gabrovo, Sopot, Samokov, the Rila Monastery, Melnik and Doyran to the Athos Peninsula, where they found refuge in the Zograph Monastery.
In the spring of 1869, with the help of the abbot of the monastery, the three of them left via Constantinople for Odessa. From there, Makedonski again crossed over to Romania. To protect himself from arrest and surrender to the Turkish authorities, he adopted the names Hristo Nikolić and Hristaki Nikolau and worked under Stefan Beron. He participated in the revolutionary activities of the Bulgarian emigration and in the preparation of the Stara Zagora and April Uprisings.
After their meeting, Braila Hristo Botev wrote about him in one of his letters:
„When I told him my mission and the state of affairs, he became so excited that he decided to sacrifice even the shirt on his back."
In the Serbian-Turkish War of 1876, he was the commander of a detachment of 200 Bulgarian volunteers. The flag of this detachment is the same flag of Stefan Karadzha, which Hristo Makedonski managed to preserve.
It was sewn in 1866, in Braila, by Sultana Ruseva. Kept as a rare relic, in 1925 it was handed over by the daughters of Hristo Makedonski - Titsa and Ekaterina - to the Ministry of War. Today this flag is kept in the National Military History Museum.
After the Liberation, Hristo Makedonski lived in Ruse, where he died in 1916.
Streets in the cities of Ruse, Varna and Saedinenie are named after him.