Georgi Rakovsky

Georgi Sawa Rakovsky

Georgi Stójków Rakowski , Bulgarian Георги Стойков Раковски born when Sabi Stójków Popovich ( Съби Стойков Попович ), known as Georgi Sava Rakovski ( Георги Сава Раковски ) (* 1821 in Kotel ; † October 9 ^jul. / 21st October  1867 ^greg. In Bucharest , Romania ) was a Bulgarian revolutionary , ideologist , politician , writer , enlightener and activist of the Bulgarian National Revival . He was the first to bring the idea of ​​political liberation out of the people to the Bulgarian emigration to Russia , Romania and the Principality of Serbia , as well as personally to the people in Bulgaria. Georgi Sawa Rakowski was the founder of the organized Bulgarian freedom struggle against the Ottoman-Turkish foreign rulers. He was a close friend of Gavril Krastewitsch and Nikola Bogoridi . The town of Rakovsky was named after him.

"You should never forget your father's house, you should never despise old customs"

- Georgi Sawa Rakovsky

Youth and Revolutionary Beginnings

Copy of the poem The Forest Wanderer in the National Museum in Sofia

Georgi Stojkow Rakowski was born in the town of Kotel in the Balkan Mountains in 1821 into a wealthy, freedom-loving and proud merchant family. One of his maternal uncles, Georgi Mamartschew , was an organizer of a failed uprising in Tarnowo and the recipient of the Russian Cross of St. George for bravery in the Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829). During the war, Mamartschew succeeded in liberating Kotel in July 1829 as captain of the Bulgarian volunteer corps in the Russian army.

After graduating from the Greek elementary school in Kotel (which had also been attended by other well-known Bulgarians such as Stefan Bogoridi , Sophronius von Wraza , Gavril Krastewitsch or Petar Beron ), his father sent him to Karlovo . There he expanded his education with Rojno Popowitsch and from 1837 in the Greek high school in Kuruçeşme (near today's Istanbul , then Constantinople). Here Rakowski learned the classical languages ​​Latin and Greek as well as French , Arabic and Persian . In terms of content, Rakowski turned to the humanistic sciences. Because of his good school grades, he received a scholarship that was awarded by Bulgarian merchants (including Stefan Bogoridi) in Istanbul to particularly gifted Bulgarians. His friendships with Gavril Krastewitsch, Ivan Bogorow , the Bogoridi family and other distinguished Bulgarian and Greek families, who later often saved his life, date from this time . At the same time he made first contacts with the fighters for an independent Bulgarian church, such as with Neofit Bozweli and Ilarion Makariopolski .

In 1841 Rakovsky moved to Athens. Once there, he and Ilarion Makariopolski and other Greeks and Bulgarians founded the secret Macedonian Society (bulg. "Македонско дружество") with the aim of liberating Thessaly and Macedonia and all of Bulgaria through an uprising. In the same year he traveled to Brăila under the name Georgi Makedon after learning that Bulgarians and Greeks were organizing an uprising there that broke out in February 1842. The uprising was put down, but Rakovsky stayed in Brăila, teaching ancient Greek and French and at the same time working underground with the support of the Bulgarian exile community on the liberation of Bulgaria. Because of his agitation work he was wanted by the Romanian secret police. In order to forestall an arrest, he sought the help of the Russian consul there, who handed him over to the Romanian authorities. On July 14, 1848, Georgi Rakowski was sentenced to death by a Romanian court. However, since he was now a Greek citizen, the Greek consul intervened and guaranteed his transfer to a prison in Athens before the Romanian authorities. Instead, the Greek ambassador from Constantinople, with whom Rakovsky was good friends, secretly sent him to France .

Rakowski came to Marseille in this way for around 18 months . Here he dealt intensively with the ideas of the French Revolution . In addition to the language, which he was already able to speak, he read the works of Maximilien de Robespierre , Georges Danton , Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Giuseppe Garibaldi and from that moment on was considered a great admirer of the French Republic and the idea of ​​change by the people. The Greek ambassador had promised him support for studying in Paris, which ultimately failed. Therefore, Rakovsky returned to his hometown of Kotel, where he joined the fight against the foreign rulers.

Since he was wanted by the Turkish authorities, he changed his name from Sabi Stojkow Popowitsch to Georgi Sawa Rakowski . Together with other sympathizers from his hometown, especially craftsmen from the various guilds who fought against the wholesalers and landowners for more rights, he continued his path of liberation. The traders, who wanted to keep the status quo and their privileges, betrayed Rakowski and others of his colleagues to the Turkish rulers. They were arrested and chained. Brought to Constantinople, each of them was sentenced to seven years of harsh regime imprisonment. Rakovsky obtained his release shortly afterwards through relations with Greek and Bulgarian Phanariotes in Constantinople. The bad time he spent in prison he later described in his memoirs "Innocent Bulgarian" (Bulgar. "Неповинен българин"). After his release, Rakowski worked as a lawyer and businessman in Constantinople, where he took part in the struggle for an independent Bulgarian church together with other Bulgarians such as Gavril Krastewitsch, Bozweli, Makariopolski and the Bogoridis . For this purpose he also wrote his first literary works.

During the Russo-Turkish Crimean War (1853-1856) Rakovsky worked as a translator for the Turkish army in their headquarters in Shumen . During this time he built up the "Secret Society", which was supposed to collect important information from the Turkish headquarters and transmit it to the Russians. He was later caught, convicted and sent to Constantinople to serve his sentence. On the way there, however, he was able to escape. At the end of 1853 and beginning of 1854 he organized a cheta , crossed the Balkan Mountains, sabotaged the Turkish supplies and tried to win the Bulgarian population for an uprising that was to unite with the Russian troops. Since then he has kept a detailed diary.

After the Russo-Turkish War concentrated in the Crimea in 1854/55, Rakovsky dissolved Cheta and returned to Kotel. While he was hiding from the police spies at home for almost four months, he sketched the first parts of his memoirs of Innocent Bulgarians and the Forest Wanderer Project (Bulgarian "Горски Пътник").

In 1855 Georgi Rakowski left Kotel again. He moved to Swishtov , where he wrote his first poem Bulgarian (March) Action (Bulgarian "Постъп (марш) българский"). In the same year he left for Austria-Hungary via Bucharest . Arrived in Novi Sad , he published with the help of Danilo Medakovic from July to October 1857 the newspaper Bulgarisches Tageblatt (Bulgarian "Българска дневница"), with which he paved the way for Bulgarian revolutionary journalism. From October 1857 he published the magazine Vorbote des Wald-Wanderers (Bulgar. "Предвестник горского пътника"), completed and published the poem Der Wald-Wanderer , studied Bulgarian history and founded the Bulgarian Literary Community . Because of his revolutionary past and activities, the Ottoman authorities continued to seek to arrest and deport him. Thanks to his Greek nationality, Rakovsky was able to go into hiding again and leave the country. After a short stop in Galați , (Romania), he went to Odessa in 1858 , where he worked as a teacher in the Bulgarian seminary . Because of the Russian censorship he was only able to publish the article Index finger ... (Bulgar. "Показалец ...") in Odessa .

Bulgarian Legion

First edition of the Donau-Schwan newspaper

Rakovsky in Athens in 1863

From 1860 Rakowski lived in Belgrade . There he published the newspaper Donau-Schwan (Bulgarian "Дунавски лебед" / Dunawski Lebed). From the 16th edition he published the paper in French. At the same time he drafted a plan for the liberation of Bulgaria and the statute of his Bulgarian guardianship in Belgrade . In 1862, after consultation with the Serbian government, he founded the First Bulgarian Legion (bulg. Първа българска легия), which pursued the goal of training young men in the military and, on occasion (uprising) in Bulgaria, to intervene from Serbia beyond the Balkan Mountains. More than 600 volunteers from Bulgaria signed up, including freedom fighters such as Wasil Levski , Stefan Karadscha and Kliment Turnowski . When fighting broke out on July 3, 1862 in Belgrade between the Serbs and the Ottoman garrison in the Kalemegdan fortress , the legion intervened on the side of the Serbs. However, the fighting did not lead to a war, which is why the Serbian government was forced by Turkish pressure to dissolve the Legion. Nevertheless, it was the first opportunity in which young Bulgarian freedom fighters gained combat experience and ideas, and established networks that would later be of use to them in the liberation struggle.

Rakowski's visionary ideas brought him much recognition. After the failed attempt to liberate Bulgaria by an army (legion) organized from Serbia, he pursued the establishment of a Christian-Orthodox alliance between the Balkan peoples against the Ottoman Empire. For this purpose he toured Athens , Cetinje and Bucharest in 1863 , where he met with leading statesmen, influential personalities and freedom fighters. The following year, Rakovsky settled in Bucharest and published the future (Bulgarian Бъдущност ) newspaper in Bulgarian and Romanian , in which he set out the goal of forming a Bulgarian-Romanian alliance. From 1864 he published the newspaper Defender (Bulgarian Бранител ), which contained tips for freedom fighters, the Cheeti (singular Cheetah ). The Tscheta (Bulgarian чета) fought in small mobile units, volunteers who joined forces and fought against the Ottoman-Turkish power. The members were subordinate to a voivoda . Their fighting originally served to defend villages and fields. They mostly appeared in mountainous regions or were organized from abroad, mostly in Romania, and secretly crossed the border.

In 1866, Rakovsky founded the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee in Bucharest , BRZK for short (Bulgarian Български революционен централен комитет), the predecessor organization of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Organization , also known as the Inner Revolutionary Organization . The committee should prepare a major uprising and provide training for volunteers.

Part of the soldiers of the Second Bulgarian Legion

For this purpose, Rakovsky returned to Belgrade in 1867 and founded the Second Bulgarian Legion . He took part in the preparations for a planned major uprising in 1867. In this context he wrote the Temporary Law of the Cheetas for the summer of 1867 . In addition, he published revolutionary works, articles in newspapers and wrote his autobiography. He died of tuberculosis in Bucharest on October 9, 1867.

Reception and honors

Rakovsky was the first ideologue and organizer of an entire Bulgarian national freedom movement and its leader in the first ten years. While still a student in Constantinople, he understood the importance of Bulgarian history in the process of forming and strengthening the Bulgarian national consciousness. This topic can also be found in his works.

In some Bulgarian cities monuments were erected to the fighter for national revival. In Varna and Vidin on the banks of the Danube there is a bust with his name, the dates of his life and the reference to freedom fighters . Even in India (Delhi) there is a Rakovsky monument and a school bears his name. The President of the Bulgarian Parliament, Zezka Zacheva, visited it in November 2011. In 1966 a city was founded out of three villages, which was named Rakowski . In 2016 an asteroid was named after him: (432361) Rakovski . He has also been the namesake of the Rakowski Nunatak on Livingston Island in Antarctica since 2005 .

Fonts (selection)

Rakowski used the time between 1854 and 1860 for his literary work. He wrote articles in Bulgarian exile magazines and his main work, the poem Der Wald-Wanderer , published in 1857. In it he describes the life of the Bulgarian freedom fighters ( Heiducken ) and their stories about the struggle with the oppressors. The poem is considered to be the first revolutionary epic poem in new Bulgarian literature in the 21st century . In 1862 he was the first to print the work Life and Sorrows of Sinful Sofronij (Bulgarian: "„итие и страдание грешнаго Софрония") by Sophronius von Wraza in Belgrade .

• Forest Walker (1857) - Bulgarian "Горски Пътник" ( Gorski Patnik )
• The Bulgarian Church Question in connection with the Phanariots and the great idea of Panhellenism (1860) - Bulgar. "Българский вероизповеден въпрос с фанариотите и голияма мечелина змечелина
• Plan for the Liberation of Bulgaria (1862) - Bulgarian "План за освобождението на България"
• Innocent Bulgarian (Bulgar. "Неповинен българин")

literature

• Петър Ангелов, Димитър Саздов, Иван Стоянов: Историиа на България. 681-1944. 2 volumes. Софи-Р, София 2003, ISBN 954-638-121-7 (vol. 1), ISBN 954-638-122-5 (vol. 2).
• Margaret Beissinger, Jane Tylus, Susanne Wofford (Eds.): Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World. The Poetics of Community. University of California Press, Berkeley et al. a. CA 1999, ISBN 0-520-21038-7 , p. 79.
• Christo Choliolčev, Karlheinz Mack, Arnold Suppan (eds.): National revolutionary movements in Southeastern Europe in the 19th century (= series of publications by the Austrian Institute for East and Southeastern Europe. Vol. 20). Publishing house for history and politics a. a., Vienna a. a. 1992, ISBN 3-7028-0318-1 .
• Richard J. Crampton: A Concise History of Bulgaria. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 1997, ISBN 0-521-56719-X , p. 77.
• Norbert Reiter (Ed.): National movements in the Balkans (= Balkanological publications. 5). O. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-447-02238-8 .
• Иван Стоянов: История на българското възраждане. Издателство "ИВИС", Велико Търново 1999, ISBN 954-427-387-5 ( История на Българското възраждане ).

Web links

Commons : Georgi Rakowski  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Georgi Rakowski in the catalog of the German National Library .
• 140 years since the death of Georgi Rakowski .
• More works by Rakowski on slovo.bg (Bulgarian)

Individual evidence

1. ^ History of the city of Elena
2. ↑ Picture of a Rakovsky bust in Waran
3. ↑ Bust of Rakovsky seen and photographed in July 2013.
4. ↑ Parliamentary President Zezka Zatschewa visits the Rakowski School in Delhi. ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Report on Radio Bulgaria on November 30, 2011; Retrieved November 26, 2013  
5. ^ Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World: The Poetics of Community