Petko Voivoda
Petko Kiryakov Kalojanow , known as Kapitan Petko Voyvoda , ( Bulgarian Петко Киряков Калоянов or Капитан Петко войвода, also called Петко Каракирков / Petko Karakirkow * 6. December 1844 in Dogan Chisar (now Aisymi ); † 7. February 1900 in Varna , Bulgaria ) was a Bulgarian revolutionary , freedom fighter, Heiducke in Western Thrace and politician.
Life
Petko Wojwoda was born in 1844 in the Bulgarian village of Dogan Chisar , western Thrace, then in the Ottoman Empire , which has belonged to Greece since the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1919. His mother's name was Gruda, his father Kirko Karakirjakow. Petko had eight siblings. At the age of 15 he learned to write the Bulgarian language with Greek letters and the Greek language in the cell school of the village.
When the Turks murdered his brother Matthias and his cousin Waltscho in the spring of 1861, Petko founded a Cheta to avenge them and to take action against the arbitrariness of the ruling Ottoman Turks. In 1863 he was captured by the Ottoman militia, but was able to escape and intensified his fight against the foreign rulers in Western Thrace and in the nearby Rhodope Mountains .
In the fall of 1864 he moved to Athens , where he enrolled at the military school as a guest student. Influenced by the revolutionary ideas of Giuseppe Garibaldi , he moved to Italy shortly afterwards . In early 1866 he met Garibaldi and stayed with him for several months. Together they organized the Garibaldi battalion , which consisted of 220 Italians and 67 Bulgarians , including Petko Wojwoda, who took part in the 1866 uprising in Crete against the Ottoman Empire. During the fighting in Crete, Petko Wojwoda earned the nickname captain ( captain ) because of his bravery . After the suppression of the uprising, Petko traveled to Egypt , France and Italy, but settled again in Athens, where he and Greek revolutionaries made an appeal for the common struggle of Bulgarians and Greeks against Ottoman-Turkish rule.
In 1869, Petko Wojwoda organized another Cheta and fought together with the Cheta of Krajtscho Wojwoda for the liberation of Thrace and the Rhodopes from Ottoman-Turkish rule. In 1878, the united Cheta under the leadership of Petko Wojwoda took part in the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878). In the last days of the war, as well as after the signing of the Peace of San Stefano, she fought against Turkish militants ( Başı Bozuk ) and deserters, led by the British officer Saint Clair and their robberies in Thrace. Thanks to him, the entire population of the village of Plewun , which lay in the border area between the Ottoman Empire and liberated Bulgaria and was already surrounded by Saint Clair, was able to save itself.
After 1880 Petko Wojwoda settled in Varna. He was a co-founder of the local Democratic Party and worked as a lawyer. Petko Voyvoda was one of the initiators and organizers founded in Varna on May 12, 1896 " Edirne displaced Association - beach Template" (Bulgarian "Одринско преселенско дружество - Странджа" / Odrinsko preselensko druschestwo - beach saddle), which were also the Ottoman Empire bereaved Thracian Bulgarians and today bears his name. The Macedonian association “Pirin Planina”, which had been founded in Burgas a year earlier by expelled Bulgarians from Macedonia, served as a model . Petko Wojwoda, however, also campaigned for the Turkish population in Varna.
On the initiative of Petko Wojwoda, Petar Dragulew and Georgi Minkow took place on February 19, 1897 in Burgas the founding meeting of the association " Thrace " of the expelled Thracian Bulgarians in the province of Burgas, who in the future in the preparation of the Ilinden-Preobraschenie uprising and should play a central role in caring for the large numbers of refugees arriving in the Burgas region.
After a failed coup by pro-Russian officers against the Bulgarian prince Alexander I , who was supported by Russia , a counter-coup followed. After the re-establishment of the Tsar and the subsequent reign of Prime Minister Stefan Stambolow , Petko Wojwoda (like all other Bulgarian Russophiles) fell out of favor because of his pro-Russian politics. Petko Voyvoda was because of the support pro-Russian forces attempted to assassinate the Prime Minister, indicted in 1892 and in Tryavna jailed.
Kapitan Petwko Wojdowa died on February 7, 1900 in Varna. He was married twice, once to a Greek woman from Keşan with whom he had a son and a second time to Rada Kravkova from Kazanlak .
additional
Many Bulgarian songs are dedicated to him. The Petko Voyvoda Peak on the Antarctic Livingston Island , the refugee organization of the Thracian Bulgarians , a book publisher, a foundation, a village near Haskovo, the Kapitan Petko Wojwoda-Ormenion border crossing and other institutions in Bulgaria were named after him. His life was filmed in the popular TV series "Kapitan Petko Wojwoda".
In 2004 a monument to Petko Wojwoda was inaugurated in Rome and another in his hometown.
literature
- Petko Wojwoda 1844-1900. A collection of essays, documents and materials. Sofia, Kapitan Petko Wojwoda Foundation
- Ivan Stefanow: On the activity of the freedom fighter in the eastern Rhodope and western Thrace
Web links
- Documentary exhibition about Kapitan Petko Wojwoda (bulg.)
- Monument to Petko Wojwoda in the heart of Rome (bulg.) ( Memento from June 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- Biography of Petko Wojwoda (Bulgar.) ( Memento from September 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ Publishing House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: Bulgarian Historical Review. Publishing House of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 1982 limited preview in Google Book search
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Vojwoda, Petko |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kaloyanov, Petko Kirjakow; Kapitan Petko Wojwoda (pseudonym); Karakiryakov, Petko |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Bulgarian revolutionary and freedom fighter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 6, 1844 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Esymi , Western Thrace |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 7, 1900 |
| Place of death | Varna , Bulgaria |