Wassil Levski

"If I win, I win for a whole people - if I lose, I only lose myself." - Vasil Levski

Levsky's signature

Vasil Levski (also Vasil Levski written Bulgarian Васил Левски , altbulg Василъ Львскій;. Born July 6 ^jul. / 18th July  1837 ^greg. In Karlovo , † (execution) February 6 ^jul. / 18th February  1873 ^greg. In Sofia ) born Vasil Ivanov Kuntschew (bulg. Васил Иванов Кунчев), also known as deacon Ignatius (bulg. Дякон Игнатий) and Apostle of freedom bulg (. Апостола на Свободата), was a leading revolutionary and ideologue of theBulgarian freedom movement in the time of national rebirth . He was the founder of the Inner Revolutionary Organization (IRO) and the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRZK).

Names

Wasil Levski is known neither by his official name nor by his spiritual name Deacon Ignatij . He himself signed documents as Deacon Levsky , his colleagues used to call him Wasil Djakona or just Deacon sometimes Djakontscheto (the deacon). He also had some Turkish pseudonyms such as B. Aslan Derwischooglu Kirdschal , Efendi Aslan Derwischooglu and other Bulgarian as the main booksellers , Troptscho , Dragojtscho etc., including an Armenian pseudonym - Ovanes . After his death, especially from the 1880s and 1890s, people began to call him the Apostle of Freedom or just the Apostle , which goes back to Ivan Wazow .

Life

Young years

Levski was born on July 18, 1837 in Karlovo. His mother's name was Gina Wassilewa Karaiwanowa, his father Iwan Kuntschew Iwanow. He attended school in Karlovo. In 1851 his father died, leaving three sons to take care of the family. From 1855 he was sent as a novice to his maternal uncle Archimandrite Hadschi Wasilij, a wandering monk from Hilandar Monastery . In the next few years he went to the convent school in Karlovo and Stara Sagora for two years and completed a year-long priestly course. On December 7, 1858 he became a monk and took the name Ignatij. In 1859 he became an archdeacon . In 1861, under the influence of Georgi Sawa Rakowski , Levski turned exclusively to the revolutionary liberation struggle against the Ottoman-Turkish rule in Bulgaria.

Levski the revolutionary

In 1862 he traveled to Belgrade , where he joined Rakowski's First Bulgarian Legion . Rakovsky was the first to bring the idea of ​​political liberation out of the people into the Bulgarian emigration and into the people in Bulgaria. 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, when no war broke out, 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 struggle. Because of his skill and courage in the battles near Kalemegdan, Kuntschew was nicknamed Levski, German the lion-like (from the Bulgarian word for lion - Лъв / Law). After the Legion was dissolved, he joined the rebel troop ( Tscheta ) of Ilyo Wojwoda .

In the spring of 1864, on Easter Sunday, Levski cut off his long monk hair in the presence of his closest confidante. From that moment on he became the secular deacon of Freedom Vasil Levski. His uncle, Archimandrite Wasilij, tried to initiate a church investigation against his nephew, which was forbidden to him personally by the Archbishop of Plovdiv on threat of punishment. From 1865 to 1866 Levski was a teacher in various schools. As a teacher, Levski tried to organize the people into armed patriotic groups for the coming uprising. In 1866 he met Chadschi Dimitar and Stefan Karadscha and met Rakovsky again.

In 1867 Levski took part in the Second Bulgarian Legion Rakowski in Belgrade. After their dissolution, he tried to come to Bulgaria with a Tscheta (free group) to spark an uprising, but was arrested in Serbia and thrown into prison. After his liberation, he drove to neighboring Romania, where he joined the Cheta of Panayot Chitow in April 1867 as the flag bearer . Chitow was previously declared by Rakovsky to the "Supreme Bulgarian Voivode" (bulg. Главен български войвода). With that, all Bulgarian Cheetas were under the military leadership of Chitow. Rakowski and Chitow aimed to coordinate the military actions in the fight against the Ottoman rulers. After Rakowski's unexpected death on April 28, 1867, the grand plans failed.

After the failures with the Cheetas, Levski planned to move the central leadership of the preparation for insurrection to Bulgaria and to create a network of revolutionary committees for a successful national liberation struggle. On December 11, 1868, he began his first tour of Bulgaria, which lasted until February 1869. From May 1869, on his second tour, he succeeded in founding revolutionary committees across the country. In between he returned to Romania again and again and tried unsuccessfully to convince the elite of the Bulgarian revolutionaries to move the revolutionary center to Bulgaria.

At the end of 1869 Levski took part in the establishment of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRZK) and together with Lyuben Karawelow became chairman of the revolutionary-democratic wing. After that he devoted himself further to the creation of revolutionary committees in Bulgaria. In 1870 he made Lovech the center of the IRO - the "Provisional Government in Bulgaria". Two years later he founded the first monastic committee in the monastery of Trojan .

In 1871 he worked out the program and a provisional statute for the BRZK. In 1872 he initiated and organized the first general meeting of the BRZK in Bucharest. As the representative of the BRZK for the committees in Bulgaria, he began to reshape the Internal Revolutionary Organization. District committees were created.

Arrest and Execution

Levski monument in Karlovo

On September 22, 1872, leading representatives of the revolutionary movement, against Lewski's will, carried out an attack on an Ottoman mail van on the Arabakonak mountain pass . The subsequent arrest of the participants meant a serious setback for the IRO.

Levski and Karavelov were ordered by the BRZK to start the uprising, but he refused and decided to move the IRO archives from Lovech to Romania to safety. On December 1, Vasil Lewki began his journey from Pazardzhik to Lovech, accompanied by the committee courier Nikola Raschanow on. On December 12, Levski wrote his last letter to the members of the Lovech Committee. Two days later, a special commission headed by General Ali Saib Pasha was set up in Sofia and tried the arrested members of the IRO and those involved in the attack.

In the afternoon Levski began his journey back to Romania. Nikoltscho Zwetkow was with him. On the evening of December 26 both reached the Chan (service area) of Christ Zonew at Kakrina , near Lovech, and wanted the next day about Sevlievo and Veliko Tarnovo the road to Bucharest take. On the morning of December 27th, the khan was surrounded by the Turkish police. Levski tried to flee and was injured.

Monument at the site of the execution of Vasil Levski in Sofia

After his arrest, he was supposed to be brought to Constantinople , as the Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz was interested in Levski. In this case it should be transported by train. The committees in Stara Sagora and Tschirpan organized a plan for the liberation of Lewski with the help of the railway engineer Jiří Prošek (from Bohemia ). Instead Levski was brought to Sofia. The trial against him began on January 4th and ended on January 14th with a judicial death sentence. On January 22nd, his death sentence was confirmed by Sultan Abdülaziz.

Wassil Levski was born on February 6th ^. / February 18, 1873 ^greg. hanged near Sofia .

Today his place of execution is in the middle of the Bulgarian government district in the center of Sofia, where a monument was erected in his honor at a later time. The monument site has been awarded the European Heritage Seal by the Bulgarian state .

During archaeological excavations in the church of Sv. Petka Samardschijska in the center of Sofia a grave was discovered in 1956, about which there has been a dispute ever since whether it is the grave of Levski. Scientists deny this, but oral records suggest that this is the very place where his body was secretly buried. In 1986 the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAN) decided to put a memorial plaque there, but this has not yet happened.

Revolutionary theory and ideas

In the late 1860s, Levski developed his theory of revolution, in which he described the Bulgarian liberation movement as an armed uprising by all Bulgarians living in the Ottoman Empire. The uprising was to be prepared, controlled and coordinated by an inner-Bulgarian, central revolutionary organization. Local revolutionary committees in all areas of Bulgaria, independent of external influences, should be an essential part of such an organization. This theory resulted from the repeated failure to effectively implement the ideas of Rakovsky , such as the use of armed units organized abroad (чети, Cheeti ) to provoke a popular uprising. Lewski's idea of ​​a completely independent revolution, however, did not have broad popular support - in fact, he was the only prominent Bulgarian revolutionary who advocated it. Instead, many Bulgarians saw an intervention by the great powers as a far more realistic solution.

Levski envisioned Bulgaria as a democratic republic , occasionally making references to the declaration of human and civil rights and largely reflecting the liberal ideas of the French Revolution and contemporary Western societies . He demanded that all religious and ethnic groups in a free Bulgaria - whether Bulgarians, Turks , Jews or others - should have equal rights . He also underlined that the Bulgarian revolutionaries fought against the Sultan's government and not against the Turkish people and their religion.

Levski was ready to give his life for the revolution and to put Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people above his personal interests: "If I win, the whole people wins - if I lose, I only lose myself". He did not see himself in a liberated Bulgaria as a national leader or senior government official. On the other hand, in the spirit of Garibaldi , he planned to support other oppressed people around the world in their liberation as soon as a Bulgarian state was restored. He also advocated “strict and regular bookkeeping” in his revolutionary organization and did not tolerate any corruption .

souvenir

In 1875 the Bulgarian national poet Christo Botew wrote in his poem The Hanging of Vasil Levski :

[…] Cry! There, near the city of Sofia,
rises, I saw it, a black gallows,
and your only son, O Bulgaria,
clings to him with terrible strength. [...]

The "Patriarch of Bulgarian Literature" Ivan Wasov dedicated the first poem in his Epopee of the Forgotten to him . Today many public institutions, streets and places bear his name, including the city of Levski , the military university in Veliko Tarnovo, the football club Levski Sofia , the Bulgarian national stadium , the military academy and the national sports academy "Vasil Levski" in Sofia. The Levski Ridge and Levski Peak on Livingston Island in West Antarctica also bear his name. Levski was elected the greatest Bulgarian in history by Welikite Balgari in 2007 .

Some Bulgarians already honor the apostle of freedom on the day of his execution. Traditionally, however, on February 19, the official commemorations with flower and wreath-laying as well as devotional services take place both at his place of execution and throughout the country. In Lovech there is an annual commemorative run to the place of arrest.

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  Levski as a legionnaire in Belgrade

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  The monument at its execution site in Sofia

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  Wassil Levski commemoration in Bosilegrad

literature

• Otto Emersleben : The wind has many names . Evangelical Publishing House, Berlin 1985.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Georgi Bakalov, Milen Kumanov: ХИТОВ, Панайот Иванов (1830-22.II.1918). Електронно издание "История на България" (in Bulgarian). Труд, Сирма, София 2003, ISBN 954-528-613-X .
2. ↑ Ivan Vatahov: Vassil Levski - Bulgaria's 'only son' , The Sofia Echo . February 20, 2003. Retrieved October 24, 2008. 
3. ^ Vasil Levski. In: Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2008, accessed October 24, 2008 . 
4. ↑ Charles Jelavich, Barbara Jelavich: The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920. In: A History of East Central Europe. 8. University of Washington Press, Seattle 1986, ISBN 0-295-96413-8 , p. 136.
5. ^ Vesselin Dimitrov: Bulgaria: the uneven transition. Routledge, London 2001, ISBN 0-415-26729-3 .
6. ↑ ^{a b} Manova, Zhelev, Mitev: The Apostle of Freedom - organizer and ideologist of the national liberation struggle. ( Memento from June 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) 2007.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Stoi︠a︡n Dzhevezov, Vasil Levski: Kŭshta-muzeĭ "Vasil Levski" - Karlovo [Sbornik] / Sŭstav. Stoi︠a︡n Dzhevezov. Sofii︠a︡ Slavina, Славина 1996, OCLC 181114302 , p. 21.
8. ↑ Marcel Cornis-Pope, John Neubauer: History of the literary cultures of East-Central Europe: junctures and disjunctures in the 19th and 20th centuries. Volume II. J. Benjamin Pub., Amsterdam / Philadelphia 2004, ISBN 90-272-3452-3 , p. 317.
9. ↑ Стефан Чурешки: Идеите на Левски и модерността (Bulgarian) , Сега. February 17, 2006. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved October 24, 2008. 
10. ^ RJ Crampton: Bulgaria (= Oxford history of modern Europe. ) Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2007, ISBN 0-19-820514-7 , p. 422.
11. ↑ Rumen Daskalov: The making of a nation in the Balkans: historiography of the Bulgarian revival. Central European University Press, Budapest / New York 2004, ISBN 963-9241-83-0 , p. 61.
12. ↑ Stoi︠a︡n Dzhevezov, Vasil Levski: Kŭshta-muzeĭ “Vasil Levski” - Karlovo [Sbornik] / Sŭstav. Stoi︠a︡n Dzhevezov. Sofii︠a︡ Slavina, Славина 1996, OCLC 181114302 , p. 12.
13. ^ RJ Crampton: A concise history of Bulgaria. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1997, ISBN 0-521-56183-3 , p. 79.
14. ↑ Stoi︠a︡n Dzhevezov, Vasil Levski: Kŭshta-muzeĭ "Vasil Levski" - Karlovo [Sbornik] / Sŭstav. Stoi︠a︡n Dzhevezov. Sofii︠a︡ Slavina, Славина 1996, OCLC 181114302 , p. 17.
15. ↑ Ако спечеля, печеля за цял народ - ако загубя, губя само мене си ( Bulgarian ) Свята и чиста република. Archived from the original on March 30, 2009. Retrieved October 24, 2008.
16. ↑ Александър Кьосев: Величие и мизерия в епохата на Водолея (Bulgarian) , Сега. February 24, 2007. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved October 25, 2008. 
17. ↑ Петко Тодоров: Близо ли е времето? (Bulgarian) , Земя. Archived from the original on March 4, 2009. Retrieved October 24, 2008. 
18. ↑ German translation and source for this: Roman Jakobson, Sebastian Donat, Hendrik Birus: Poetry of grammar and grammar of poetry: all poem analyzes. Volume 2, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin, 2007, pp. 403-404.
19. ↑ Bulgaria honors the Apostle of Freedom ( Memento from February 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Wassil Lewski  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Wassil Lewski in the catalog of the German National Library .
• Wasil Levski Museum in Karlovo (Bulgarian and English)
• Bulgaria Commemorates National Hero Levski , www.novinite.com, February 19, 2011.