Vasil Levski

Vassil Levski's birth house in Karlovo




Cry! For near the town of Sofia,

Sticks up, I saw, black gallows,
And your only son, Bulgaria,
Hangs on it with a fearful strength.

Hristo Botev's "The Hanging of Vasil Levski" (1875)





Vassil Ivanov Kunchev, Levski, whom the present-day Bulgarians consider their greatest national hero of all times and epochs, was born in Karlovo, a prosperous center of craft-industry in 1837. At the age of twenty four he took the vows of a deacon. The lot in store for the young Bulgarian was obviously not the one of a monk living in resignation to the world. In 1862 he fled to Serbia and enlisted as a volunteer in the Bulgarian legion raised by Rakovski. The legion took part in the Serbo-Turkish hostilities. Between 1862-1868 Levski participated in almost all Bulgarian armed assaults against the Ottoman empire.
The revolutionary theory which took form in Vassil Levski's mind towards the end of the 60s, turned out to be a leap forward for the Bulgarian liberation movement. Levski viewed the national liberation revolution as a concomitant armed upheaval of the whole Bulgarian population in the Ottoman empire. It followed that this uprising had to be well-prepared in advance, with all adequate military training and proper coordination on the part of an internal revolutionary organization branching out into committees in each living area. That organization was supposed to operate independent from the plans or the political combination of any foreign powers which, as known by previous experience, had brought only trouble and failure to the national revolutionary cause.

Levski also determined the future form of government in liberated Bulgaria - a democratic republic, standing on the principles of the Human and Citizen Rights Charter of the Great French Revolution. That was the only document hitherto known to guarantee the individual freedom of expression, speech, and association. In their essence Levski's ideas tallied with the most radical ideas of the European bourgeois-democratic revolution.

In more practical terms, in 1869 Levski addressed himself to the task of setting up local committees. By the middle of 1872 he had scoured the Bulgarian lands with the dedication of an apostle, and succeeded in establishing a strong network of committees in hundreds of Bulgarian towns and villages which were in constant contact with and subordination to the clandestine government in the town of Lovech. They provided weapons, organized combat detachments, and got traitors and Turkish officials punished.

In May 1872, the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee and the Internal Revolutionary Organization, convinced that a coordination of the efforts would be for the general good, merged into one organization. Revolutionary uplift overwhelmed the whole country.

This enthusiasm was short-lived as only a few months on, in the autumn of that year, during a robbery of a Turkish post-office meant to procure money for weapons, the Turkish police picked up the trail of some committees in northeast Bulgaria including the organization headquarters in Lovech. Numerous arrests of revolutionaries followed, threatening the organization to fall through. Karavelov demanded that Levski should immediately rise the Bulgarians in revolt. Levski, who was in Bulgaria at that time and was well-aware that the population was yet unprepared, refused to fulfill the order and tried to take into his charge all documentation belonging to the organization - a safety precaution against its getting into Turkish hand, which could destroy the movement completely. Unfortunately, he himself fell in the hands of the Turkish authorities who put him on trial and sentenced him to death by hanging. Levski was sent to the gallows in Sofia in February 1873. The death of Vassil Levski - a generally recognized leader of the national revolutionary movement, caused temporary crisis. The Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee was groping for new ways and means. A number of revolutionaries undertook actions without coordinating them with the underground headquarters, while others sank into apathy.

BULGARIAN ICON
The formal introduction for him is a " leader of the national revolutionary movement" against the Ottoman yoke. For us he is the most unselfish, valorous, and fascinating person in the Bulgarian history.

All Bulgarians have loved and love him unconditionally. Though the doors of every Bulgarian house were open for him at all times, we think he was an utter loner. He had no close friends, no family, no home, no personal life. His only thought, his only love, his only passion was Bulgaria. Steffan Dichev, a famous Bulgarian writer, created a wonderful novel, entitled For the Liberty, devoted to Levski. Half documentary, half fictional, the book tells about Levski's life-full with exhaustive work organizing revolutionary committees, danger, and loneliness. Levski, however, was happy with his total devotion. It is a known fact that often his joyful songs and beautiful voice echoed in the forests of the
Bulgarian mountains while he walked long distances from village to village.

Vassil had got the nickname Levski during his service in the First Bulgarian legion organized by Rakovski in 1862 in Belgrad. "Levski" in 19-century Bulgarian means "like a lion". One day during a training, the young legionnaires were jumping over a deep ditch. Like a lion, Vassil had jumped the farthest. Rakosvski exclaimed, "That is a Levskii jump!"



HIS BELIEFS
* Look after the national affairs more than anything else, respect them more than yourself.

* To be equal to the other European nations depends on our own united strength.

* If I win -- the entire nation wins; if I lose -- I lose only myself .

* What more can I want when I see my homeland free? My predestination is for my homeland, is it not? Not to see myself in a high rank, but to die...

Levski was buried secretly. The Ottoman authorities knew too well that even dead Levski was dangerous for the Ottoman Empire. They knew that his grave would become a place of worship and inspiration for the national liberation movement. Thus, until present day we do not know for certain where the Levski's grave is. Ironically, Levski had said, "If they hang me, at least my grave will remain in Bulgarian land and everyone will know it."

REVOLUTIONARY THEORY AND IDEAS

At the end of the 1860s, Levski developed a revolutionary theory that saw the Bulgarian liberation movement as an armed uprising of all Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire. The insurrection was to be prepared, controlled and coordinated internally by a central revolutionary organization, which was to include local revolutionary committees in all parts of Bulgaria and operate independently from any foreign factors. Levski's theory resulted from the repeated failures to implement Rakovski's ideas effectively, such as the use of foreign-based armed detachments (чети, cheti) to provoke a general revolt. Levski's idea of an entirely independent revolution did not enjoy the approval of the entire population either—in fact, he was the only prominent Bulgarian revolutionary to advocate it. Instead, many regarded an intervention by the great powers as a more feasible solution.

Levski envisioned Bulgaria as a democratic republic, occasionally finding common ground with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and largely reflecting the liberal ideas of the French Revolution and contemporary Western society. He said, "We will be free in complete liberty where the Bulgarian lives: in Bulgaria, Thrace, Macedonia; people of whatever ethnicity live in this heaven of ours, they will be equal in rights to the Bulgarian in everything. We will have a flag that says, 'Pure and sacred republic'... It is time, by a single deed, to achieve what our French brothers have been seeking..." Levski held that all religious and ethnic groups in a free Bulgaria—whether Bulgarians, Turks, Jews or others—should enjoy equal rights. He reiterated that the Bulgarian revolutionaries fought against the sultan's government, not against the Turkish people and their religion: "We're not driving away the Turkish people nor their faith, but the emperor and his laws (in a word, the Turkish government), which has been ruling not only us, but the Turk himself in a barbarian way."

Levski was prepared to sacrifice his life for the revolution and place Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people above personal interests: "If I shall win, I shall win for the entire people. If I shall lose, I shall lose only myself." In a liberated Bulgaria, he did not envision himself as a national leader or a high-ranking official: "We yearn to see a free fatherland, and [then] one could even order me to graze the ducks, isn't that right?" In the spirit of Garibaldi, Levski planned to assist other oppressed peoples of the world in their liberation once Bulgaria was reestablished.[ He also advocated "strict and regular accounting" in his revolutionary organization, and did not tolerate corruption.