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Vasil Levski
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Vasil Levski (originally spelled ?????? ???????, IPA: ) was the nickname of Vasil Ivanov Kunchev (????? ?????? ??????; 18 July 1837–18 February 1873), a Bulgarian revolutionary renowned as the national hero of Bulgaria and styled the Apostle of Freedom. Levski was the ideologist and strategist of a revolutionary movement aimed at the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule. The movement was represented by the Internal Revolutionary Organisation, a network of secret regional committees seeking to instigate a nationwide uprising, that Levski founded.
Born in the sub-Balkan town of Karlovo to middle class parents, Levski became an Orthodox monk before emigrating to join both Bulgarian Legions and several other Bulgarian revolutionary groups.
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Vasil Levski (originally spelled ?????? ???????, IPA: ) was the nickname of Vasil Ivanov Kunchev (????? ?????? ??????; 18 July 1837–18 February 1873), a Bulgarian revolutionary renowned as the national hero of Bulgaria and styled the Apostle of Freedom. Levski was the ideologist and strategist of a revolutionary movement aimed at the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule. The movement was represented by the Internal Revolutionary Organisation, a network of secret regional committees seeking to instigate a nationwide uprising, that Levski founded.
Born in the sub-Balkan town of Karlovo to middle class parents, Levski became an Orthodox monk before emigrating to join both Bulgarian Legions and several other Bulgarian revolutionary groups. Abroad, he acquired the nickname Levski, "Leonine". After working as a teacher in the Bulgarian lands, he proceeded to propagate his revolutionary ideas and developed the concept of his revolutionary organisation. In emigration, Levski helped found the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, a revolutionary society of Bulgarian expatriates. During several tours of Bulgaria, Levski established his wide network of insurrectionary committees. However, he was captured by the Ottoman authorities at an inn near Lovech and executed by hanging in Sofia.
Levski looked beyond the act of liberation: he envisioned a "pure and holy" Bulgarian republic of ethnic and religious equality. His concepts have been described as a struggle for human rights inspired by the progressive liberalism of the French Revolution and the Western European society of the time. Levski is commemorated by numerous monuments in Bulgaria and a number of institutions bear his name. In 2007, a nationwide television poll picked him out as the greatest Bulgarian of all time.
Historical background
In 1396 or 1422, the medieval Bulgarian Empire had ceased to exist and had come under full Ottoman domination. The unequal Ottoman millet system had turned the Bulgarians, as with all of the empire's Christian subjects, into second-class citizens, and the religious differences had created an insurmountable cultural antagonism. The later major economic hardships of the empire, prompting it to be dubbed the "sick man of Europe", meant that the Ottoman state's Christian residents suffered more than its Muslim subjects, and reforms planned by the sultans faced insuperable difficulties.
Bulgarian nationalism gradually materialised towards the middle of the 19th century with the economic upsurge of the Bulgarian merchants and craftsmen, the development of Bulgarian-funded popular education, the struggle for an autonomous Bulgarian Church and the political actions towards the formation of a separate Bulgarian state. The First and Second Serbian Uprisings had led to the foundation of an autonomous Serbia, in the late 1810s, and Greece had been established as an independent state in 1832, in the wake of the Greek War of Independence.
Biography
Early life, education and monkhood
Vasil Ivanov Kunchev was born on in the town of Karlovo, part of Rumelia, or the Ottoman Empire's European possessions. Karlovo lies in a fertile valley in the northernmost part of Thrace, just south of the central Balkan Mountains. Vasil's father, Ivan Kunchev, was an eminent but struggling local craftsman who died in 1844, leaving Vasil a half-orphan. Ivan Kunchev descended from the Kunchevi family, many members of which were priests or craftsmen. Vasil's mother, Gina Kuncheva (née Karaivanova), was the offspring of another family of craftsmen. Vasil Kunchev had two younger brothers, Hristo and Petar, and an older sister, Yana; another girl called Maria was born to the family, but died as a child. As a whole, Vasil Kunchev's family belonged to the newly-forming Bulgarian middle class. The young Vasil was named after his maternal uncle, Archimandrite (superior abbot) Basil (???????, Vasiliy).
The mature Vasil Kunchev was later described by fellow revolutionary Panayot Hitov as being of middle height and having an agile, wiry appearance. His eyes were light, greyish blue in colour; his hair was blond and he had a small moustache. According to Hitov's same account, Vasil was a non-smoker and abstained from drinking. Hitov's memories of Levski's appearance are supported by those of Levski's contemporaries, revolutionary and writer Lyuben Karavelov and teacher Ivan Furnadzhiev. The only differences are that Karavelov claimed Levski was tall rather than of middle height, while Furnadzhiev noted that his moustache was light brown and his eyes appeared hazel to him.
Vasil commenced his education at a school in Karlovo and learned to read and write; he also studied homespun tailoring as a local craftsman's servant. In 1855, he was taken to Stara Zagora by his uncle Basil, archimandrite and envoy of the Hilandar monastery. In Stara Zagora, he worked as Basil's servant and spent several years studying at the class school of that place. Afterward, Vasil Kunchev joined a priest training course. On 7 December 1858, he became an Orthodox monk in the Sopot monastery under the religious name Ignatius (???????, Ignatiy) and in 1859 he was promoted to hierodeacon. Later on, this religious service brought forth one of Kunchev's informal nicknames, The Deacon (??????, Dyakona).
First Bulgarian Legion and educational work
Inspired by the revolutionary ideas of Georgi Sava Rakovski, in the spring of 1862 Vasil Kunchev set off for Belgrade in the autonomous Principality of Serbia. In Belgrade, Rakovski was assembling the First Bulgarian Legion, a military detachment formed by Bulgarian volunteers and revolutionary workers seeking to overthrow the Ottoman rule. Abandoning his service as a monk, Levski enlisted as a volunteer in the legion. At the time, relations between the Serbs and their Ottoman suzerains were tense. After fighting in Belgrade, the conflicts were resolved diplomatically and the First Bulgarian Legion was disbanded, under Ottoman pressure, on 12 September 1862. It was during these events that Kunchev acquired the nickname Levski ("Lionlike"), probably bestowed on him for his courage in the training and fighting. According to one apocryphal story, Vasil Kunchev jumped over a deep ditch, prompting Rakovski to exclaim "This is a lion's jump!" After the legion's disbandment, Levski joined Ilyo Voyvoda's detachment at Kragujevac, but returned to Rakovski in Belgrade after it became apparent that the band's plans to invade Bulgaria had been brought to nothing.
In the spring of 1863, Levski came back to the Bulgarian lands after a brief stay in Romania. He was reported to the Ottoman authorities as a rebel by his uncle Basil and imprisoned in Plovdiv for three months, but released thanks to the help of the doctor R. Petrov and the Russian vice-consul Nayden Gerov. On Easter 1864, Levski officially gave up his religious office. From May 1864 until March 1866, he worked as a teacher in Voynyagovo near Karlovo; while working there, he supported and gave shelter to persecuted Bulgarian patriots and organised patriotic companies among the population. As his activity caused suspicion among the Ottoman authorities, he was forced to move, and from the spring of 1866 to the spring of 1867 he was a teacher in two villages near Tulcea in Northern Dobruja, Enikyoy and Kongas.
Hitov's detachment and Second Bulgarian Legion
In November 1866, Levski visited Rakovski in Iasi. At the time, the Bulgarian diaspora in Romania had been stirred up by the gathering of two revolutionary bands, headed by Panayot Hitov and Filip Totyu respectively, to invade Bulgaria and seek to instigate organised anti-Ottoman resistance. On the recommendation of Rakovski, Vasil Levski was selected as the standard-bearer of Hitov's detachment. In April 1867, the band crossed the Danube at Tutrakan, moved through the Ludogorie region and reached the Balkan Mountains. After some minor fighting, the band fled to Serbia through Pirot in August.
In Serbia, the government was again favourable towards the Bulgarian aspirations and the Bulgarian patriots were allowed to establish in Belgrade the Second Bulgarian Legion, an organization very similar to its predecessor and sharing the same goals. Levski was a prominent member of the Legion, but between February and April 1868 suffered from a grave gastric disease that required surgery. Forced to bed, he could not participate in the Legion's training. As the Legion was again disbanded under political pressure, Levski attempted to reunite with his fellows, but was arrested in Zajecar and briefly imprisoned. Upon his release he went to Romania, where the revolutionary detachments of Hadzhi Dimitar and Stefan Karadzha were being assembled. For various reasons, including his stomach problems and strategic differences, Levski did not participate in either band. In the winter of 1868, he got acquainted with poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev; they spent some time living in an abandoned windmill near Bucharest.
Bulgarian tours and work in Romania
Rejecting the emigrant detachment strategy and realizing the need for purposeful internal propaganda and the engagement of all layers of Bulgarian society for a successful revolution, Levski undertook his first tour of the Bulgarian lands. On 11 December 1868, he travelled on a steamship from Turnu Magurele to Istanbul, from where he began his land tour. The tour lasted until 24 February 1869, when he returned to Romania. During this canvassing and reconnaissance mission, Levski is thought to have visited Plovdiv, Perushtitsa, Karlovo, Sopot, Kazanlak, Sliven, Tarnovo, Lovech, Pleven and Nikopol, establishing links with local patriots.
After a two-month stay in Bucharest, Vasil Levski returned to Bulgaria for a second tour, lasting from 1 May to 26 August 1869. On this tour he carried some proclamations printed in Romania by the political figure Ivan Kasabov. The proclamations legitimised Levski as the representative of a Bulgarian provisional government. During this second tour Vasil Levski travelled to Nikopol, Pleven, Karlovo, Plovdiv, Pazardzhik, Perushtitsa, Stara Zagora, Chirpan, Sliven, Lovech, Tarnovo, Gabrovo, Sevlievo and Tryavna. According to some researchers, it was at this time that Levski established the earliest of his secret committees, but those assumptions are based on uncertain data.
From late August 1869 to May the following year, Levski was active in the Romanian capital Bucharest. He was in contact with revolutionary writer and journalist Lyuben Karavelov, whose participation in the foundation of the Bulgarian Literary Society Levski approved in writing. Karavelov's publications gathered a number of followers and brought forth the foundation of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRCC), a centralised revolutionary organisation of the diaspora, of which Levski was a founding member. Following disagreements with some other BRCC activists over strategic issues, Levski departed from Bucharest in the spring of 1870 and proceeded to realise his concept of an internal revolutionary network.
Creation of the Internal Revolutionary Organisation
Although Levski's activities in 1870 are insufficiently documented, it is known that it took him a year and a half to establish a wide network of secret committees in many Bulgarian cities and villages. The Internal Revolutionary Organisation (IRO), as the network was named, was centred around the Lovech Central Committee, called "BRCC in Bulgaria" or the "provisional government". Individual IRO membership was bound in secrecy: the initiation ritual involved a formal oath of allegiance over the Gospel or a Christian cross, a gun and a knife; treason was punishable by death, and each member's activities were monitored by a secret police. Relations with the revolutionary diaspora were sustained by clandestine channels of reliable people. The internal correspondence employed encryption, conventional signs, fake personal and committee names. Although the organisation was headed by Levski himself, he had several assistants aiding him in the administrative matters; those included another monk-turned-revolutionary, Matey Preobrazhenski, the adventurous Dimitar Obshti, and the young Angel Kanchev.
The time of the Internal Revolutionary Organisation's creation by Levski is surrounded by many apocryphal and semi-legendary anecdotal stories. Persecuted by the Ottoman authorities who offered 500 Turkish liras for his death and 1000 for his capture, Levski was forced to use an elaborate disguise to evade arrest during his travels. For example, he is known to have dyed his hair and to have worn a variety of national costumes to conceal his identity from the Ottomans. In the autumn of 1871, Levski published the Instruction of the Workers for the Liberation of the Bulgarian People together with Angel Kanchev. The document was a draft statute of BRCC and had ideological, organisational and penal sections; it was sent out to the local committees and to the diaspora for discussion. The political and organisational experience that Levski amassed is evident from his correspondence dating to 1871–1872; at the time, his views on the revolution had clearly matured.
With IRO's expansion and activation, it became clear that its activities had to be better coordinated with the Bucharest-based BRCC. On Levski's initiative, a general assembly was called between 29 April and 4 May 1872. At the assembly, the delegates approved a programme and a statute, elected Lyuben Karavelov as the organisation's leader and authorised Levski as the BRCC executive body's only legitimate representative in the Bulgarian lands. After attending the assembly, Levski returned to Bulgaria and proceeded to reorganise IRO's internal structure in accordance with BRCC's recommendations: the Lovech Central Committee was reduced to a regular local committee and the first region-wide revolutionary centres were founded. However, the lack of funds precipitated the organisation into a crisis and Levski's one-man judgment on important strategic and tactical matters came to be increasingly questioned.
Capture and execution
In that tense situation and against Levski's orders, his assistant Dimitar Obshti robbed an Ottoman postal convoy in the Arabakonak pass on 22 September 1872. While the robbery was successful and provided IRO with 125,000 groschen, the perpetrators, including Obshti, were soon arrested. The preliminary investigation and trial revealed the size of the revolutionary organisation and its close relations with BRCC. Obshti and some other prisoners made a full confession and revealed Levski's leading role.
Realising that he was in danger, Levski decided to flee to Romania, where he would meet Karavelov and discuss these events. First, however, he had to collect important documentation from the committee archive in Lovech, which would constitute important evidence if seized by the Ottomans. He stayed at the inn in the village of Kakrina near the town, where he was surprised and arrested in the morning of 27 December 1872. According to some scholars, his capture was facilitated by treason; the most popularly cited traitor is the priest Krastyo Nikiforov. Whether Levski was betrayed by a compatriot and the identity of that alleged traitor are matters of heated dispute among Bulgarian historians and writers.
Levski was taken first to Tarnovo for interrogation and then to Sofia, where he arrived on 4 January. There, he was brought to trial. While he acknowledged his identity, he did not reveal any of his accomplices and any details relating to his organisation, putting all the blame on himself. Levski was sentenced to death by hanging by the Ottoman authorities. Although he was recognised as an instigator of a major armed uprising, the capital punishment was based on the killing of a servant in Lovech that Levski committed while attempting to extort money from a wealthy local. The verdict was carried out on in the vicinity of the city; today, the Monument to Vasil Levski in the centre of modern Sofia commemorates the place of his execution. The location of Levski's grave has not been established with certainty and remains the subject of much controversy to this day. Some accounts claim he was reburied in the Church of St Petka of the Saddlers.
Some five years later, in the wake of the April Uprising of 1876, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 brought with it the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule. The Treaty of San Stefano of 3 March 1878 established the Bulgarian state as an autonomous Principality of Bulgaria under de jure Ottoman suzerainty.
Revolutionary theory and ideas
At the end of the 1860s, Levski developed a revolutionary theory, which was an important step forward for the Bulgarian liberation movement. The theory saw the national liberation as an armed uprising of all Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire. The insurrection was to be prepared, controlled and coordinated by a central revolutionary organisation. This organisation was to include a number of local revolutionary committees in all parts of Bulgaria and was supposed to operate fully independently from any foreign factors. Levski's theory came as a result of the repeated failures to implement Rakovski's ideas effectively, i.e. the failure of armed detachments (????, cheti) coming from neighbouring countries to provoke a general uprising leading to Bulgaria's liberation.
Levski also specified the future form of government in an envisioned liberated Bulgaria — a democratic republic, standing on the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the liberal ideas of the French Revolution and the 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 holy 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 sake of the revolution and put Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people above anyone's personal interest: "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 organisation, and did not tolerate corruption.
Commemoration
Levski's work for the Liberation of Bulgaria is commemorated in various ways: numerous monuments in various cities and villages around the country have been built in his honour and streets in most localities bear his name. Monuments to Levski also exist outside Bulgaria, for example in Belgrade, Serbia, Parcani, Transnistria, Moldova, Bucharest, Romania, Paris, France and Washington, D.C., United States. Three museums dedicated to Levski have been organised: one in Karlovo, one in Lovech and one in Kakrina.
Several institutions in Bulgaria have been named in Vasil Levski's honour; these include the football club PFC Levski Sofia, the Vasil Levski National Sports Academy and the Vasil Levski National Military University. Bulgaria's national stadium bears the name Vasil Levski National Stadium after the revolutionary. The 1000 Bulgarian leva banknote, in circulation between 1996 and 1999, featured Levski's portrait on its obverse side and his monument in Sofia on the reverse. The town of Levski and six villages around the country have also been named in his honour. The Antarctic Place-names Commission of Bulgaria named an Antarctic ridge and peak on Livingston Island of the South Shetland Islands Levski Ridge and Levski Peak respectively.
The life of Vasil Levski has been widely featured in Bulgarian literature and popular culture. Poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev dedicated his last work to Levski, The Hanging of Vasil Levski. The poem, an elegy, was probably written in late 1875. Prose and poetry writer Ivan Vazov devoted an ode to the revolutionary: eponymously titled Levski, it was published as part of the cycle Epopee to the Forgotten. Levski has also inspired works by writers Hristo Smirnenski and Nikolay Haytov, among others. In February 2007, a nationwide poll conducted as part of the Velikite Balgari ("The Great Bulgarians") television show, a local spin-off of Greatest Britons, named Vasil Levski the greatest Bulgarian of all time.
There have been motions calling to glorify Vasil Levski as a saint of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. However, the idea has received a mixed response, and some have expressed the opinion that while Levski's post-monastical life was one of a martyr, it was to an extent incompatible with the Orthodox concept of sainthood. One study points to the facts that in his correspondence, Levski threatened wealthy Bulgarians (?????????, chorbadzhii) and traitors with death, endorsed theft from the rich for pragmatic revolutionary purposes and voluntarily gave up his religious office to devote himself to the secular struggle for liberation.
Vasil Levski's hanging is observed annually across Bulgaria on 19 February instead of 18 February: this is due to the erroneous calculation of some 19th-century Julian calendar dates after Bulgaria adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1916. Although the location of Levski's grave has not been determined, some of his hair has been retained and is today exhibited in the National Museum of Military History. After Levski gave up his monkhood in 1863, he shaved his hair; it was preserved by his mother and then by his sister Yana. Some of Levski's personal items, such as his silver Christian cross, his copper water vessel, his Gasser revolver, made in Austria–Hungary in 1869, and the shackles from his imprisonment in Sofia, are also exhibited in the military history museum, while Levski's sabre can be seen in the Lovech regional museum.
Footnotes
Bibliography
External links
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- , a humorous glance at Levski's biography by an American Peace Corps blogger
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