Hristo Botev

Hristo Botev (Bulgarian: Христо Ботев, pronounced [ˈxristo ˈbɔtɛf]), born Hristo Botyov Petkov (Христо Ботьов Петков; 6 January 1848 [O.S. 25 December 1847] – 1 June [O.S. 20 May] 1876), was a Bulgarian revolutionary and poet. Botev is considered by Bulgarians to be a symbolic historical figure and national hero. His poetry is a prime example of the literature of the Bulgarian National Revival, though he is considered to be ahead of his contemporaries in his political, philosophical, and aesthetic views.
Botev was born in Kalofer, Bulgaria, to Botyo Petkov and Ivanka Boteva. His father was a teacher in Odessa and a significant figure of the late period of the Bulgarian National Revival. Botev attended the local three-class school and later attended a high school in Odessa. He left high school in 1865 and spent two years teaching in Odessa and Bessarabia. Botev tried to send his son to study in the Russian Empire with the help of Nayden Gerov, but was only allowed to attend the Second Grammar School as a volunteer. He found it difficult to fit in and was often absent from lessons and treated teachers with arrogance. In 1864, he left the boarding school and began living independently in various lodgings. Botev spent time in libraries, particularly the Bulgarian library Yuriy Venelin, where he read mainly Russian authors and became acquainted with philologist Victor Grigorovich. He worked on his poem "To My Mother" in the summer of 1864 and sent it to Petko Slaveykov in Constantinople. When it became apparent that Botev was failing the gymnasium's third grade and was expelled for "carelessness," his scholarship was cancelled and he was given a lump sum to travel back to Bulgaria. Botev was sent by his father to Odessa to resume his education. He decided to go to Romania instead, arriving in Giurgiu in September 1867. He met with Bulgarian émigrés and met Vasil Levski, the leader of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee. Botev worked as a teacher in Bessarabia and became editor of the revolutionary emigrant newspaper "Word of the Bulgarian Emigrants". He was imprisoned for months due to his collaboration with Russian revolutionaries.
The Bulgarian revolutionary movement faced danger after the capture of Vasil Levski by Ottoman authorities in 1872. The BRCC split into two factions: Botev and his supporters supported immediate uprising preparations, while moderate revolutionaries, led by Lyuben Karavelov, believed it was too early. In 1876, Bulgarian revolutionary émigrés in Romania believed a general armed uprising against Ottoman occupation was imminent and decided to organize an armed company to cross the Danube. Botev took overall command of the company, which later became the main reason for the Russian-Turkish war and Bulgaria's Liberation from the Ottoman Empire. Military expertise was provided by Nikola Voinovski, a graduate of the Nicholas General Staff Academy. Botev devised a plan to cross into Ottoman territory without immediately alerting Romanian or Ottoman authorities. The rebels boarded the Austro-Hungarian passenger steamship Radetzky and seized control. The Ottoman military machine, including regular army garrisons and irregular bashi-bazouks, was mobilized and patrolled the area. On 20 May 1876, a single bullet hit Botev in the chest, killing him instantly. The cheta suffered a drop in morale and began to disperse, with most members captured, imprisoned, or executed. In total, 130 cheta members were killed, with most evading capture or death. The incident is traditionally commemorated on 2 June.
Botev was born on 6 January 1848 [O.S. 25 December 1847] in Kalofer. The birthplace is disputed by several historians, stating that he was born in Karlovo (according to the letter of Nayden Gerov) or the small village of Osen. His father was Botyo Petkov and his mother was Ivanka Boteva.
His father's backstory is that he was a teacher in Odessa and one of the most significant figures of the late period of the Bulgarian National Revival towards the end of the Ottoman occupation. His mother was born in a modest Kalofer family. Botev was not the only child in the family, he was together with his eight siblings, which were Ana, Petko, Stefan, Kiril, Tota, Genko, Genko and Boyan.
According to some sources, Hristo Botev was born in a room of the Kalofer school where his parents lived. A little later, a new school was built in Kalofer and the family rented a house from Genko Filov, where Botev spent the first years of his life. This house was destroyed during the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War, but in the 1940s it was rebuilt and turned into the Hristo Botev National Museum.
In 1854, Botyo Petkov failed to reach an agreement with the Kalofer municipality about his salary and moved to Karlovo. There the family lived in his mother's house in Tabashka Mahala, and Hristo Botev went to school with his father as his teacher. In 1858, Botyo Petkov accused the administration of the Karlovo municipality of embezzling money that had been bequeathed to the school and then returned to Kalofer. The municipality tried unsuccessfully to accommodate him in a house belonging to the merchant Hristo Tupchilestov, who lived in Constantinople, whereupon the family moved into the house of Hadzhi Nestor. After returning to Kalofer, Hristo Botev attended the local three-class school, where his father was a teacher. In 1863, after completing his primary school education in Kalofer, Botev was sent by his father to a high school in Odessa.
As early as 1857, Botyo Petkov tried to send his son to study in the Russian Empire with the help of Nayden Gerov, an acquaintance from Odessa who had become a well-known pedagogue and Russian vice-consul in Plovdiv. This was only possible in Autumn 1863, when Hristo Botev received a scholarship from the Russian government and travelled via Plovdiv and Constantinople to Odessa, where he arrived on 14 November. In Odessa, Hristo Botev turned to the Bulgarian Board of Trustees of Odessa, to whom he was able to present a letter of recommendation from Naiden Gerov, and to its member Nikola Toshkovich, a wealthy merchant born in Kalofer, who was an acquaintance of his father. He entered the Second Grammar School as a "volunteer", as he was not well enough prepared to be a regular student, and was placed in the boarding school, where there were ten other Bulgarian students at the time.
From the moment he entered high school, Botev found it difficult to fit in - he constantly complained about the strict discipline, which included corporal punishment, but at the same time he was often absent from lessons, got into fights with classmates and treated most of his teachers with arrogance. In 1864, he left the boarding school and began to live independently in various lodgings. Despite his father's insistent letters and Nikola Toshkov's attempts to influence him, he neglected school and alienated the Bulgarians in Odessa with his eccentric behaviour, many of whose representatives restricted their contacts with him.
Although he did not attend school often, Botev spent a lot of time in various libraries, especially in the Bulgarian library Yuriy Venelin, which was located in Toshkov's house. He read mainly Russian authors and was particularly impressed by Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Ivan Turgenev. He became acquainted with the philologist Victor Grigorovich, whom he assisted in translating Bulgarian folk tunes into Russian. According to his classmate Kiro Tuleshkov, Botev was already working on his poem "Mother" in the summer of 1864, consulting Grigorovich, and sent it to Petko Slaveykov in Constantinople even then. The reliability of this information is not clear, as the poem was not published by Slaveykov until several years later.
When it became apparent in September 1865 that Botev was failing the gymnasium's third grade and was expelled for "carelessness," his scholarship was cancelled, and he was given a lump sum to travel back to Bulgaria. Still, he stayed in Odessa, earning a living through private instruction and keeping in touch with the city's Polish population. Botev even registered as a "volunteer" at the Historical and Philological Faculty of the Imperial Novorossiya University with the help of Grigorovich.
Following his arrival in Kalofer, Botev took over for his ill dad by attending some of his lessons. At that time, on April 15, Hristo Botev's poem "To My Mother" was published for the first time in the journal "Gaida" which was published in Constantinople and was edited by Petko Slaveykov. The poem was published without a recognised author. During the May 11 observance of the Day of the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius, Botev delivered an impromptu speech criticising the national movement's moderation, which at the time was primarily focused on the creation of an independent church. Police threats were raised by the speech, but none materialised. Botev frequently visited Parashkeva Shushulova, a teacher at the nearby girls' school, during his time in Kalofer. She is said to be the most likely prototype for the beloved in some of his poetry.
Hristo Botev was sent by his father after getting better from the illness to Odessa once again to resume his education. Using his father's money to get to Constantinople and then Odessa, he doesn't follow that and without informing his parents, decides to go to Romania. Hristo Botev arrived in Giurgiu, at the end of September 1867. There, he quickly made contact with Bulgarian émigrés, including Hadzhi Dimitar and several members of the cheta that Filip Totyu and Panayot Hitov had formed that previous year. Following the announcement of the death of famed revolutionary Georgi Rakovski, they travelled to Bucharest to attend his burial on 12 October 1867. Lacking any money, Botev went to Georgi Atanasovich, who gave him the money he needed to continue on his way to Odessa. He resumed his trip to Odessa, which was then unfinished and stopped in Brăila. There, he began working as a word-editor and published his second elegy "To your brother".
For some time he lived in an abandoned mill near Bucharest with Vasil Levski, the eventual leader of the Bulgarian Secret Resistance Committees, and the two of them initially became close friends.
From 1869 to 1871 Botev worked again as a teacher in Bessarabia, keeping close relations with the Bulgarian revolutionary movement and its leaders. In June 1871 he became editor of the revolutionary emigrant newspaper "Word of the Bulgarian Emigrants" (Duma na bulgarskite emigranti), where he began publishing his early poetic works. Imprisoned for some months, due to his close collaboration with the Russian revolutionaries, Botev started working for the "Liberty" (Svoboda) newspaper, edited by the eminent Bulgarian writer and revolutionary Lyuben Karavelov. In 1873 he also edited the satiric newspaper "Alarm clock" (Budilnik), where he published a number of feuilletons, aimed at those wealthy Bulgarians who did not take part in the revolutionary movement.
The Bulgarian revolutionary movement was put in danger with the capture of Vasil Levski by Ottoman authorities at the end of 1872. At the time Levski was the indisputable leader of the Bulgarian insurgency. He had established a network of revolutionary committees, supervised by the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRCC; In Bulgarian: БРЦК) located in Romania, which was tasked with preparing the Bulgarian revolutionaries for a future general uprising against Ottoman rule. Levski was brought to trial, sentenced to death by hanging and executed on 19 February 1873. His death was a serious blow to the morale of the revolutionary movement.
With Levski's death the BRCC split into two factions: Botev and his supporters, including Stefan Stambolov and Panayot Hitov backed the idea that preparations should be started for an immediate uprising, while the moderate revolutionaries, led by Lyuben Karavelov, thought that it was too early for such actions. Botev intended to start an uprising at the first possible moment, to take advantage of the international situation (the mounting tension between the Ottoman Empire on one side, and Serbia and Russia on the other), and because the revolutionary network, established by Levski, was still relatively intact and could take an active part in the preparations. The revolt in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1875 inspired Botev and Stambolov to think that a rebellion should start soon in Bulgaria as well. They thought that the greater the turmoil in the Balkans, the more attention this would attract among the Great Powers. In the beginning of August 1875 Karavelov, already quite ill, stepped down as president of BRCC, and Botev was elected the new president. Thinking that the Bulgarian people were ever ready for a rebellion, he believed no careful preparations were needed.
In the April Uprising of 1876, an experienced leader recruited to command the Liberation of Bulgaria (known as voivoda) refused for political reasons. Botev himself took overall command of the company, which later on became the main reason for the Russo-Turkish war and Bulgaria's liberation from the Ottoman Empire. Military expertise was provided by Nikola Voinovski (1849–1876).
Botev devised an ingenious plan for crossing into Ottoman territory without immediately alerting either the Romanian or the Ottoman authorities. The rebels, disguised as gardeners, boarded in groups at the Romanian ports of Zimnicea, Turnu Măgurele, Corabia, Bechet the Austro-Hungarian passenger steamship Radetzky. When the last group boarded at Bechet the rebels retrieved their concealed weapons and seized control of the ship (this incident was later commemorated in a popular poem and song).
The company almost immediately became the focus of incessant bashi-bazouk attacks. Voinovski displayed some excellent defensive tactics helped by the still high morale and discipline of the company. On 18 May the massing bashi-bazouks caught up with the company in force, and Botev had to go to ground on the Milin Kamak Hill some 50 km from the Danube.
The next day passed without sighting the enemy, but at this point it was obvious that no local reinforcements could be expected. On the morning of 20 May Julian, sentries detected advancing bashi-bazouks and 5 companies of regular Ottoman troops. The men immediately took strong positions near Mount Okoltchitza. The defense was divided into two sectors, one commanded by Voinovski and the other by Botev.
In 1875 Botev published his poetic works in a book called "Songs and Poems", together with his close associate Bulgarian revolutionary poet and future politician and statesman, Stefan Stambolov. Botev's poetry reflected the sentiments of the poor people, filled with revolutionary ideas, struggling for their freedom against both foreign and domestic tyrants. His poetry was influenced by the Russian revolutionary democrats and the figures of the Paris Commune. Under this influence, Botev rose both as a poet and a revolutionary democrat. Many of his poems are imbued with revolutionary zeal and determination, such as My Prayer ("Moyata molitva"), At Farewell ("Na proshtavane"), Hajduks ("Haiduti"), In the Tavern ("V mehanata"), and Struggle ("Borba"). Others are romantic, balladic (Hadzhi Dimitar).
In 1885 a commemoration committee was founded on the anniversary of Botev's death, 20 May/1 June. A monument was erected on the main square of Vratsa in 1890 in the presence of King Ferdinand. Some of the most prominent Bulgarians in the history of the newly independent country, such as Stefan Stambolov and Zahari Stoyanov, devoted much attention to Botev and his deeds for Bulgaria.
Among places and entities named after Botev is the football club PFC Botev Plovdiv.