Author: Miglena Ivanova
The Hanging of Vassil Levski by Boris Angelushev (1942, oil)
140 years ago Bulgaria’s foremost national hero
Vasil Levski was hanged in Sofia. Every year on 19 February the
Bulgarian nation pays homage to the great man with a lot of love and
pain. His political activity was the peak of the national liberation
struggles against the Turkish rule in this country that went on for five
centuries. For his work he was called the Apostle of Freedom and is
universally loved in Bulgaria.
Vasil Kountchev (Levski) was born in 1837 in the town of Karlovo at
the foot of the Central Balkan Range to a family of a petty craftsman.
He received schooling in his hometown. His father died when he was 14,
and because the family was poor, he was made a neophyte by his uncle
Vassilius, a priest. Levski continued his studies in the southern cities
of Stara Zagora and Plovdiv. In 1858 Levski took the monastic vows with
the name Ignatius. On the next year he was ordained as deacon. In 1861
he was influenced by the freedom-loving ideas of another great
Bulgarian, Georgi Rakovski.
It was then that he decided to dedicate his life to the revolutionary
struggle for the liberation of Bulgaria from the Turks. The first step
was to join the ranks of the First Bulgarian Legion summoned by Rakovski
in Belgrade. The Bulgarian volunteers joined the battles of Serbian
patriots against a Turkish garrison. For his great physical skill and
bravery the young man was dubbed Levski meaning like a lion in
Bulgarian. Later Vasil Levski abandoned monastic life. He joined the
Second Bulgarian Legion but this made it clear to him that any military
units organized outside Bulgaria and meant to start an uprising in the
Bulgarian lands would hardly be successful. He embarked on a tour of
Bulgaria and set up clandestine committees in many towns and villages.
He proceeded into uniting them into an Internal Revolutionary
Organization. (...)
Lost Bulgaria, WIM Archive Pleven, Martin Zaimov 
