Modernism: The Creation of Nation-States

Hristo Botev: The people

HRISTO BOTEV: THE PEOPLE Title: Нарoдът (Вчера, днес и утре) (The people [yesterday, today and tomorrow ]) Originally published in the newspaper Дума на българските емигранти, I, No. 1–2, 10/25 June 1871 Language: Bulgarian The excerpts used are from Съчинения. Vol. II, ed. by Stefana Tarinska (Sofia: Български писател, 1979), pp. 13–18. About the author Hristo Botev [1848, Kalofer (Balkan valley, present-day central Bulgaria) – 1876, in the Balkan mountain, near Vratsa]: poet, journalist and revolutionary leader. He was born into the family of the teacher Botyo Petkov, one of the figures of the ‘National Revival.’ His birthplace, Kalofer, was in the Balkan valley, which was itself the heartland of the political and cultural revival movement (see Ivan Vazov, Under the yoke). After completing primary school in his hometown, Botev continued his education in Odessa. In 1865 he left school, and upon his return to Kalofer in 1867, he succeeded his father as teacher in the local school. However, because of his revolutionary activities, he had to leave Bulgaria and settle in Romania (first in Bucharest , then in Brăila), where he took an active part in the affairs of the Bulgarian revolutionary émigré community. These émigré revolutionaries gathered around the ‘Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee’ (BRCC), led by the influential writer, poet and journalist Lyuben Karavelov (1834–1879), a close ally of Botev whose newspaper Знаме (The flag) became the main organ of the revolutionary party. After the uprising of May 1876, Botev organized a detachment of armed volunteers and crossed the Danube on 16 May. He was killed on 20 May in the evening after the battle while on sentry duty in the camp. His literary work was influenced by poets such as Byron, Pushkin and especially Lermontov. In his poems (he composed only 20), he integrated motifs from Bulgarian folklore, and thus, according to his apologists , created the quintessential expression of ‘Bulgarian cosmogony.’ Politically, he was on the left, his ideas bordering on communism and anarchism. His political journalism was extremely sharp and highly literary, equaling in style his canonized poems ‘Hadji Dimiter’ and ‘The hanging of Vasil Levski.’ In 1885, a committee was founded for the commemoration of the anniversary of the poet’s death. This committee was in fact the first Bulgarian non-governmental organization. With the attendance of Prince Ferdinand a monument to Botev was unveiled in 1890 in the main 394 SOCIALISM AND THE NATIONALITY QUESTION square of Vratsa, where the first regular commemorations took place. Some of the most influential political leaders of the newly founded Bulgarian state, such as Zahariy Stoyanov and Stefan Stambolov, significantly contributed to his mythification, and within a decade, Botev became a central figure in the national pantheon of the independent Bulgarian state. Main works: Песни и стихотворения от Ботйова и Стамболова. Книжка първа [Songs and poems by Botev and Stambolov. Book I] (1875). Context Botev’s ideas were strongly influenced by radical leftist ideologies, communism and anarchism and as a result, he expressed sympathy with the oppressed peoples all over Europe. He also called for universal revolution, thus enthusiastically celebrating the Paris Commune of 1871 in his ‘Ridiculous Lament, Creed of the Bulgarian Commune.’ His commitment to internationalist solidarity was related to the radical negation of the politics of the European Great Powers. To Botev, these powers were not only the imperialistic oppressors of their own people and of their colonial slaves, but also the main reason for the survival of the politically and economically corrupt Ottoman Empire. The reason for their support of the Ottoman Empire was, according to Botev, their common fear of Russian power and of the development of other powerful Slavic states. It is not difficult to discover in this statement, the author’s Pan-Slavic overtones. The main targets of Botev’s polemic in the text are the ideas of the evolutionists and the dualists (see Memorandum of the Secret Central Bulgarian Committee). In all his writings in the revolutionary press—from Karavelov’s newspapers Независиост (Independence) and Свобода (Freedom), through Botev’s Дума (Word) to Знаме—Botev takes issue with those ideas that privilege the evolutionary development of the nation (in terms of education, civic and church institutions, economics and so on) within the Ottoman Empire , since these could presumably lead, in the long run, to liberation or to a dualist regime similar to the Austro-Hungarian model. Contrary to these views, Botev suggests a revolutionary solution and becomes one of its main ideologists. Revolution is not thought in national terms but also as a social movement. In his eyes, the enemy comprised Ottoman political power, the economic power of the Bulgarian чорбаджии (‘chorbadzhii’—from...