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HRISTO BOTEV: HADJI DIMITER, THE HANGING OF VASIL LEVSKI Title: Хаджи Димитър (Hadji Dimiter); Обесвание на Васил Левски (The hanging of Vasil Levski) Originally published: ‘Hadji Dimiter’ in Независмост, III, 47, (11 July 1873). ‘The Hanging of Vasil Levski’ in Календар за година 1876 (Calendar for the year 1876), published by Hristo Botev in Romania. Language: Bulgarian Edition used: Hristo Botev. Poems, translated by Kevin Ireland (Sofia: Sofia Press, 1982). About the author Hristo Botev [1848, Kalofer (Balkan valley) – 1876, near Vratsa (north-western Bulgaria)]: poet, journalist and revolutionary leader. He was born into the family of the teacher Botio Petkov, one of the figures of the ‘National Revival.’ His birthplace, Kalofer, was one of the most vital centers of the Balkan valley, which occupies a central place in 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 returning in 1867 to Kalofer 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 centered around the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRCC), led by his close ally Liuben Karavelov, and the newspaper Zname (‘The Flag’), which Botev edited, became the main organ of the revolutionary party. After the uprising of April 1876, he organized a detachment of armed volunteers and crossed the Danube on the 16th of May. He was killed on the 20th of May, in the evening after the battle, while on sentry duty in the camp. His literary work was influenced by Byron, Pushkin and, especially, Lermontov. In his poems (of which he composed only twenty) he integrated motifs from Bulgarian folklore, and thus, according to his apologists, he created the quintessential expression of ‘Bulgarian cosmogony .’ He was politically on the left, his position bordering on communism and anarchism. His political journalism was extremely sharp, and highly literary, putting it on a level with canonized poems such as ‘Hadji Dimiter’ or ‘The hanging of Vasil Levski.’ In 1885 a committee was founded for the commemoration of the anniversary of the poet’s death. A monument to Botev was unveiled in 1890, in the presence of King Ferdinand, on the main square of Vratsa, where the first of such commemo- 474 NATIONAL HEROISM rations took place. Some of the most influential political leaders of the newly founded Bulgarian state, such as Zahari 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 Revolutionary poetry, one of the most influential and popular genres in the nineteenth century, stimulated the feeling of national belonging in the period of ‘national revivals’ in Southeast Europe. The genre of the revolutionary poem, emblematic for Bulgarian Romanticism, drew on the tradition of ‘heroic ’ folksongs. The relationship between folksongs and poetry was doublesided . On the one hand, Bulgarian Romantic poets exploited folkloric material (on a thematic and rhetoric level, and on the level of versification as well), as a result of which the genre of revolutionary poetry was situated between high literature and popular culture. On the other hand, being addressed to the broadest possible public, the revolutionary poems themselves were very often transformed into quasi-folksongs. Thus, Dobri Chintulov’s revolutionary songs, for instance, were sung to folk tunes. Undoubtedly, they were the most popular Bulgarian ‘texts’ of the period before the creation of an independent Bulgarian state, mostly due to their oral form which made it possible for the majority of the population, which was illiterate, to come in contact with them. Similarly, poems by Liuben Karavelov, Botev and Stefan Stambolov were sung and together with Chintulov’s poems became informal anthems of the revolutionary movement and particularly of the ‘April Uprising ’ in 1876. On the other hand, Romanticism formed the horizon of reception for folklore, not only as an artistic phenomenon but also as a national oeuvre (see Dimitar Marinov, Living antiquity). Revolutionary poetry had very clear and concrete political implications. It promoted the ideology of the radical revolutionary wing of the Bulgarian national movement, the center of which was in Romania, where the headquarters of the BRCC had also moved, following the destruction of the network of revolutionary committees created by Vasil...

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