On this date in 1873, Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski was hanged by the Ottoman Empire in Sofia — just a few years before that city became the capital of the independent Bulgarian state the hanged man fought for.
The “Apostle of Freedom” was born with the surname Ivanov near a Sofia nearing 500 years of Ottoman rule. Thanks in great part to his efforts, it would never celebrate that anniversary.
The Ottomans were in their youthful vigor when they first absorbed Bulgaria; within a century of that conquest, they would besiege Vienna. But by the 19th century that empire once capable of terrifying Christendom was well into its decline, an advanced state of decrepitude that made it “the sick man of Europe.”
In the age of nationalism, provinces began breaking away.
The steward of an independent Bulgaria initially took clerical vows — he would always carry the nickname “the Deacon” — but was soon swept up in Bulgaria’s patriotic stirrings and took up with revolutionary Georgi Rakovski. A stupendous leaping feat during his training as a soldier earned him the name “Levski” — “lion-like”.
He proved worthy of that name.
Over the 1860’s, he developed into a principal theorist and organizer of the revolution, latticing Bulgaria with local insurrectionary networks under central control and dedicated to civil equality in an eventual Bulgarian state. When Levski was arrested, that network was his legacy: his self-conscious refusal to betray it set the stage for a national uprising a few years later — and for Bulgaria’s eventual return to the community of nations following the Russo-Turkish war.
He remains a national hero and his name adorns streets, landmarks, even football clubs throughout the country.
The poet Hristo Botev, one of Levski’s heirs in revolutionary leadership, marked this day’s hanging in verse:
O my Mother, dear Motherland
Why weep you so mournfully, so plaintively?
And you, raven, cursed bird –
On whose grave croak you with such a dread?
Ah, I know – I know you’re weeping, Mother
Because you are a dismal slave,
Because your holy voice, Mother
Is a helpless voice – a voice in the wilderness.
Weep! There, near the edge of Sofia town
Stretches – I saw it – a dismal gallows
And one of your sons, Bulgaria
Hangs from it with a terrible power.
The raven croaks dreadfully, ominously
Dogs and wolves howl in the fields,
Old people pray to God with fervor
Women weep, children cry.
Winter croons its evil song,
Gales sweep thistle across the field
And cold and frost and hopeless weeping
Heep sorrow on your heart.
Others throughout Bulgaria on this date still lay flowers at his monuments and pay every manner of tribute. And for the Bulgarian diaspora, his name remains a source of pride … and an occasional flashpoint.
On this day..
- 1935: Benita von Falkenhayn and Renate von Natzmer, Germany's last beheadings by axe
- 1820: John and Lavinia Fisher
- 1974: Khosrow Golsorkhi and Keramat Daneshian, Iranian revolutionaries
- 1836: Felipe Santiago Salaverry, President of Peru
- 1719: Collmore, Hang'd, Quarter'd and his Intrals burn'd
- Corpses Strewn: Collmore and his gang
- 1813: W. Clements, War of 1812 deserter
- 1478: The Duke of Clarence, in a butt of malmsey
- 1862: Margaret Coghlan, the last woman hanged in Tasmania
- 1799: Constantine Hangerli, tax man
- 1957: Walter James Bolton, the last hanged in New Zealand
- 1960: Oliviu Beldeanu, for the Berne incident
- 1957: Dedan Kimathi, Mau Mau commander