site.btaTown of Kalofer Marks 177th Birth Anniversary of Poet and Revolutionary Hristo Botev

The town of Kalofer (Southern Bulgaria) is commemorating the 177th birth anniversary of the poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev (1848-1876) on Sunday. A performance of Botev's poems by school students at the national museum named after him and a ceremony at the memorial plaque at his birthplace are scheduled for the afternoon.

National Assembly Chair Nataliya Kiselova will attend the commemorative events, Parliament's press office said.

Hristo Botev was born in Kalofer on January 6, 1848. He worked as a teacher in the Bessarabian Bulgarian village of Zadunayevka before taking over his father's teaching position in his hometown.

From late 1867, he was in Romania (in Bucharest and Braila), where he became actively involved in the Bulgarian revolutionary community. Botev published the newspaper Duma na balgarskite emigranti (Word of the Bulgarian Emigrants) in 1871 and several more newspapers, including Zname (Banner) from December 1874 to September 1875, which was the mouthpiece of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee.

In 1875, Botev became a member of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee. He participated in the preparation of the April Uprising of 1876. Botev organized a detachment of 200 men, with whom he commandeered the Austrian steamship Radetzky. On May 29, 1876, the detachment disembarked at Kozloduy on the Bulgarian bank of the Danube and headed for the Balkan Mountains.

After fierce battles with regular Ottoman troops and irregular troops known as bashi-bazouks, Botev was fatally shot on June 1, 1876 in the Okolchitsa area of the Balkan Mountains.

Traditionally, June 2 is commemorated every year as the Day of Botev and of those who fell for the freedom and independence of Bulgaria.