Central Committee and the Committee of Elders

Having learned about the activities of the Central Committee and the Committee of Elders, Rakovski returned to Bucharest and started an energetic propaganda against making the Bulgarian national-liberation move-ment dependent on foreign states1 policies. He succeeded in winning over the majority of the emigrants and formed a ‘Supreme National Civil Command’ which was guided by the principle of sending armed detachments to Bulgaria. In 1867 Rakovski succeeded in preparing two detachments under the leadership of the voevodesPanayot Hitov and Filip Totyu, but his death put an end to his future plans.

After Rakovski’s death the initiative again passed into the hands of the Committee of Elders, which agreed with the Serbian government that a special military school was to be set up in Belgrade for 200 Bulgarian youths — the Second Bulgarian Legion. The latter, however, had the fate of the First Legion — it was disbanded only several months later. Most of its members went back to Romania and formed a 125-men-strong detachment, headed by the voevodes Hadji Dimiter and Stefan Karadja. In July 1868, the detachment crossed the Danube and engaged in several bloody battles with the Turks. The last of these battles took place on Mount Bouzloudja in the Balkan Range and ended in the death of most of the revolutionaries, including the voevode Hadji Dimiter.

The heroic end of this detachment marked the decline of the detachment tactics. It became obvious that these detachments, sent from outside, in spite of their excellent military schooling, heroism and selflessness of their members were incapable of rousing the people in a mass uprising, History had made it imperative for the Bulgarian national-liberation movement to pass over to a new, higher stage of development and this stage was linked with the name of another great son of Bulgaria – Vassil Levski.

Vassil Ivanov Kounchev Levski

Vassil Ivanov Kounchev Levski was born in 1837 in the town of Karlovo. His father, a poor master-dyer, died early, and Levski had to leave the intermediary school after the second grade. His uncle insisted on his becoming a monk and that is why Levski was also known as ‘The Deacon’. The monastery, however, could not satisfy the young man, who wished passionately to devote his life to the national cause. He ran away from the monastery and took part in both of Rakovski’s legions, then served as standard-bearer of the detachment of Panayot Hitov and he would have joined the detachment of Hadji Dimiter and Stefan Karadja were it not for his falling gravely ill. Soon after that detachment was defeated, however, Levski returned to Bulgaria, but already as an emissary of the Secret Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee entrusted with the task of studying the situation in the country. A year later he made a second tour of the country, visiting scores of towns and villages and all regions of Bulgaria.

You can easily follow his route in your Bulgaria tour.