Balgarianovinite.com Bulgaria marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of revolutionary, publicist and ethnographer Georgi Sava (Stoykov) Rakovski on April 14, 1971, with commemorative events in Sofia, Kotel, Sliven and elsewhere, BTA archive reports show. The programme, organized by State, academic and cultural institutions, ran from mid-April to mid-June, with the main celebrations held in Rakovski’s hometown of Kotel.
The events were organized by the State and by academic and cultural institutions, including the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), the Union of Bulgarian Writers, the G. S. Rakovski Military Academy, the Bulgarian Historical Society, and the Ministry of Public Education.
The first event was held at the G. S. Rakovski Military Academy, which has borne the Revival-era figure’s name since 1946. At the ceremonial observance, attended by senior military officers, public figures and members of the public, wreaths were laid at the patron’s monument and reports presented on the role of his work in Bulgaria’s national liberation movement and on achievements in the cadets’ education and military training.
The events culminated on May 15-23 in Kotel, the revolutionary’s birthplace. During the festive week, the town hosted literary readings, talks, academic sessions, exhibitions and quizzes. Residents and visitors toured the museum display at Galata School, featuring Rakovski’s personal belongings and tracing his life. They also paid tribute before his mortal remains at Sts Peter and Paul Church.
According to the Bulgarian Encyclopedia published by BAS, Rakovski’s bones were brought from Romania to Bulgaria in 1885 after he died of tuberculosis in Bucharest in 1867. Until 1942, his mortal remains were kept at St Nedelya Metropolitan Cathedral in Sofia, before being transferred to Kotel. Today, they rest in the Georgi Stoykov Rakovski Pantheon, part of the Kotel Historical Museum.
BTA’s archive bulletins, Internal Information and English News Service, carried the following reports on the anniversary:
Homage and Eternal Glory to the Great Deed of the Immortal Rakovski
Sofia, April 14, 1971 /BTA/ Officer cadets, generals and officers of the Bulgarian People’s Army, public figures and many citizens paid homage at the Military Academy in the capital to the work of the patriarch of the Bulgarian revolution, Georgi S. Rakovski.
Attending the celebrations marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great patriot and revolutionary, and the academy’s feast day, were Minister of National Defence Dobri Dzhurov, generals, officers, representatives of higher education institutions in the capital, schoolchildren and citizens.
Also present was Colonel General Aleksei Baksov, representative to the Bulgarian People’s Army of the Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact member states.
To the strains of a solemn military march and amid resounding cheers, the officer cadets in ceremonial formation welcomed the academy’s battle flag and veterans’ colours, including those of Filip Totyu, Stefan Karadzha’s band and the Second Guards Regiment from the Liberation War.
At the monument to the ideologue and strategist of the Bulgarian national liberation movement, wreaths were laid in tribute on behalf of the Ministry of National Defence, the academy command and Pioneers from the Vela Blagoeva Technical School.
At the ceremonial meeting, Colonel Stoyan Gochev delivered a report. Marking the 26th anniversary of the country’s highest military educational institution, which coincided with the 150th anniversary of its patron’s birth, Gochev highlighted the achievements of the academy’s personnel and teaching staff, who honourably bore the voivode’s name and worthily fulfilled their duty to the party and the people.
“The academy’s personnel are proud to bear the name of this giant of revolutionary thought and struggle,” Gochev said.
Thousands of commanders, worthy heirs to Rakovski’s great and immortal cause, had passed through the academy’s classrooms, lecture halls and laboratories, the forge of highly qualified officers, he added. (…)
Ideologue of the Bulgarian National Revolution
Sofia, April 14, 1971 /BTA/ The 150th anniversary of the birth of Georgi S. Rakovski was ceremonially observed here. More than a century earlier, he had emerged as the outstanding figure who grasped the political currents of the age and, with the vision of a true leader, steered his people’s revolutionary aspirations toward a new form of struggle, organized armed resistance.
Rakovski displayed patriotic convictions as early as age 15, while a student in Constantinople, but his revolutionary ideology took shape only during the Crimean War of 1853-1856. At that time, he organized a secret society of compatriots in support of the Russian troops. By then, Rakovski had already established himself as a national leader. He took part in the Bulgarians’ church and national struggles in the Ottoman capital. He was active in Vojvodina, Serbia, Wallachia, Moldavia, Bessarabia and Southern Russia, gaining firsthand knowledge of the liberation struggles of other oppressed peoples as well.
In Rakovski’s view, Bulgaria’s liberation from Ottoman rule could be achieved by sending into Bulgarian territory armed bands prepared abroad and by developing a mass hajduk movement. These ideas found their clearest early expression in the 1861 Plan for the Liberation of Bulgaria, which argued that “the national spirit everywhere is prepared for uprising”. Rakovski advanced the idea of a “guiding centre of the struggle”, raised the question of creating a Bulgarian revolutionary army uniting all armed forces, and called for the establishment of secret committees and the preparation of armed bands on foreign territory. Acting on these ideas, he founded and led the First Bulgarian Legion in Belgrade in 1862, organized the Supreme People’s Bulgarian Secret Civil Command in Romania four years later, and in 1867 drafted the Provisional Law on the People’s Forest Companies.
He also advocated an alliance of the Balkan Christian peoples against Ottoman rule and went to Athens for talks to that end.
Rakovski was also active as a writer and publicist, authoring numerous articles, editing several newspapers and establishing himself as a poet.
The Bulgarians’ struggle against Ottoman rule was raised to a new stage by Rakovski’s ideological disciple and associate, Vasil Levski, founder of the Internal Revolutionary Organization.
Great Bulgarian Patriot and Revolutionary
Academic Session Dedicated to the 150th Anniversary of G. S. Rakovski
“So long as my legs and arms hold, and so long as I feel even the faintest spark of reason within me, I shall not cease working for the good of my people, whom I have loved so deeply since youth and than whom I have nothing dearer or holier in this world.”- Rakovski
Sofia, May 4, 1971 /BTA/ On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth, the Bulgarian people paid tribute to the work of their great son, the founder of the organized national revolutionary movement in Bulgaria, G. S. Rakovski.
Through his wide-ranging activity, Rakovski holds a distinct place in the history of Bulgaria’s national liberation movement. He was a revolutionary, a democrat, a champion of national education and culture and of an independent Bulgarian church, as well as a poet, publicist, organizer and propagandist of the revolution, historian, ethnographer, linguist, politician, diplomat, military commander and strategist.
Today’s academic session was devoted to the multifaceted work of the great Bulgarian Revival-era figure and revolutionary G. S. Rakovski. It was organized by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the Committee for Art and Culture, the Union of Scientific Workers in Bulgaria, the Union of Bulgarian Writers, the Ministry of Public Education, the Bulgarian Historical Society and the G. S. Rakovski Military Academy.
Leading Bulgarian scholars, public and cultural figures, members of the People’s Army, students and citizens gathered in BAS’s main hall.
The session opened with remarks by Academician Vladimir Georgiev.
The first report, titled G. S. Rakovski on the Foreign Policy of Foreign Powers and the Bulgarian National Liberation Movement, was delivered by Academician Dimitar Kosev, Secretary of the Department of Historical and Pedagogical Sciences at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
Kosev presented a broad scholarly analysis of Rakovski’s views and assessments of the foreign policy of the great powers of the day and of Bulgaria’s neighbouring countries toward the national liberation struggles of oppressed peoples. In that context, he cited numerous facts, data and quotations reflecting Rakovski’s views on these issues, along with excerpts from his writings.
“Rakovski grasped with both mind and heart the full complexity of the Bulgarian national revolution and took upon himself the task of addressing all the issues posed by historical development in the conditions in which this great son of our people lived and worked,” Kosev said.
“Rakovski was not only an ideologue and propagator of the Bulgarian national revolution, but also a political figure, the Bulgarian people’s most authoritative representative and the leader of their liberation movement,” Kosev added. (…)
Institute of History Director Hristo Hristov spoke on Rakovski’s significance in the Bulgarian national revolutionary movement. He said Rakovski was the Bulgarian Revival-era figure who most clearly and accurately laid bare the national and social contradictions in the life of the Bulgarian people in the 1850s and 1860s. He was the first Bulgarian revolutionary to identify armed struggle as the only effective means of winning liberation from Ottoman rule, and he elaborated the strategy and tactics of the Bulgarian national revolution. (…)
In his report, Lieutenant General Geno Genov examined Rakovski’s work as a military theorist and strategist of the national revolutionary struggle. “Now, as we mark the 150th anniversary of Rakovski’s birth, we bow before his patriotism, indomitable fighting spirit, boundless energy and all-round political and military talent,” Genov said.
“Ideologue of cheta tactics, pioneer and theorist of linking the operations of the armed bands with the mass hajduk movement, a contemporary of a number of uprisings and himself a direct participant in the struggle, Rakovski gained vast practical experience, which later served as the basis for his theoretical substantiation of the ways to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman rule and of the strategy and tactics of armed struggle,” Genov said.
Professor Lyubomir Andreychin spoke on G. S. Rakovski and the Bulgarian Literary Language, and Senior Research Fellow Veselin Traykov on G. S. Rakovski and the peoples of the Balkans.
G. S. Rakovski and the Development of Bulgarian Literature was the title of Professor Georgi Dimov’s report, which examined his literary legacy in depth. “Rakovski’s revolutionary poetry not only enriched the genres of the then emerging modern Bulgarian literature in thematic and ideological terms, but also set principles and directions for its further development as a literature deeply and organically linked to the life and spirit of the Bulgarian people, fighters against every form of bondage and injustice and creators of new social and moral values,” Dimov said.
The session concluded with the reports G. S. Rakovski and the Bulgarian National Educational Movement During the Revival, by Associate Professor Nikolai Genchev, and On the Work of G. S. Rakovski in Odesa, by Senior Research Fellow Tsonko Genov.
In Memory of the 150th Anniversary of G. S. Rakovski
Sliven, May 21, 1971 /BTA/ The 150th anniversary of the birth of Georgi Rakovski, inspirer, organizer and leader of the Bulgarian people’s national liberation struggle, was marked across the district with numerous events.
An exhibition opened in Sliven, where more than 100 photographs and facsimiles documented his diverse work and his ties with Revival-era figures from the town. In schools and military units, boroughs and enterprises, villages and towns, at meetings and evening events, and through quizzes, literary readings and loudspeaker programmes, his life and landmark revolutionary work were commemorated. Posters, a jubilee coin and a postage stamp bearing Rakovski’s likeness were issued, along with his works and materials on his literary output, as well as a leaflet, postcards and other items for his birthplace, Kotel.
Kotel Celebrates Its Illustrious Son
Kotel, May 22, 1971 /BTA/ Revival-era Kotel was swept by an atmosphere of exceptional festivity. The week-long programme marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of the brightest among Kotel’s line of Revival-era figures, Georgi Stoykov Rakovski, transformed life in the mountain town and placed it under the banner of this patriotic commemoration.
The flow of tourists and excursion groups arriving from across the country increased many times over. With love and reverence, young and old filed through the memorial church where Rakovski’s bones were temporarily kept, and through the museum exhibition at Galata School, devoted largely to his life and revolutionary work.
The following day, his native town, together with the whole country, was to pay tribute to his outstanding patriotic work.
Great Son of Bulgaria
150 Years Since the Birth of Georgi Stoykov Rakovski
Kotel, May 23, 1971 /BTA correspondent P. Bankova/ The town that produced a phalanx of luminaries of the Bulgarian Revival, Sophronius of Vratsa, Neofit Bozveli, Dr Petar Beron, Captain Georgi Mamarchev and dozens of others, marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of the brightest among them, its illustrious son Georgi Stoykov Rakovski.
A man of letters and educator, rebel and revolutionary, patriarch of the national democratic revolution, ardent patriot, thinker and poet, militant journalist, diplomat and military commander, he was an extraordinary figure who united burgeoning forces and aspirations in a single cause of titanic scope and depth. He still shines today with the flame of boundless patriotism, an inspiration and example to generations.
Thousands of people from across the country came to his native town to pay tribute to the memory and work of Georgi Rakovski. Rarely had the Balkan town received so many visitors in a single day. Festively decorated, Kotel opened from early morning the museums preserving Revival-era relics cherished by Bulgarians. With emotion and deep reverence, young and old stood before the sarcophagus containing Rakovski’s bones in the memorial church of Sts Peter and Paul. They also spent time at the Revival-era museum exhibition at Galata School, where his personal belongings were on display, and visited the museum of Kotel way of life, the town’s historical landmarks and its scenic surroundings.
Among those attending the celebrations were Deputy Prime Minister Pencho Kubadinski, Deputy Minister of National Defence Kiril Kosov, First Deputy Chair of the National Assembly Bureau Ekaterina Avramova, Bulgarian Agrarian National Union Secretary Nikolai Georgiev, representatives of the Georgi Stoykov Rakovski Combined Arms Academy, Union of Bulgarian Writers Secretaries Diko Fuchedzhiev and Dimitar Gundov, representatives of public organizations and creative unions, and officials from Sliven and neighbouring districts. (…)
In the evening, a rally marking the 150th anniversary of Georgi S. Rakovski was held at Vazrazhdane Square. The ceremony was opened by Regional Party Committee First Secretary Velichko Petrov.
Kubadinski delivered an address on the life and enduring work of the patriarch of the Bulgarian national democratic revolution, Georgi Stoykov Rakovski.
A concert programme was presented to the crowd gathered in the square. It featured the Dobri Chintulov Representative Choir, artists from the Sliven Drama Theatre, students from the music school for folk instruments and other local ensembles.
Fireworks lit up the sky above the mountain town. The names of Revival-era figures and their successors were proclaimed solemnly, and wreaths of fresh flowers were laid at the monument to Kotel’s great son and at the plaque marking the site of his birth house. BTA Archives: Bulgaria Marks 150th Anniversary of Georgi S. Rakovski’s Birth 2026 THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-04-14 06:45:16 Latest news World news Country news Most important news latest news most important latest of the day Justice Petar Nizamov Feathers Petar Nizamov- Feathers Justice bg iustitia.bg iustitia iusticia usticia investigation Burgas Bulgaria news news of the last hour news of the day news of today Bulgaria news The news from Bulgaria blitz news top news most important most commented latest news Boyko Borisov news weather coronavirus news news weather facebook youtube facebook instagram news today news of the last minutes news today today news news bg news leading news hot news bg news site for news all news news bg news of the last hour latest latest news bg news of today news today news today news of the last hour latest news today news bg news news 24 hours news vesti bg novini news world bird bg bivol bg bivol trud bg novini latest news today novinite bg news hello bulgaria political party coat of arms delyan peevski scandalous Bulgarian National Television Free Europe Television scandal exclusive live tv live right now tv tv online tv program bg live now tv news online tv online live court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas court Burgas district court Burgas district court Burgas appellate court Burgas prosecutor Burgas prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Burgas district prosecutor’s office Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev Prosecutor Geshev Tsatsarov Ministry of Internal Affairs Burgas ODMR Burgas ODPR Burgas police Burgas district police Burgas prosecutor Tsatsarov SGS cases Varna court chairman of the SGS court decisions on civil cases decisions on cases Plovdiv court decision of the court decisions cases Varna court criminal cases district district court decisions work in the court SGS chairman of the SGS judges Sofia court post judges Plovdiv court Plovdiv judges Plovdiv Supreme Court Inspectorate Supreme Court Supreme Judicial Council lawyer lawyer criminal cases lawyer civil cases lawyer marriage cases lawyer administrative criminal law criminal process civil law civil process administrative law constitutional law