Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee
Encyclopedia
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
n revolutionary organisation founded in 1869 among the Bulgarian emigrant circles in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
. The decisive influence for the establishment of the committee was exerted by the Svoboda newspaper which Lyuben Karavelov
Lyuben Karavelov
Lyuben Stoychev Karavelov was a Bulgarian writer and an important figure of the Bulgarian National Revival....
began to publish in the autumn of 1869. Some of the other revolutionaries who took active part in the formation and work of the BRCK were Panayot Hitov
Panayot Hitov
Panayot Ivanov Hitov was a Bulgarian hajduk, national revolutionary and band leader .Born in 1830 in Sliven, he became a hajduk in Georgi Trankin's band in 1858. Two years later, after the death of Trankin, Hitov succeeded him as voivode of the band, which became one of the most active in...
, Vasil Levski
Vasil Levski
Vasil Levski, born Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, , is a Bulgarian revolutionary and a national hero of Bulgaria. Dubbed the Apostle of Freedom, Levski ideologised and strategised a revolutionary movement to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman rule...
and Dimitar Tsenovich.
Karavelov was elected chairman of the BRCK in the spring of 1870. He also prepared the first programme of the organisation (promulgated in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
on 1 August 1870), which envisaged the liberation of Bulgaria through a nation-wide revolution and the establishment of a democratic republic.
By the end of 1871, both Karavelov and Vasil Levski
Vasil Levski
Vasil Levski, born Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, , is a Bulgarian revolutionary and a national hero of Bulgaria. Dubbed the Apostle of Freedom, Levski ideologised and strategised a revolutionary movement to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman rule...
, the leader of the other Bulgarian revolutionary society–the Internal Revolutionary Organisation
Internal Revolutionary Organisation
The Internal Revolutionary Organisation or IRO was a Bulgarian revolutionary organisation founded and built up by Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski in the period between 1869 and 1871. The organisation represented a network of regional revolutionary committees which were governed by a Central...
–knew that the future success of the armed struggle against the Ottomans depended on the co-operation of both emigration and local committees. To this end, the two organisations prepared and adopted a joint programme and charter and voted on the merger of the two organisations under the name of BRCK at a general meeting held in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
in May 1872. The charter of the joint organisation represented a compromise between the ideas of both Levski and Karavelov.
The committee network of the organisation in Bulgaria expanded considerably after the general meeting and the preparation of the uprising was well advanced, when a faction in BRCK led by Dimitar Obshti
Dimitar Obshti
Dimitar Obshti was a 19th-century Bulgarian revolutionary, who fought for the liberation of Bulgaria, Serbia and Crete from the Ottoman Empire but also for the Risorgimento of Italy.Obshti was born around 1835 in Đakovica, Kosovo, Ottoman Empire...
attacked a convoy of the Ottoman postal service near Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
in order to procure money for ammunition. The robbery caused the exposure of a number of committee activists in the region of Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
and eventually resulted in the capture and hanging of Vasil Levski
Vasil Levski
Vasil Levski, born Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, , is a Bulgarian revolutionary and a national hero of Bulgaria. Dubbed the Apostle of Freedom, Levski ideologised and strategised a revolutionary movement to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman rule...
on 18 February 1873.
The dissolution of the committee network around Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
and the death of Levski dealt a hard blow to BRCK and its work. The attempt to find a successor to Levski was unsuccessful, the Svoboda newspaper was banned by the Romanian authorities and Karavelov was forced to flee Romania for fear of being extradited to the Ottoman Empire. In 1874 Karavelov tried to regain control of the organisation at its second general meeting held in Bucharest but the other delegates passed censure on him and he left the organisation in March 1875.
Karavelov was replaced as chairman of the BRCK by Hristo Botev
Hristo Botev
Hristo Botev , born Hristo Botyov Petkov , was a Bulgarian poet and national revolutionary. Botev is widely considered by Bulgarians to be a symbolic historical figure and national hero.-Early years:...
, a revolutionary, poet and editor of the Zname (Banner) newspaper. In August 1875, the faction around Botev organised a third general meeting of the organisation which took a decision on a general uprising in Bulgaria in September the same year. The time for preparation of the insurrection was, however, insufficient and only the regional committee in Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...
managed to organise a small-scale rebellion, quickly crushed by the Ottoman police. The failure of the uprising and the accusations of misappropriations of money which ensued forced Botev to resign. The organisation disbanded itself shortly afterwards, to assemble again in November 1875 in the town of Giurgiu
Giurgiu
Giurgiu is the capital city of Giurgiu County, Romania, in the Greater Wallachia. It is situated amid mud-flats and marshes on the left bank of the Danube facing the Bulgarian city of Rousse on the opposite bank. Three small islands face the city, and a larger one shelters its port, Smarda...
where a decision on another general uprising was taken (see also April Uprising
April Uprising
The April Uprising was an insurrection organised by the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire from April to May 1876, which indirectly resulted in the re-establishment of Bulgaria as an autonomous nation in 1878...
).