Today, my dear FACTS reader, we will take you back to the bloody suppression of the April Uprising. Heroism and treachery mark this great epic. On May 12, 1876, during an ambush in the Teteven Balkan, Georgi Benkovski was killed. At least that's how the story described in the “Notes on the Bulgarian Uprisings” of Zahari Stoyanov. If we delve into the annals of history, we will see that he lived both in Istanbul, the heart of the empire, and in its main trading centers. Georgi Benkovski spoke seven languages fluently.
Georgi Benkovski was born in Koprivshtitsa on September 21, 1843. He was recorded in the church register as Gavril Gruev Hlutev. Has two sisters – Kuna and Vasilja. He had a difficult childhood, his father Gruyu Hlutev, a small and respectable merchant, died in 1848, and this forced Gavril to study only up to the 3rd grade at the Primary Koprivshten School, and then his mother let him learn a trade – Tertiary. Later, unsatisfied with this prospect, he became an Abadji apprentice, then separated from his master and began trading on his own.
He goes around the big markets in Constantinople and south through Anatolia. He is very successful, earns and spends a lot, but experiences sudden reversals. According to his own words to Zahariy Stoyanov, one must know how to lie in order to be a successful trader. For ten years he lived in various places in the Orient – Smyrna, Constantinople, Anatolia, Alexandria, working all kinds of things. For a year he was a gavazin to the Persian consul and wore such a fine uniform that people mistook him for the consul himself. He spoke seven languages – Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Persian. Adopting the name Georgi Benkovski, he was actively involved in the actions taken by the Bulgarian revolutionary emigration to organize the unsuccessful Stara Zagora Uprising (1875) with the burning of Constantinople and the self-sacrificing April Uprising, which only really broke out in the IV revolutionary district led by him, and the cruel its suppression leads to the declaration of the Russo-Turkish war of liberation.
During the announcement of the April Uprising, on April 20, 1876 in Koprivshtitsa, Benkovski was in Panagyurishte together with most of the other apostles. When he realized that there was already fighting in Koprivshtitsa, he announced the uprising in Panagyurishte as well, after which he quickly formed a detachment and set out to raise the surrounding villages as well. The flying squad, with which he traveled tirelessly throughout the region and succeeded in mobilizing and motivating many insurgents, played a central role in the military operations of the insurgency. Even six Croats from Dalmatia and one German who work at the railway station in Belovo are included in the squad. One of them, Stefan the Dalmatian, is their last biracter.
After the brutal suppression of the rebellion in the Panagyur region, Benkovski and the squad head to the Teteven Balkans, where on May 12, after being betrayed by grandfather Valyo, he falls into the Kostina River, pierced by the bullet of the basher Ryuzgyar Haji Ahmed Agha. His head was sent to Botevgrad, and then to Sofia. These events are documented by Zahari Stoyanov in “Notes on the Bulgarian Uprisings”. The author himself miraculously survives their ambush.
Here is what Zahari Stoyanov himself says about Georgi Benkovski:
...
Our benefactor and Benkovski had already set foot on the opposite shore, and the three of us with Fr. Kirila and Stefa were still on the bridge. Everyone was silent. Only I opened my mouth, seeing that there were many signs on the right side of the river as well, which showed that the bridge had been made new, to draw the attention of my companions to this, to see if they also thought as I did on the matter.
- You should know that we are not on the Plovdiv bridge over Maritsa, but in the Teteven Balkan on the Kostinia River - answered Benkovski, turning back. That was his farewell... These are his last words!...
Whether or not he finished his last word, uncle Valyu, our benefactor, the devoted grandfather Valyu, whom we called father, I see him crawling on the ground, like a four-legged animal, and went to hide behind a fallen tree. For myself, I could not remember what the job consisted of once, and my friends probably could not either. As I was getting ready, I asked why the old man was dragging himself on the ground, my mouth closed, my tongue dried up in my throat. About twenty guns and more on both sides of the river on four sides thundered above us and the bullets buzzed around us like bees!...
- Wurun! Tobacco! Dan bro! Bassoon! etc... - were the voices that accompanied the first thunderers! ...
For the time being I am not in a position to tell more details about the fate of my comrades. The terrible picture so suddenly struck me completely, I lost both mind and reason and courage and everything human!... I will not boast to you that I took hold of my rifle or that I took a position to defend myself. No! I did nothing, neither saw nor heard, nor did my three companions who were going forward. And who would I fight? With the wind and the noise? There was no man in sight, no gun, no devil. I thought it was all a dream. Until ten minutes ago, you listened to the 12 bayryaks, to the departure of all the puppies to Sofia, to the thunderings of grandfather Ivan's cannons - and the voices “Vurun” and “tobacco“ - all this is more than ungodly, all this makes one turn to stone in one's place!
As soon as the first guns cracked and the harsh voices roared, a thick cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the empty space above the river. You can see that I was stuck on the bridge for a few seconds. I only remember that when Benkovsky appeared through the clouds of smoke, trembling, with outstretched arms, and then twisted to one side and fell to the ground on his eyes, I was startled, but I could not think of what to do. Benkovski was holding one of his revolvers in his hand ... I don't know anything more, so let me at least tell you my story.
... I finally came to myself only when I plunged into the raging waters of the river. Whether I deliberately threw myself from the bridge down into the river, or I fell unconscious - I am also not in a position to assure.....
.... I don't need to say that Benkovski is a saint both in Panagyursko and in Tetevensko, where he fell. The population assures that at night, against Saturday and the other more famous holidays, a candle burns at the place where he was killed. After the murder, his mortal remains were collected by a pious grandmother, grandmother Udrenitsa, who buried them in the tomb of the "All Saints" church. All this she did in secret, because the government, of course, also punished those religious people who paid any respect to the remains of its sworn enemies. In addition, in the village of Shipkovo there lived a certain grandfather Boro, or Bero, who used to go and see which grandmother lit candles for the rebels and wrote their names in the liturgy. All such he went to hand over to the Turks.
And Benkovski's head, as readers will see later, was cut off and taken to Teteven, Orhanie, and from there to Sofia. Priest Hristo Pavlov was called by the Turkish government to take and bury this head, which he did on Saint Kostadina (May 21). So, after nine days, the head of the Bulgarian voivode was buried. It was put in a horse bag, it had already decomposed, and the priest buried it with the bag together in the presence of a Muslim and Nikolcho the undertaker, who dug the hole with the trowel (with which the carpenters smear) and buried it. This happened in Sofia. Benkovski's head is buried in the new cemetery, near the city on the west side, on the right side of the road, as you go to Kniazhevo, at the place called Halkala kapusu. The body - in Teteven, and the head - in Sofia!...