Varna Awards Posthumously 19th Century Bulgarian Freedom Fighter

Pictured: the Monument of Bulgarian freedom fighter Kapitan Petko Voyvoda at the Janiculum in Rome, Italy. Photo from Wikipedia

One of the most revered 19th century Bulgarian revolutionary, Petko Kiryakov, also known as Kapitan (Captain) Petko Voyvoda (1844-1900), has been made posthumously an honorary citizen of the Black Sea city of Varna.

Kapitan Petko Voyvoda is awarded on the occasion of the 115 year since the founding of the Varna Thracian Association, which is named after him, for his "exceptional contribution to the fight for the Liberation and Unification of Bulgaria and the unity of the Bulgarian nation."

Rumyana Valcheva, head of the Varna Thracian Association, accepted the highest award of the city on Thursday from Varna Mayor Kiril Yordanov.

The so called Thracian Associations are Bulgarian NGOs dedicated to the issues of Bulgarians from Thrace, a historically Bulgarian-populated region, some parts of which are in today's Greece and Turkey (i.e. the European part of Turkey).

Petko Kiryakov is a legendary Bulgarian revolutionary leader fighting the Ottoman Turkish Empire. He is a native of the Bulgarian village of Dogan Hisar, today Esimi in Aegean Thrace, today Evros Prefecture, Greece.

He is also knowing for being a follower of Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. He took part in an uprising against the Ottoman Empire on Crete in 1866–1869 and visited Italy in 1866, meeting Giuseppe Garibaldi and staying in his home.

The two organized the well-known Garibaldi Battalion, consisting of 220 Italians and 67 Bulgarians, which fought the Ottomans on Crete.

Petko Voyvoda's detachment, established in 1869, took part in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. His detachment took part in the liberation of the Rhodopes together with that of Kraycho Voyvoda. Petko lived in Varna after 1880, dying in the city in 1900.

His revolutionary work has been commemorated with numerous monuments all around Bulgaria, as well as in his native village in modern Greece and on the hill of Gianicolo in Rome, where a monument of Garibaldi also stands.

More about Kapitan Petko Voyvoda READ HERE

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