The Apostle of Freedom: A Portrait of Vasil Levsky Against a Background of Nineteenth Century Bulgaria

С автограф и посвещение от 22. VIII. 1989 г.

Mercia MacDermott  (автор)

Твърда корица с обложка, среден формат  |  400 стр.  |  535 гр.

(неизползвана книга - леко захабена обложка)

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The "Apostle" is Bulgaria's legendary national hero, Vasil Levsky, who, in the early 1870s, led an underground movement against the five-century old Turkish occupation. Although he met his death on the gallows three years before the 1876 uprising — the bloody suppression of which provoked international protests, including Gladstone's celebrated "bag and baggage" speech — Levsky was the architect and the inspiration of the secret societies behind it. Destined for a career in the Church, he renounced his monastic vows to create — under the very noses of the Turkish police — a remarkable revolutionary.organization, with hundreds of committees all over Bulgaria and its own police force and secret post, and with the ultimate aim of setting up an independent Bulgarian republic within a Balkan federation based on self-determination.

Making use of contemporary letters, proclamations, memories and other documents — most of them translated into English for the first time — this book sheds new light on the Eastern Question as seen through Bulgarian eyes, and gives a vivid account of the personalities, deeds and ideologies of the Bulgarians who plotted the downfall of the Ottoman Empire. It is a book which will appeal not only to the historian, but also to all who enjoy tales of courage and adventure, and who are moved by the stories of those who value justice and freedom above life itself. Hitheito almost unknown outside hos own country, Vasil Levsky emerges as one of the most attractive and level-headed rebels ever to espouse the cause of liberty, equality and fraternity.