On January 6^th our High School commemorates the birth of Hristo Botev – one of the greatest Bulgarian poets and national revolutionaryes.

HRISTO BOTEV

Hristo Botev (Bulgarian: Христо Ботев, also transliterated as Hristo Botyov) (January 6, 1848 – June 2, 1876), born Hristo Botyov Petkov (Bulgarian: Христо Ботьов Петков), was a Bulgarian poet and national revolutionary, widely considered the nation's greatest poet.

Botev studied in Odessa, Russia, meeting revolutionists there before forced to leave. In 1876 he then raised and leaded a group 200 partisans into Bulgaria in an attempt to help liberate the country from Turkish occupiers. Christo Botev is killed on June 2 in battle, age 28 — but his life and writings remains an inspiration for many Bulgarians.

All his life, Botev inspired his followers and comrades with his passion for freedom and finally his turn had come to fulfill his oath and die for it. The inscription chiselled on the granite boulder by which he was killed reads: "Your prophecy has come true—you live on!"