Freedom Fighters

[MrAlex]

Men who gave their lives fighting to liberate Bulgaria from Turkish rule:



1: Vassil Levsky - aka "The Apostle of Freedom", voted "All Time Greatest Bulgarian" in 2007. Hanged by the Turks in 1873, aged 35.
2: The Levsky memorial.

3: Stefan Karadzha - resistance leader. A keen wrestler who defeated the Turkish champion. Hanged by the Turks in 1868, aged 28.
4: The Karadzha monument.

5: Hadji Dimitar - martyr and rebel. Died of his wounds after a skirmish with the Turks in 1868, aged 28.
6: The Dimitar monument.

7: Hristo Botev - poet and rebel. Killed in action fighting the Turks in 1876, aged 28. He wrote these lines for Hadji Dimitar:

"He who falls while fighting to be free can never die.
The sky and earth, the trees and beasts shall weep for him.
To him the singer shall sing his songs..."

8: The Botev monument.

Respect!

 

[Meatpie]

Impressive.

Levski and Botev are considered by many greatest people in the history of Bulgaria.

The second pics, the Levski memorial is one of many.

In the capital Sofia, there is a monument at roughly the place where Levski was hanged. Today it's a busy roundabout but every year traffic in the area is stopped, people gather for big fireworks to celebrate the crushing of the Turks.

http://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Файл:Levski_monument.jpg

I hate Turks, I hate Muslims and Islam is the most stupid ridicilous religion on Earth.

Where I live there is one mosque but not a single Muslim so it's closed.

It was built in the 14 century BC

Many want it destroyed but authorities have decided to keep it to remind people of their history.

 

[MrAlex]

One of the things that misled me into thinking the Bulgarians were a Slavic nation was that they speak a Slavic language. In fact, despite their language, they apparently belong to a totally different racial group from the Slavs. They are probably descended from the Thracians, a people who colonized the area in the time of the Ancient Greeks. They adopted the language of Slavic invaders who arrived a thousand years later. Something similar has happened in my own country, where the Welsh, Scots and Irish speak English, but are descendants of the Ancient Celts, not the Saxons.

At the present moment the Bulgarians are engaging in political activity that could determine the future history of the whole of Europe. Half a million of them have signed a petition seeking to block Turkish entry into the EU. If any of my fellow-Europeans reading this agree with me that the influx of Muslims into our continent simply has got to be stopped, then why not write to your political representatives supporting the Bulgarians?

 

[Meatpie]

You tend to generalize, the real world is not that simple.

Germanic Tribes invaded the British Isles in early 5th century AD and wiped out the indigenous population.

The Celts were spread throughout Europe and they even invaded the Balkans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic_invasion_of_the_Balkans

 

[MrAlex]

With respect no, I'm not generalizing, not about my own country at least. The Germanic invaders only wiped out the indigenous population in Eastern, Southern and Central England. In the North-West the Brythonic (Celtic) kingdom of Elmet maintained its independence against the Northumbrians until the early 7th Century. By the time it fell the Anglo-Saxons had become civilized and no longer resorted to the mass slaughter of the local population. To this day the inhabitants of former Elmet (ie Lancashire and West Yorkshire) are markedly different from the rest of the English in their physical characteristics. They tend to be darker, shorter and more wiry. A lot of Celtic place-names survive in their area too: eg Hebden Bridge (Hebden of the Brigantes), Pen-y-Ghent (Hill in the district of Ghent) and Pendle (The Hill).

The Scots, Welsh and Irish definitely are Celts. In fact their Celtic languages still survive (Gaelic, Welsh and Erse) but have been reduced to the status of second languages these days.

So I stand by my statement that English-speaking Celts form part of the UK population.

Where I'm on much shakier ground is when I talk the inhabitants of Bulgaria. I have only just started to read up about the Thracians, for instance. I still know next to nothing about them.

 

[Meatpie]

It's natural that you know about the history of your own country than far-off Bulgaria, take it step by step.

 

[MrAlex]

Footnote: Most UK historians use "Celtic" as a linguistic rather than a racial term. Some authorities prefer to call the British Celts the "Celt-Iberians", to differentiate them from the taller, fairer peoples of the Celtic heartland.

 

[Meatpie]

Some historians may invent new terms every few months, what matters is that the majority of the world's population uses Celtic for both the language and the culture.

 

[markfive]

Yes, some interesting history here. It's a shame that too many Westerners know little or nothing about Eastern European history. I've been reading about the Byzantine Empire, and it makes it much clearer why relations with and among nations like Russia, Turkey, and Iran/Persia are like they are.

 

[Meatpie]

Eastern Europe has had a tirbulent past.

Where I live there is a huge Roman bath with hot mineral water.

It was built by the Roman emperor Trajan.

There is a mosque built during Ottomon rule - no one uses it now, it's closed because no muslims live here, the local population forced them out.

But most amazing, most crazy of all is a big fortress that the Romans built on top of a hill with walls 5 metres thick made of solid stone and rock. It survives and is protected by a EU heritage programme.

It's as tall as a three storey building.

The walls go for several kilometres down to the valley.

This is crazy and took a lot of human power and engineering to construct.

As I kid I climbed on top and with great risk I and my classmates ran on top, all the way down to the valley,

I jumped for one metre, if you fail you fall 2-3 metres on stone and crack your skull and bones.

I was a teen and didn't realize what danger this was.

When my parents found out they yelled and said I could have died.

My grandmother also went insane, they know the wall is very steep and tall.

The area is perfect for mountain bike.

The town was founded by the Thracians in 5th century BC.

The fortress was built in 4th c. BC and survives to this day unscathed, it's so strong and solid.

The Romans built like crazy.

 

[verlup1]

I think they should keep the mosque, it must be so beautiful. I love Muslim architecture. It sounds racist to me that Europeans fighting so hard to keep Turkey out of the European union. That's all it seems just racism pure and simple.

 

[Meatpie]

It's not beautiful and sonner or later they are gonna have to either take it down or reconstruct.

Yes Europe is terribly racist, Turkey will never be in the EU not becasue of small countries like Bulgaria but because of France and Germany. The EU is a mess at the moment but at least we do it in a civilized manner.

What happaned in the US around 9/11 this year - the burning of the Quran, postponed in the last minute, the protests in NYC against the Islamic centre - your country is deeply divided verlup.

The whole world is divided, I don't think you guys are any different from Europeans, there is racism everywhere.

Islam should be banned, so many people have lost their lives because of that stupid religion.