Bulgaria’s Sofia Airport renamed after national hero Vassil Levski
Bulgarian head of state President Roumen Radev issued a decree on February 17 renaming Sofia Airport after national hero Vassil Levski, with the airport’s name now becoming Vassil Levski Airport – Sofia, the President’s office said.
The decree was issued on the eve of the anniversary of the February 18 1873 execution of Levski in Sofia at the hands of the Ottoman rulers of the time.
Born Vassil Kunchev in Karlovo on July 18 1837, Levski is revered in Bulgaria as the Apostle of Freedom for his courageous efforts in a revolutionary movement to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman rule.
Levski founded the Internal Revolutionary Organisation, and sought to foment a nationwide uprising through a network of secret regional committees.
In 1872, he was caught, put on trial in Sofia and sentenced to death, with the hanging carried at a site then just outside the city, where the Levski Monument now stands.
Levski envisioned Bulgaria as a democratic republic.
He said, “We will be free in complete liberty where the Bulgarian lives: in Bulgaria, Thrace, Macedonia; people of whatever ethnicity live in this heaven of ours, they will be equal in rights to the Bulgarian in everything. We will have a flag that says, ‘Pure and sacred republic’… It is time, by a single deed, to achieve what our French brothers have been seeking…”
For decades, Sofia Airport officially bore the name Vrazhdebna, though this name was hardly used, and Radev’s decree follows years of repeated calls for the airport to be named after Levski.
