On June 2 2009, sirens will sound at noon as Bulgaria honours one of its most beloved heroes and revolutionaries, the poet and rebel Hristo Botev (1848-76).

The sirens are a call to remember the day on which Botev died after several days of fighting against the Ottoman army in the days when Bulgaria was under Ottoman rule.

The sound of the sirens at noon marks the beginning of a minute of silence in honour of Botev and his comrades who fought on the last day of the April uprising in 1876.

The custom is that everyone should stand still for a minute until the sirens in Botev's memory stop.

Born in Kalofer in 1848 and brought up in the midst of the Bulgarian national revival, Botev was educated in Kalofer and later in Odessa, in today's Ukraine.

Influenced by the revolutionary rhetoric of Russian poets and intellectuals Alexander Herzen, Nikolai Chernishevski, and Nikolai Dobrolyubov, Botev then attempted to write his first stanzas of poetry, while his political views began to take shape.

Shortly after his return to Bulgaria in 1867, Botev was forced to leave for Romania because of his outspoken opposition to Ottoman rule. While living in exile there, he met other prominent Bulgarian patriots such as Vassil Levski and Lyuben Karavelov, whose views played a role in Botev's determination to devote his life to the liberation of his fatherland.

Gradually, the idea that only an armed insurgency against the oppressor would bring about freedom began to materialise in the formation of a guerrilla unit composed of Bulgarian emigres in Romania. Its action plan revolved around the expected uprising being organised through clandestine committees on Bulgarian territory.

When the ill-fated 1876 April Uprising in Bulgaria began, Botev disembarked at the head of a 205-strong guerrilla unit on the Danube shore near Kozloduy in north-west Bulgaria.

During clashes with Ottoman troops near Vola peak in the Vratsa region of the Stara Planina range, Botev was shot dead on June 2 1876.

Apart from his image as a selfless revolutionary, Botev has endured in history as a influential literary figure, having left one of the most patriotic and sentimentally-romantic poems reflecting on the life of poor and oppressed people, revolutionary struggle and unrequited love obstructed by patriotic duty.

Among some of his signature poetry works are To My Mother, Elegy, Struggle, and In the Tavern.