HRISTO Botev Boulevard, one of the busiest central streets in Sofia, received its current name in 1924.

Hitherto, from 1892 to 1924, the present-day Hristo Botev Boulevard together with parts of today's Vassil Levski and Skobelev Boulevards was called Ferdinand Boulevard. The road used to go across what is now the park in front of the National Palace of Culture.

Hristo Botev was a famous Bulgarian poet and revolutionary during the time of the struggle for national independence from Ottoman rule.

He was born in the small town of Kalofer (central Bulgaria) on January 6, 1848, a teacher's son.

Botev initially studied in the town of Karlovo where his father worked and then continued his education in his hometown Kalofer.

In 1863 Botev went to Russia and studied in Odessa for two years as a private student. Studying in Russia was very popular among young Bulgarians at that time, who wanted to receive good high school and university education.

In 1866 he became a teacher at the village of Zadunaevka, in Besarabia. A year later he replaced his father in Kalofer. There at the holiday of Saint Kiril and Methodii he held a revolutionary speech urging the Bulgarian people to fight against the foreign yoke. As a consequence of that speech Botev was banished from his hometown.

He joined the Bulgarian emigrants' society in Romania and worked as a teacher, newspaper editor and publisher.

Initially he contributed articles and poems to different newspapers, but then in 1871 started up his own publication - the newspaper The Word of the Bulgarian Emigrants. Through its columns, he publicised his revolutionary ideas and outlined ways of achieving national independence.

In the winter of 1868-69 Botev lived in a bleak windmill together with another popular Bulgarian revolutionary, Vassil Levski. That period had a major influence on the revolutionary ideas of Botev. Both Levski and he shared the idea that only a national revolution of the people could bring about the desired independence. Botev firmly believed that there was no need for preliminary preparation of the people for an armed struggle because the revolutionary enthusiasm was rooted deep in their hearts. For him the national liberation struggle had to be combined with a social revolution, which would eliminate social inequality and establish justice.

Botev also liked the idea of a brotherly union and solidarity among all the Balkan people. He believed that if the people were separated, empires would go on ruling. In addition to his poetic and journalistic work, Botev was also very energetic in his revolutionary activities. He was the leader of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee, a secret organisation of Bulgarian emigrants in Romania who were plotting a national revolution.

In 1876, when the April Uprising broke out in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian emigrants in Romania began organising a squad which would join their brothers in the fatherland. Botev volunteered to be leader of the group, which consisted of nearly 200 revolutionaries. Dressed as gardeners and merchants, the revolutionaries boarded the Austrian ship Radetski from various different Romanian ports en route and on May 17 conquered it and made it stop near Kozlodui (north-western Bulgaria). The squad set off towards the Balkan Range (in Bulgarian: Stara Planina) and was involved in many violent clashes with Turks.

On June 2, 1876 Botev was shot in the forehead by an enemy's bullet. After his death the members of the squad dispersed.

The inscription chiselled on the granite rock by which Botev was killed reads: "Your prophecy has come true - you live on!"

One of Botev's most popular poems is Hadji Dimitar, written to commemorate that famous Bulgarian revolutionary. From a very early age Bulgarians learn the following verse:

"He who falls while fighting to be free
Can never die: for him the sky
And earth, the trees and beasts shall keen,
To him the minstrel's song shall rise..."