Svoboda ili smart

For other uses of this slogan, see Liberty or Death.
The book of Rakovski Gorski Patnik (Forest wanderer), where the motto appeared for the first time in 1857.[1]
Vasil Levski in a First Bulgarian Legion uniform in 1862. The legionnaires wore caps, on which metal lions marked with the motto were attached.

Svoboda ili smart (Bulgarian: Свобода или смърт, lit. 'Freedom or Death',[2] written in pre-1945 Bulgarian orthography: "Свобода или смърть"[3]) was a revolutionary slogan used during the national-liberation struggles by the Bulgarian revolutionaries, called comitadjis.[4] The slogan was in use during the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries.

  1. ^ Андрей Цветков, Георги Стойков Раковски: 1821–1871: биографичен очерк, Народна просвета, 1971, София, стр. 52–53.
  2. ^ Karen-Margrethe Simonsen, Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen as ed., World Literature, World Culture, ISD LLC, 2008, ISBN 8779349900, p. 95.
  3. ^ Ernest A. Scatton, Grammar of Modern Bulgarian, Slavica Pub, 1984, ISBN 0893571237, p. 121.
  4. ^ The word komitadji is Turkish, meaning literally "committee man". It came to be used for the guerilla bands which, subsidized by the governments of the Christian Balkan states, especially of Bulgaria. "The Making of a New Europe: R.W. Seton-Watson and the Last Years of Austria-Hungary", Hugh Seton-Watson, Christopher Seton-Watson, Methuen, 1981, ISBN 0416747302, p. 71.