Vasil Levski - Commemoration

Commemoration

Cry! For near the town of Sofia,
Sticks up, I saw, black gallows,
And your only son, Bulgaria,
Hangs on it with a fearful strength.

In cities and villages across Bulgaria, Levski's contributions to the liberation movement are commemorated with numerous monuments, and many streets bear his name. Monuments to Levski also exist outside Bulgaria—in Belgrade, Serbia, Parcani, Transnistria, Moldova, Bucharest, Romania, Paris, France, Washington, D.C., United States, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Three museums dedicated to Levski have been organised: one in Karlovo, one in Lovech and one in Kakrina.

Several institutions in Bulgaria have been named in Vasil Levski's honour; these include the football club PFC Levski Sofia, the Vasil Levski National Sports Academy and the Vasil Levski National Military University. Bulgaria's national stadium bears the name Vasil Levski National Stadium. The 1000 Bulgarian leva banknote, in circulation between 1994 and 1999, featured Levski's portrait on its obverse side and his monument in Sofia on the reverse. The town of Levski and six villages around the country have also been named in his honour. The Antarctic Place-names Commission of Bulgaria named an Antarctic ridge and peak on Livingston Island of the South Shetland Islands Levski Ridge and Levski Peak respectively.

The life of Vasil Levski has been widely featured in Bulgarian literature and popular culture. Poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev dedicated his last work to Levski, "The Hanging of Vasil Levski". The poem, an elegy, was probably written in late 1875. Prose and poetry writer Ivan Vazov devoted an ode to the revolutionary. Eponymously titled "Levski", it was published as part of the cycle Epic of the Forgotten. Levski has also inspired works by writers Hristo Smirnenski and Nikolay Haytov, among others. Songs devoted to Levski can be found in the folklore tradition of Macedonia as well. In February 2007, a nationwide poll conducted as part of the Velikite Balgari ("The Great Bulgarians") television show, a local spin-off of Greatest Britons, named Vasil Levski the greatest Bulgarian of all time.

There have been motions to glorify Vasil Levski as a saint of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. However, historian Stefan Chureshki has emphasised that while Levski's post-monastical life was one of a martyr, it was incompatible with the Orthodox concept of sainthood. Chureshki makes reference to Levski's correspondences, which show that Levski threatened wealthy Bulgarians (чорбаджии, chorbadzhii) and traitors with death, endorsed theft from the rich for pragmatic revolutionary purposes and voluntarily gave up his religious office to devote himself to the secular struggle for liberation.

Vasil Levski's hanging is observed annually across Bulgaria on 19 February instead of 18 February, due to the erroneous calculation of 19th-century Julian calendar dates after Bulgaria adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1916. Although the location of Levski's grave has not been determined, some of his hair is on exhibit at the National Museum of Military History. After Levski gave up monkhood in 1863, he shaved his hair, which his mother and later his sister Yana preserved. Levski's personal items—such as his silver Christian cross, his copper water vessel, his Gasser revolver, made in Austria–Hungary in 1869, and the shackles from his imprisonment in Sofia—are also exhibited in the military history museum, while Levski's sabre can be seen in the Lovech regional museum.