Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2025 All Rights Reserved

Bulgaria marks 165 years since birth of Bulgarian Revival Period heroine Rayna Knyaginya

Photo: Library

On January 18, 1856 Rayna Popgeorgieva was born in the town of Panagyurishte. Known by the nickname "Rayna Knyaginya" (Rayna the Princess), she was a Bulgarian teacher and a midwife who sewed the main insurgent flag of the Panagyurishte Revolutionary District of the April Uprising and waved it along with emblematic revolutionary leader Georgi Benkovski. The revolutionary commissioned her to make a flag with the inscription "Freedom or Death" when she was 20 years old. 

After the April Uprising which was brutally crushed by the Ottomans, she was captured by the Turks and subjected to severe torture, but after the intervention of European diplomats, she was released and sent to study medicine in Moscow. 

She had five sons, four of whom became officers in the Bulgarian Army.



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Hristo Botev's personal notebook testifies to the last year of his life

On June 2, we bow to Hristo Botev - a zealous supporter of the freedom of Bulgaria, a poet and a publicist. At exactly 12:00, a siren's howl and a minute of silence remind us of the feat of the revolutionary and of all those who..

published on 6/2/25 8:00 AM
Patriarch Daniil

Archaeologists send petition to Patriarch in support of fire dancing

The Bulgarian Archaeological Society 'Ivan Venedikov' issued a statement addressed to Patriarch Daniil, in response to his recent public call to end the centuries-old tradition of fire dancing, known as Nestinarstvo. "Mr. Patriarch, do not touch..

published on 5/30/25 9:17 PM

The Slavic alphabet, created by Saints Cyril and Methodius, was written in Old Bulgarian

Every tree has roots. The bigger the tree, the deeper its roots. We are all united here in Southeast Europe. It is our saints that unite us, not divide us. This was stated in an interview with Radio Bulgaria by Prof. Konstantinos Nichoritis. A graduate..

published on 5/24/25 8:25 AM