Did you know that, according to Dimitar Gorov's memoirs, recorded by Zahari Stoyanov, the fare alone for the first group of Chetniks - 40 rebels who boarded the ship "Radetsky" in Giurgiu on 16 May 1876, together with the poet and revolutionary Hristo Botev - was 650 gold francs? That was the capital of a small business in those days. 

The Committees and their Wallachian affiliates controlled the activities of the Giurgiu Committee, which prepared the April Uprising and then disbanded itself in late 1875. 

What happened? In 1875, Russia and Austria-Hungary actively supported the outbreak of the uprising in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Vienna and St Petersburg agreed that the uprising would be the occasion for an international conference to resolve the Eastern Question. 

Reading Hristo Botev's fiery political articles in the revolutionary press, one can see how the BRCC activists feared that Bulgaria would miss the moment to rise up and raise the question of its liberation. 

The Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee decided to organise such an uprising. In August and September 1875, Botev travelled to Kishinev and Odessa to raise funds and arms for the revolution. But the Slavic committees and the Bulgarian emigration to Russia, controlled by the Slavic committees, sent him back empty-handed. At the time, Russia respected its agreements with Austria-Hungary and demanded that the Bulgarians not revolt. However, the uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina died down with no result at all.

The Ottoman Empire, backed by Britain, refused to convene a conference that would change the status quo in the Balkans. St Petersburg then felt free to support the Bulgarians. For various reasons, Hristo Botev did not take part in the work of the Gurgiu Committee, but he prepared to join the units that were to cross the Danube. At the end of April and the beginning of May 1876, Botev again went to Kishinev and Odessa. This time he received a warm welcome and funds. Eventually Botev's detachment would be joined by the Bulgarian Humanitarian Board of Trustees and its well-funded and armed St George's detachment, ready to cross into Bulgaria. 

We Bulgarians have had such happy moments in our history, when our national interests successfully fitted into the grand scheme of international politics and surfaced above the contradictions of the great powers. The most spectacular such success was the heroism of the April Uprising, paid for by the sacrifice of revolutionaries like Hristo Botev and all the participants in the uprising. The events of 1876 led to the liberation of Bulgaria and the resurrection of the Bulgarian state.