Neofit Bozveli () (c. 1785 – 4 June 1848) was a

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

n cleric and enlightener and one of the leaders of the Bulgarian Church struggle. He was born in the lively sub-

Balkan The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

town of Kotel. Bozveli completed his basic education there and may well have been a student of

Sophronius of Vratsa Saint Sophronius of Vratsa (or Sofroniy Vrachanski; ; 1739–1813), born Stoyko Vladislavov (), was a Bulgarian cleric and one of the leading figures of the early Bulgarian National Revival. Biography Vladislavov was born in the town of Kotel i ...

. He continued his education afterwards, then joined the Hilandar monastery on

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed ...

as a monk around 1803-1805. Towards 1813-1814 he settled in

Svishtov Svishtov ( ) List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, is a town in northern Bulgaria, located in Veliko Tarnovo Province on the right bank of the Danube river opposite the Romanian town of Zimnicea. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous S ...

, where he worked as an

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

priest and a teacher and began his enlightening activity by writing the ''Slavenobolgarskoe Detevodstvo'' pedagogical textbook in 1835. In this book, Bozveli spoke for secular education, for the enforcement of spoken Bulgarian in the schools and for the establishment of public Bulgarian schools. Neofit Bozvely and Emanuil Vaskidovich wrote and published junior high school mathematical textbook "Guidance in Arithmetic" in 1835.G. Kamisheva, Bulgarian Mathematical Culture in XIX century. – History and Pedagogy of Mathematics Newsletter (61) 16-20 (2006) Around 1834-1835, Bozveli lived in the

Principality of Serbia The Principality of Serbia () was an autonomous, later sovereign state in the Balkans that came into existence as a result of the Serbian Revolution, which lasted between 1804 and 1817. Its creation was negotiated first through an unwritten agre ...

in order to print his textbook. In Serbia, he got acquainted with the ideas of earlier Serbian enlighteners such as

Dositej Obradović Dositej Obradović ( sr-Cyrl, Доситеј Обрадовић, ; 17 February 1739 – 7 April 1811) was a Serbian writer, biographer, diarist, philosopher, pedagogue, educational reformer, linguist and the first minister of education of Se ...

and

Zaharije Orfelin Zaharije Orfelin ( sr-Cyrl, Захаријe Орфелин; 1726 – 19 January 1785) was a Serbs, Serbian polymath who lived and worked in the Habsburg monarchy and Republic of Venice, Venice. Considered a Renaissance, Renaissance man, he is var ...

. As he returned to Bulgaria, he actively promoted the idea of an independent

Bulgarian Orthodox Church The Bulgarian Orthodox Church (), legally the Patriarchate of Bulgaria (), is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction based in Bulgaria. It is the first medieval recognised patriarchate outside the Pentarchy and t ...

. He moved to the Ottoman capital

Constantinople Constantinople (#Names of Constantinople, see other names) was a historical city located on the Bosporus that served as the capital of the Roman Empire, Roman, Byzantine Empire, Byzantine, Latin Empire, Latin, and Ottoman Empire, Ottoman empire ...

in 1839 to head the struggle of the Bulgarian merchants and craftsmen against the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

-dominated

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (, ; ; , "Roman Orthodox Patriarchate, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul") is one of the fifteen to seventeen autocephalous churches that together compose the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is heade ...

. The construction of the Bulgarian church in Constantinople and the establishment of the Bulgarian municipality in the city began on his initiative. However, his patriotic acts were perceived as dangerous by the Patriarchate and he was

exile Exile or banishment is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons ...

d on Mount Athos in 1841 only to escape and return in 1844, where he continued the struggle together with his active and younger supporter Ilarion Makariopolski. In 1845, they were granted the rights to represent the Constantinople Bulgarians before the Ottoman government and the Patriarchate. In the same year, they sent two petitions to the Ottoman government, explaining the Bulgarian church demands. This caused the strong protest of the Patriarchate and they were both exiled again on Mount Athos, where Bozveli spent his last years in the Hilandar monastery. The church struggle was continued by Makariopolski and brought to a successful end with the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate on 28 February 1870 by the

firman A firman (; ), at the constitutional level, was a royal mandate or decree issued by a sovereign in an Islamic state. During various periods such firmans were collected and applied as traditional bodies of law. The English word ''firman'' co ...

of Sultan

Abdülaziz Abdulaziz (; ; 8 February 18304 June 1876) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 25 June 1861 to 30 May 1876, when he was 1876 Ottoman coup d'état, overthrown in a government coup. He was a son of Sultan Mahmud II and succeeded his brother ...

. As a writer, Bozveli was the author of several imaginary

dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American and British English spelling differences, American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literature, literary and theatrical form that depicts suc ...

s between the personalized Fatherland and various members of the Bulgarian society. His most notable work is ''Plach bedniya Mati Bolgariya'' ("Wail of the poor Mother Bulgaria") that dates to 1846.

Honour

Bozveli Peak on

Graham Land Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

is named after Neofit Bozveli.

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bozveli, Neofit 1785 births 1848 deaths People from Kotel, Bulgaria Bulgarian Orthodox priests 19th-century Bulgarian educators Bulgarian male writers 19th-century Eastern Orthodox priests People associated with Hilandar Monastery