Bulgaria Yet to Achieve Goals of Revolutionaries - President

Bulgaria has yet to achieve the goals set by revutionaries who fought for its freedom, President Rosen Plevneliev said on Easter Monday.

The President delivered a speech while in the town of Koprivshtitsa to attend the ongoing ceremonies dedicated to the the 140th anniversary since the April Uprising began in 1876.

The April Uprising, "own entirely Bulgarian revolution," gave the Bulgarian people the spark of hope they need now "despite having been quelled with exceptional brutality," public BNR radio station quotes Plevneliev as saying.

"We have not yet fulfilled the most important ideal, namely the "Pure and sacred republic"," Plevneliev added, in a reference to words widely attributed to Bulgaria's most beloved revolutionary, Vasil Levski. He urged Bulgarians to draw an example from the people who fought to achieve their statehood. 

Koprivshtitsa, a small town in Central Bulgaria, played a key role in the uprising where the first gunshot was produced to mark its beginning. It was also a cultural center for Bulgarians during the so-called Bulgarian revival in the 19th century, while the country was still under Ottoman rule, with a number of schools and churches built there by an emerging "middle class".

The uprising was cracked down by the Ottomans, but raised awareness among Europeans of the atrocities committed by the army, killing thousands of innocent people, and paved the way to legitimize Russia's move to liberate Bulgaria in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878.