Levski was not only an unsurpassed organizer of the Bulgarian national revolution, but its ideologist as well. Although he was not one of the educated Bulgarian revolutionaries, he had the advantage of a thorough knowledge of his people's problems, a clever mind and political realism.

This is how he specified the goal of the forthcoming struggles in the Statute of the revolutionary organization: 'A common revolution should transform radically the present despotic-tyrannical system and should exchange it for a democratic republic (popular government).' The statute worked out by Levski was ap-proved by the general meeting convened in Bucharest in the spring of 1872. It was decided that the form of the future government should be decided by the people itself after the liberation, but Levski had a categorical opinion on this issue: 'A pure and sacred republic'.

The Bulgarian national-revolutionary movement was characterized by its democratic and popular nature. It was alien to all forms of chauvinism and was imbued with Hristo Botev — a great poet and revolutionary, fighter for Bulgaria's national liberation profound respect for the other peoples, including the Turkish people. The Bulgarian national-revolutionaries solemnly declared in their programme that they were 'not rising against the Turkish people, but against the Turkish government', that they considered as 'friends all peoples and nations which are sympathetic with our sacred cause' and that they wanted 'to live in peace with the neighbouring Balkan people and to establish together with them a democratic Balkan federation.'

Turkish authorities

Levski returned to Bulgaria immediately after the closure of the general meeting in Bucharest, as a representative of the newly-elected Central Committee, which was headed by Lyuben Karavelov. At the year's end, however, after the Turkish post office in the Arabakonak Pass was raided and robbed, something about which Levski had had no previous knowledge and which was organized by his adventure-seeking and stubborn deputy Dimiter Obshti, the Turkish authorities started arrests among the activists of the revolutionary organization. Levski was wanted by the Turkish authorities, but he cared little about his personal safety and with a selflessness characteristic of him he set about saving what he could. He went to Lovech where he intended to hide the archives of the organization, but he was betrayed by a member of the Lovech committee – Priest Krustyu, and was seized at the Kukrina Inn on the road between Lovech and Sevlievo.

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