Georgi Obretenov

Georgi Tihov Obretenov was born in 1848 in the town of Rousse. He is the youngest son of baba Tonka Obretenova (key character in the Bulgarian history). Georgi Obretenov finished the local school and then started assisting his father with his trade in the village of Isakcha (Northern Dobrudja). In the spring of 1870 he entered the cadet school in Odessa. He came back to Rousse in 1875 to take part in the just started preparation of the uprising. He joined the Veliko Tarnovo Committee. After the failure of the Stara Zagora uprising in 1875 he went to Romania. The Gyurgevo Committee appreciated the training of Georgi Obretenov and sent him as an assistant apostle to Ilarion Dragostinov and military trainer in Second Sliven Revolutionary District during the April Uprising. Georgi Obretenov decided to leave Sliven and to move to another revolutionary district. Along with the armoury, he carried revolutionary proclamations, statutes, a rebel’s flag and poems. Later he turned back to Sliven and gave a new impetus to the preparations. The military trainer brought to Sliven modern rifles. The leaders of the rebels’ group – Ilarion Dragostinov, Georgi Obretenov and Georgi Drazhev, decided despite the small number of rebels to realize the plan for touring and upraising the villages in the Kotel district. Trying to go to the village of Neikovo for food supply, the rebels’ detachment was attacked by bashi-bazouks, regular army and Circassian cavalry. Withdrawing, the band kept fighting. Georgi Obretenov with his precise shooting held back the Ottomans’ rush and covered his fellows, whose old and ineffective arms could not help them in the battle. Realizing he was deadly injured Georgi Obretenov killed himself on 10 May 1876.