Христо Ботев като биографичен герой
Hristo Botev as seen by his biographers

Summary/Abstract: The paper is focused on the book “Hristo Botyov – an attempt for a biography” (1888) by Zachary Stoyanov. It is the first and probably the most popular biography of the poet and revolutionary. The creation of that book could be considered, alongside with the book “Works by Hristo Botyov”, edited and published by Z. Stoyanov as well, as an episode, part of a systematic project to install Botev into the then-rising heroic pantheon of Bulgarian history and culture. The biography text was reflected during the days of his publication and later on. Some of them, seen as signifying, are regarded in the current research work. According to certain authors, the biography of Botev by Stoyanov is written in idealized mode. Others claim, in contrary, that Hristo Botev was discredited by his first biographer. Reflections were obviously heterogeneous, and the reason for that is the fact that in the late XIX c. the Bulgarian national cultural canon was still in its formative period. Personal memory was still not transformed into cultural one, and the canonical image of the character, fashioning him into a national hero paradigm, was still not forged. Not only in Botev’s case, but also concerning the Bulgarian wide publicity and its historical imagery. That’s the main reason why these first biographies of Botev were not able to match the authors’ intentions on the level of the reception, and to emit fully positive image of Hristo Botev.

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