[ad_1]
Yordana Belicheva was 18 when she received 101 years in prison
The Edirne court sentenced the daring Rhodope Yordana Belicheva from the Smolyan village of Alamidere, now Colonel Serafimovo, to 101 years in prison. Deli / Crazy / Dana, as people called her, stood in court to hide committees and possess a bomb that did not explode. In 1906, the house of the then 18-year-old was surrounded by about 200 Turkish soldiers. The reason was that he was suspected of hiding committees after his unsuccessful campaign to take money from Isoren’s Molaibryam tobacco merchant, Xanthi. The operation was unsuccessful because the trader had strong security. After their failure, with the help of their villager Shtavru Varadilov, who worked in the village, they captured Molaibryam’s son and brought him to the home of the widow Hristina Belicheva, Dana’s mother.
The merchant paid the soldier to free his son from the kidnappers. During the night of the siege, however, a skirmish ensued.
Dana found a bomb left by the guerrillas and put it to her chest. He lit the wick for the fire and threw it out the window at the soldiers. The blast was drenched with sweat and the bomb did not explode, but in the commotion some of the committees managed to escape. Shtavru Varadilov, who assisted in the kidnapping, was brought to town with broken legs after a brutal beating.
“Baba Dana is a big, masculine and crazy head. She defended her ideas. She was described to me as an extremely freedom-loving person,” said her great-grandson Mikhail Vassilev.
Authorities began the arrests the day after the Alamidere incident. Although some of the committees managed to cross the then border, which passed through the Rozhen Pass, almost all were captured. They were sentenced to between 2.5 and 15 years in prison. However, Jordan received a record and unusual even for that 101-year time. That night a committee was killed around the house. His body was brought to Smolyan for edification and warning to anyone who dared to stand up to the authorities. The entire group of detainees was questioned in Smolyan and brought to trial in Edirne. The process took several months. “Even when she was arrested, my grandmother irritated the army. A Turk grabbed her with his rifle near the town of Fatovo to go faster. She replied:” I will take a stone and break your head, no matter that it is tied with a chain “He behaved bravely and did not respond to questions from investigators and the court later,” Vassilev said. Aside from her actions, Dana had to answer to the Qadis and who heads the committees, where are they hiding and what are they hiding against the Sultan. They did not receive a single reply from the Rhodope woman, but said that the presence of Turks in her homeland made her drop the bomb and hide the committees. In his book “The Rhodope Comites Tell”, writer Nikolay Haitov describes Dana as extremely brave and determined.
At that time, his hometown and much of the Rhodopes were still under Turkish rule. Liberation and accession to Bulgaria did not occur until 1912.
Despite her huge sentence, Jordana spent little time in prison. In 1908, after the Young Turks coup, an amnesty was announced. So no one told the prisoners that they had been pardoned. They announced that the prison doors would open in 10 minutes and whoever managed to get out would be free, the others would go behind its walls. The prisoners stormed the door to escape, with such force that even people were crushed and killed. The Rhodope woman managed to escape alive and unharmed.
As he had no money to return to Colonel Serafimovo, they advised him to go to the Turkish Red Crescent and only against a receipt did they give him money, which he then returned through the Red Cross to our country.
“On the way back somewhere between Rudozem and Colonel Serafimovo, my grandmother saw a neighbor. She asked him to find her a white horse, covered with an elegant carpet. So he returned home in triumph,” said his great-grandson.
Deli Dana got engaged before she was convicted. Her husband Valcho, also arrested that night but released after that, nevertheless took pity on her quickly and found another woman. “She found him. They locked themselves in a room for about half an hour, then announced that their old engagement was falling apart and they got married,” said great-grandson Mikhail. She named her daughter after her “crazy” grandmother.
Wolf and Dana raised four children: Abram, Christ, George, and Elijah. They have been farmers all their lives. “Once a man came onto his property with his animals. He didn’t want to admit his guilt and take the animals out. My grandmother pulled a stake out of the fence with her hands and handled it as she knows,” says Mikhail.
Yordana Belicheva contracted cancer and died only two months later, in 1940, at the age of 51.
Coincidentally, the decisive battle for the liberation of the Rhodopes was fought on Mount Srednogorets, at its feet is the village of Alamidere. It was renamed in honor of the commander of the 21st Sredna Gora Regiment, Colonel Vladimir Serafimov. The famous general has a monument on the peak of Srednogorets and a commemorative plaque with his words in the center of the village. Next to the colonel’s is a Deli Dana plaque.
The Smolyan people of Colonel Serafimovo, then called Alamidere, honor the case of Deli Dana PHOTO: Valentin Hadjiev
Next to a commemorative plaque with the words of the liberator of the Rhodopes, Colonel Vladimir Serafimov, there is a commemorative sign for Yordana Belicheva PHOTO: Valentin Hadjiev
[ad_2]
