Hadzhiivanov, Krastyo (1929-1952

“I also loved great justice, a rebel I walked in the darkness of the night. But an evil tyrant pushed me into the grave, with meanness from an ambush killed me. He killed me and buried me without mercy, and I loved life without limit, I was strong, my blood was young and I wouldn't even die in my grave.” From Krastyo Hadzhiivanov’s poem, Tomb Vision.

“He is an anarchist, with anarchist thinking, principles and ideas, which he expresses and defends in his poetry”. His brother, Ivan.

Krastyo Georgiev Hadzhiivanov was born on December 25th, 1929 in the village of Kapatovo, Petrich Municipality, in Bulgaria.

He began writing poems when he was only six years old. He studied at the high school in Petrich from 1943 to 1947. He read Pushkin and French poets and writers in the original, wrote in shorthand and in Esperanto. He had an exceptional memory for poetry and knew entire excerpts from "Faust". In addition to being a poet, he performed as an acrobat and was called "the child without bones". He walked on his hands with his legs on his neck, did front and back somersaults, and was accomplished in running, long and high jump, according to his brother Ivan.

In 1944, at the age of 14, Hadzhiivanov became a partisan in the Alibotushka detachment. He carried weapons through the minefields. After the retreat of the Germans, he recited his poems, including Dawn, an optimistic and hopeful look at the future, calling for unity between Greeks and Bulgarians and a satire against Hitler and dictatorship, Hitler’s Victory, at rallies in Serres and Demirhishar. More than a hundred Bulgarian and Greek children and youth marched after him, singing. A Soviet officer present, a member of the NKVD, asked him to praise the Bolshevik idea, but he refused. He adopted anarchist communist ideas around this time.

After the Communists took power in 1944, he was given the offer of studying at the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow, but since he did not approve of the Stalinist regime, he refused, stating "I want to study in Paris, not in Moscow, because it is very close to Siberia", going on to say "I will not write an ode to Stalin, because he is a bigger bloodsucker than Hitler" and "I will never become a servant and executioner of any dictatorship, least of all Stalin's!" As a result, he was beaten by a secret policeman. In response, the students at his high school elected him as a representative at the national youth conference in Varna.

As a result of his uncompromising ideas, he became semi-legal during 1948-1949. He was beaten again and in March 1950 he was arrested and sent to the Blateshnitsa labour camp, then to the uranium mines in Seslavtsi. After the murder of a friend in a strike there in November 1950, he wrote The Murderers and on January 10, 1950 he wrote Siberia. He managed to escape from the camp in April 1951 and became illegal.

He was killed by State forces on June 27th, 1952 near the village of Chuchuligovo, by the Struma River. One version of his death has it that he came over the nearby border with Greece as a saboteur, another version is of the opinion that he had already been murdered by State security, and that his body was brought to the Struma river for a staged killing.

After his death, his family was savagely harassed, and his sister Veska aborted after interrogation and beating.
A three metre monument to him was erected at Chuchuligovo in 1999.

He wrote over 100 poems, 9 poems, and one unfinished novel, but none of his works were published during his lifetime. With the fall of the regime in 1989, his poetry began to be published and became popular.

Nick Heath