The Arabakonak robbery took place on an Ottoman postal ox-cart with security guards, transporting the tax revenues from the ''Orhanie region'' /the region of

Botevgrad Botevgrad ( bg, Ботевград ) is a town in western Bulgaria. It is located in Sofia Province and is close to Pravets. Botevgrad lies 47 km from Sofia. History and name The village was called Samundzhievo (Самунджиево) until ...

/ and the ''

Teteven Teteven ( bg, Тетевен, ) is a town on the banks of the Vit river, at the foot of Stara Planina mountain in north central Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the Teteven Municipality which is a part of Lovech Province. As of Decembe ...

region'' and was carried out on 22 September 1872 in the Arabakonak Pass,

Ottoman Bulgaria The history of Ottoman Bulgaria spans nearly 500 years, from the conquest by the Ottoman Empire of the smaller kingdoms emerging from the disintegrating Second Bulgarian Empire in the late 14th century, to the Liberation of Bulgaria in 1878. A ...

. The Arabakon robbery was organized by revolutionary committees of the Bulgarian

Internal Revolutionary Organization The Internal Revolutionary Organisation ( bg, Вътрешна революционна организация) or IRO was a Bulgarian revolutionary organisation founded and built up by Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski in the period between 1 ...

in Teteven,

Etropole Etropole ( bg, Етрополе, ) is a town in western Bulgaria, part of Sofia Province. It is located close to the northern slopes of the Balkan Mountains in the valley of the Iskar River, from Sofia. History The area was first settled by the ...

, Orhanie (now Botevgrad) and

Pravets Pravets or Pravetz ( bg, Правец, also transliterated as Pravec, ) is a town in Pravets Municipality in central western Bulgaria, located approximately from the capital Sofia. Pravets is home town of Pravetz computers. Pravets has a populat ...

Dimitar Obshti Dimitar Obshti ( bg, Димитър Общи) was a 19th-century Bulgarian revolutionary, who fought for the liberation of Bulgaria, Serbia and Crete from the Ottoman Empire, as well as for the ''Risorgimento'' of Italy. Biography Obshti was bor ...

was involved in the organization. This is not a criminal robbery, but a political one. The goal was to buy weapons for the nationwide uprising being prepared by the Internal Revolutionary Organization with the raised 125,000 ottoman groschen (1,250 ottoman gold pounds) — post factum it was

April Uprising of 1876 The April Uprising ( bg, Априлско въстание, Aprilsko vastanie) was an insurrection organised by the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire from April to May 1876. The regular Ottoman Army and irregular bashi-bazouk units brutally su ...

. The robbery was successful, but the Ottoman secret police managed to track down the perpetrators, and after hardships and persecution, they were eventually caught. The big problem and failure came from something else — the Ottoman government decided that Russian imperial intelligence was behind the rebels and appointed the Sofia Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry to investigate the robbery. Media noise and international repercussions are being created around the commission. In the end, a Russian connection was not proven, but one of the robbers,

, decided that he could provoke international attention and the intervention of the

great power A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power inf ...

s with the lawsuit, and issued the amount of the conspiracy with the Internal Revolutionary Organization. In the end, no international reaction followed, but the revelations seriously damaged and upset the Internal Revolutionary Organization, and

Vasil Levski Vasil Levski ( bg, Васил Левски, spelled in old Bulgarian orthography as , ), born Vasil Ivanov Kunchev (; 18 July 1837 – 18 February 1873), was a Bulgarian revolutionary who is, today, a national hero of Bulgaria. Dubbed t ...

was captured and hanged. In the new

Bulgarian history The history of Bulgaria can be traced from the first settlements on the lands of modern Bulgaria to its formation as a nation-state, and includes the history of the Bulgarian people and their origin. The earliest evidence of hominid occupation d ...

, this is one of the most tragic events and has been recreated many times artistically, including Milen Ruskov's novel —

Summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topography, topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used ...

from 2011 and the subsequent film of the same name from 2017, which turned out to be the most watched by Bulgarians from

Revolutions of 1989 The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...

.Freedom is an Illusion - Heights (Възвишение, 2017)
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References

See also