User:Georgevassilev/Georgi Vassilev (Svilengrad)

Georgi Vassilev with noms de guerre Georgi Kurtev (Георги Куртев), Selvie (Селвие) or Selvii (Селвий) was a Bulgarian revolutionary, activist in the Internal Macedonian-Adrianopolitan Revolutionary Organisation (IMARO)  (Вътрешната македоно-одринска революционна организация).

Biography
Born in 1880 in Svilengrad (Bulgarian- Свиленград)which had been in the Ottoman Empire at the time. In 1899 he graduated from the Bulgarian Men's High School "Doctor Petar Beron" in Adrianople (present day Edirne, Turkey). There he joined the IMARO in 1899. He worked as a teacher in Svilengrad where he became a member of the regional IMARO committee. . Later he moved to Edirne (Одрин), where he taught at the Bulgarian "Petar Beron" high school and concurrently served as the secretary of the Edirne Regional Revolutionary Committee (Одринския окръжен революционен комитет) from 1900 until 1901.

In 1901 he was sent to serve as teacher at the Dedeağaç (currently Alexandroupoli, Greece) junior high school so he could spread the influence of the Edirne Committee among the activists in the Gümülcine (currently Komotini, Greece) and Ahicelebi (currently Smolyan, Bulgaria) regions, who were attempting to establish an autonomous revolutionary region along the coast of the Sea of Marmara.

Vassilev substituted the previous organization leader, Georgi Marinov (Георги Маринов), who suffered serious health issues. Vassilev reorganized the existing revolutionary committees according to the charter directives and resolutions of the IMARO rulebook in the spirit of the regional committee's recommendations.

He placed active and well-prepared people at the helm. He established connections with the leader of the Chepelare region (Чепеларе) Konstantin Antonov (Константин Антонов) and met with Hristo Karamandzhukov (Христо Караманджуков) at the beginning of December 1901. The two decided to call a congress of the revolutionaries from the Edirne region to discuss activities in the area and to delegate leadership roles to regional legal and illegal activists. This planned congress didn't take place around Christmas in Turnovo Seimen (Търново Сеймен), now Simeonovgrad, Bulgaria, because only Vassilev (Василев), Karamandzhukov (Караманджуков), Lazar Madzharov (Лазар Маджаров), and Alexandar Kiprov (Александър Кипров) appeared. The congress took place at Easter of the following year in Plovdiv as the Plovdiv Congress (Пловдивски конгрес).

Vassilev was a delegate at the regional congress at Petrova Niva (Конгрес на Петрова Нива) in 1903, which made the decision to launch the Ilinden-Preobrazhenie Uprising. In 1905 he led the IMARO branch in Haskovo (Хасково).

Georgi Vassilev's grandson is the renowned Bulgarian opera singer Assen Vassilev.