Who is Pena Tsvetkovska? Pena was born around 1820 in Chelopek. Her husband's name was Iliya Tsvetkovski, from where, according to local tradition, she is called Iliytsa. Iliya's grandfather came to these places around 1780 from the village of Osenovlag. Iliya was a shepherd like his ancestors. He married Pena. First Iliya built a hut under the Okolchitsa peak, where they lived and looked after the sheep. Later, after years he build a house in Chelopek. Pena was a very hardworking woman and very religious. When the priests from the Cherepish Monastery came to Chelopek for baptisms and weddings, they stayed in her home. After the defeat of Botev's detachment in 1876, she saved one of Botev's rebel, putting her own life at risk. Iliya and Pena had three children - two sons and a daughter. Their son Ivan also had two boys - Dano and Tseno. It was Dano who was the sick grandson that Grandma Iliytsa brought to the Cherepish Monastery that night so that the abbot could read to him for health. Although Pena blasphemously stole a priest's cassock for the rebel, the grandson came to life. Pena Tsvetkovska died about 3 years after the Liberation. In the story "A Bulgarian Woman", the rebel died in battle, but Pena Tsvetkovska's heirs tell a different story. They told that one Botev's rebel came to Chelopek to look for her and thank her. This happened in 1903. The rebel asked everyone in the village about his savior, but found out that she had died. The rebel found her relatives and expressed his gratitude. Now a museum of Grandma Iliytsa has been built in the village of Chelopek. An ethnographic exhibition is arranged in a small house in the Bulgarian Renaissance style, with many of the objects donated by the numerous descendants of Pena Tsvetkovska, who still live in the village.
The story “A Bulgarian Woman” was published in 1899 in the magazine “Bulgarian Collection” under the title “Chelopek Forest”, but later (in 1902) it was included in the collection “Motley wold” under the name “A Bulgarian Woman”. The main character, grandmother Iliytsa, rushed to the monastery with her half-alive grandson when she unexpectedly met a wounded rebel. To help him, she crossed the river, went to the monastery, returned and crossed the Iskar again to give him clothes and bread. Soon after, the rebel died in battle. In 1899, Ivan Vazov passed through the Cherepish Monastery searching for the burial place of Hristo Botev and visited the village of Chelopek. Here he learned the story of the Bulgarian woman Pena Tsvetkovska, who had risked her life to save one of the rebels from Botev’s detachment.
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