Ekaterina Karavelova – For Such a Time as This

What am I doing with my life? What is my purpose? We ask ourselves these questions all the time. Am I really contributing to make a difference? Wrestling with such questions is a fundamental key to what it means to be a human being.

The more I read life stories, the more I learn that the things that define us and give our lives purpose often happen by unexpected accident. It seems that the most important thing is to be prepared to recognize and respond to that moment when it comes.

Ekaterina Karavelova is someone who was, at age 83, at the right place at the right time with the right credentials to play a part in saving the lives of roughly 50,000 Bulgarian Jews. 

On May 25, 1943, Rabbi Hananel and two women visited Ekaterina Karavelova, asking her to give a crucial letter to King Boris III. The letter demanded that the king permanently suspend deporting Jews from Bulgaria to concentration camps in Nazi occupied areas. Immediately, Ekaterina signed the letter and stepped out into the night to bring it to the king’s sister, Princess Evdokia. 

A single act. A small thing. She was in a position to do it. She did it right away, without hestitation. She had the clout thanks to all of the things she’d worked on so passionately throughout her life. 

The lesson is that you do not know when, or at what age, your small action will make a big difference. Do everything you can to be ready to act when the time comes. 

Ekaterina was born in Ruse, Bulgaria on the Danube River on October 21, 1860. After her father died, Ekaterina went to Moscow, Russia to live with a prominent, intellectual family. She returned to Ruse to teach and married Petlo Karavelov, who was the Prime Minister of Bulgaria during the Serbo-Bulgarian War and the Bulgarian Unification. 

“Seeing her husband’s absent-mindedness, Ekaterina Karavelova accompanied him everywhere. She acted as his personal secretary, taking notes during meetings, as well as writing reports,”  (Tsvetana Kyoseva. The First Ladies. 2010).

Ekaterina impressed Bulgarian statesmen with her efficient calm in a crisis during turbulent times as her husband went from the extremes of Prime Minister to teacher to Prime Minister again to imprisonment and torture. Ekaterina was accused and tried because she wrote pamphlets that were critical of the regime. 

Ekaterina translated a number of classic works of literature from French and Russian into Bulgarian. She was a prolific writer, authoring over fifty pamphlets and articles. During WWI, Ekaterina organized a hospital at the Military Academy. 

Ekaterina’s daughter, Lora Karavelova, married national poet Peyo Yavorov. Romantic and impulsively passionate, Peyo and Lora committed suicide in 1914.

Ekaterina founded Maika (Mother), a women’s cultural organization, and was a co-founder of the Bulgarian Women’s Union, chairwoman of the Bulgarian section of the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom, co-founder of the Bulgarian-Romanian Association, a Macedonian delegate in London, a Bulgarian delegate in Washington DC, co-founder of the Bulgarian Writers Association, and member of the Committee for the Protection of Jews. 

Today, a women and children’s center in Silistra, Bulgaria, a women’s empowerment academy based out of Sofia, Bulgaria, and Karavelova Point in Antarctica are named for her. 

SOURCES:

Konstantinova, Daniela. 150^th birth anniversary of Ekaterina Karavelova. Radio Bulgaria. October 20, 2010.

Roshkeva, Reneta. “Ekaterina Karavelova.” Biographical Dictionary of Women’s Movements and Feminisms in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe. Edited by Francisca de Haan, Krasimira Daskalova, Anna Loutfi. Central European University Press: 2006, pp. 231-234.