Nikolai Kolev-Bosia passes away

Nikolai Kolev-Bosia has passed away, his relatives announced on Tuesday.

Nikolai Ganchev Kolev, known as Nikolai Kolev-Bosia ("The Barefoot"), was born on May 4, 1951 in Stara Zagora. He was a Bulgarian dissident, poet and journalist.

He graduated from the Language High School in Stara Zagora in 1969, after which he studied Russian philology at Sofia University. In 1975, he joined the State Puppet Theatre in Stara Zagora as a trainee actor. The following year, he interrupted his work there and found jobs as a welder, a porter and a builder. He returned to the theatre in 1978, already as an assistant director, and stayed there until 1981, when he was appointed a reporter at BNR - Stara Zagora. Later, he worked at the chemical plant in his hometown and as a carpenter. He founded the first independent trade union in the country.

Before November 10, 1989, he was imprisoned several times in Stara Zagora and Sofia prisons. His first hunger strikes date from then.

In the period from 1989 to 1997 Kolev worked as a freelance journalist, after which he engaged in advertising, literature and public activity. He was chairman of the Independent Society for the Defence of Human Rights from June 1990 to July 1992.

Before the changes of 1989 he had two self-published books of poetry. After that he published several books, including Nocturne and Mirror. He is the author of jokes and epigrams about the communist leader Todor Zhivkov and over two thousand publications.