Revolutionary Branislav Veleshki

Georgi Atanasov Levkov, known by the pseudonym Branislav Veleshki, was a Bulgarian revolutionary and activist in the Bulgarian national liberation movement. He was born in 1834 in the village of Karabunishte in the Veles district of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1862, Georgi Levkov participated in the First Bulgarian Legion in Belgrade, Serbia, where he became a close associate of Georgi Rakovski and served as his bodyguard until Rakovski's death in 1867. He continued his revolutionary activities after 1867 under the name Branislav Veleshki, settling in Bucharest, Romania. There he carried out various tasks for the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee and supported Lyuben Karavelov's publishing work. In 1869–1870 and again in 1875 he worked on the editorial staff of the newspaper "Tapan" (Drum), and in 1869 he was also its formally responsible editor. He collaborated with the circle around Hristo Botev.

In 1876, Branislav Veleshki volunteered in the Serbo-Turkish War, and in 1877 he joined the Fourth Battalion of the Bulgarian Volunteer Corps in the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation. He distinguished himself in the fighting at Shipka, where he was wounded by a bullet.

After the Liberation in 1878, he lived and worked in Plovdiv as a postman. He participated in preparing and carrying out the Unification of 1885. He became a member of the Plovdiv liberation veterans'—