Revolutionary Hristina Hranova

Hristina Hranova Antonova (Tsenkova) is known as Bulgaria's first qualified practising midwife and the first female maritime lifesaver, called the Mother of Heroes.

She was born in the village of Klisura into a large family of eighteen children. Five of her brothers died in the Russo-Turkish War and four in the Serbo-Bulgarian War defending Bulgaria's Unification. As a young woman she joined the national liberation movement and served as a secret courier for the revolutionary committees in Sofia, Panagyurishte and Lovech. She also participated in the April Uprising in 1876, fighting alongside the men and surviving the brutal massacre in Batak.

In 1881 she began studying midwifery in Kyiv, graduating with distinction. After completing her studies she returned to Bulgaria and began working as a midwife in Sofia, Lom and Silistra, and was later appointed to Varna, where she spent much of her career.

Hristina Hranova was not only Bulgaria's first practising midwife but also became the first female maritime lifesaver in the country and the world. Between 1895 and 1897 she saved the lives of fifty-four people at risk of drowning in the sea. In 1907 she received the silver Order of Civil Merit and a cash award from Varna Municipality for the many babies she had delivered and the lives she had saved at sea.

In just two years, Hristina Hranova delivered an impressive 3,462 babies, working as a midwife and military doctor for nearly thirty years. She also participated in the Serbo-Bulgarian War as a fighter and nurse under Lieutenant Colonel Danail Nikolaev, continuing to serve as both soldier and doctor despite being wounded in the leg.

After her long career and service to the country, she received a modest lifetime national pension in 1918, but died in 1922 in extreme poverty and forgotten by the state, mourned only by a small circle of relatives and comrades-in-arms. Her grave was erased, and today there is no precise information about her burial place.