огнище Самосъзнание (Free People's Progressive Cultural Center of Self-Knowledge). She stated that the intent of the self-supporting organization would be to provide women and youth opportunities to improve their talents and develop skills to engage in cultural activities that would benefit the Bulgarian people. Her request was denied and the authorities declared the Patev family enemies of the people for their wealth and status as part of the Burgas elite. In 1947, when Nikola Petkov's death sentence was announced, Pateva sent correspondence to Georgi Dimitrov and Vasil Kolarov, demanding that the legislature abolish the death penalty. The letter produced dire consequences when both her home and her son Bozhan's factory were nationalized. Left without means of support, she wrote the government asking for a pension, which was denied. Death and legacy Pateva died penniless on 17 June 1955 in Sofia. In 1994, the women's organization she had founded and chaired for 20 years, Самосъзнание, was revived. In 2016, the Burgas Writers' House was adorned with a plaque honoring her. She is remembered, along with Anna Karima, as one of the two "most prominent leaders of the women's movement" in their era, according to historian, Krassimira Daskalova. References Citations Bibliography 1878 births 1955 deaths Bulgarian feminists Bulgarian human rights activists Writers from Burgas Bulgarian suffragists Pacifist feminists 20th-century Bulgarian women writers People from Sliven Province 19th-century Bulgarian writers 19th-century Bulgarian women International Congress of Women people