Simeon Kovachev

His Excellency Simeon Kovachev
Formal Portrait taken in 1958
President of Tengaria
In office November 14, 1958 – January 2, 1983
Deputy	Boris Goga (1958-1966) Rumeon Slanev (1966-1977) Vasil Radev (1977-1983)
Preceded by	Simeon Radez Rumen Santov (Disputed)
Succeeded by	Dimitri Kovachev Vasil Radev (acting President)
Head of the National Rally
In office April 13, 1957 – January 2, 1983
Deputy	Ivan Ivanev
Preceded by	Position Established
Succeeded by	Dimitri Kovachev
Head of the Tengarian Provisional Government
In office May 14, 1956 – November 13, 1958
Regent of Empire of Tengaria
In office September 3, 1930 – November 14, 1935
Monarch	Dragomir III
Count of Strelsti
In office May 13, 1930 – January 2, 1983
Preceded by	Position Established
Succeeded by	Bogomil Kovachev
Personal details
Born	Simeon Vasil Kovachev (1901-04-17)April 17, 1901 Stelsti, Istros Tengaria
Died	January 2, 1983(1983-01-02) (aged 81) Lenovo, Lenovo Tengaria
Nationality	Tengaria
Political party	National Rally
Height	6 ft 2 in (188 cm)
Spouse(s)	Teodora Denov (m. 1924)
Children	Gregori Kovachev Milena Kovacheva Olga Kovacheva Petar Kovachev Dimitri Kovachev
Parents	Boris Kovachev (father) Sofia Kovacheva (mother)
Education	Sila Military School
Alma mater	Tengarian Military Academy
Military service
Allegiance	Tengaria
Branch/service	Tengarian Imperial Army Tengarian National Army
Years of service	1920-1930 1930-1958
Rank	Field Marshal

Simeon Vasil Kovachev (Tengarian: Симеон Васил Ковачев; April 17 1901-January 2 1983) was an important Tengarian statesman who was the founder and commander of the Tengarian National Army, the leader of the Tengarian Resistance during the Great War, the head of two Tengarian provisional governments, founder of the National Rally political movement, the writer of Tengaria's second and current Constitution and sixth President of the Republic of Tengaria from 1958 until his death in 1983. One of Tengaria's national heroes, he is considered the most important Tengarian statesman of the Republican era.

Born in Stelsti as the only son of middle-class military family, Simeon followed in his father's footsteps from a young age. He was sent to a military boarding school as a boy in Istros, and later was accepted and educated in the Imperial Military Academy in the same city. During this stage of his life he became acquainted with the Znaniya School and adopted their Teleological philosophy, which would play an important role throughout the rest of his life and political career. He excelled at his studies, graduating at the top of his class and earning himself a prime commission as an infantry officer in the Imperial Army in 1920. Already a Podpolkovnik by the time of the outbreak of the Great War in 1927, he orchestrated several brilliant victories on the Ravnian Front, and was ennobled, awarded and promoted, quickly gaining a reputation for his strategic mind. He rose through the ranks quickly and by 1929 was promoted as Tengaria's youngest general at the age of 28. The war turned against Tengaria on the Amathian Front, and upon the immiment defeat of the Tengaria in 1930, Emperor Dragomir III named Kovachev as Regent. Kovachev gathered as much of the forces as he could from the Ravnian Front and strategically retreated to the hills of Visoclesia, and there he proclaimed the remnants as the Tengarian National Army and spearheaded the Tengarian Resistance against the Amathian occupation. With Soravian support later in the war, he was able to finally reclaim Tengaria from Amathian Control and worked to rebuild Tengaria. However, Soravia mandated that liberated Tengaria become a Republic, and so after he brought stability to the country, he resigned from his position as Regent, but continued to serve as the Field Marshal of the Army.

During the Early Tengarian Republic, Kovachev remained aloof from the political scene, as partisan factionalism became rampant and out of control. As the primary hero from the war, he was massively popular with most of the country. His monarchist and conservative views were at odds with the the republican statesmen of the time, who saw his ideals and his popularity as a potential threat. However, despite having enemies, he kept the army loyal to him and was able to retain his position. When factionalism eventually descended into the Tengarian Civil War, Kovachev led the National Army in assisting the loyalists. After the assassination of President Radev, Kovachev assumed power as the provisional head of government. He defeated the rebels to end the civil war and then stabilized the country in the aftermath of the war. He founded the National Rally in order to end partisan conflict and to strengthen national unity. In addition, Kovachev wrote Tengaria's second constitution based upon a model reflective of the political ideals of the ancient authors Xenagoras and Theocritus. he was elected as Tengaria's President in 1958, with National Rally taking control of the government. As President, he began to implement his philosophic ideals into the way Tengaria was run upon the ideals of the Znaniya School. He made firm connections between Episemialism to the state as the state religion and made policy to support it. In addition, repaired and nationalized many aspects of Tengaria's broken economy and brought the country out of debt to a working surplus. He served as President until his peaceful death in 1983, when his son Dimitri succeeded him as President.

Kovachev left a powerful legacy in his wake. His popularity as a war hero compounded with a successful presidency firmly implanted a postitive image in the minds of the Tengarian people. Since his death, Tengaria has continued to be dominated by his descendants and his political movement. His successors have promoted and fostered Simeon's image in order to solidify their own power base. In Tengaria, Kovachev is widely revered and respected both as a political figure and as a holy man. Many in Tengaria widely revere him as a Saint, and the Tengarian Church is making an investigation into his glorification. However, outside Tengaria, receptions of him are mixed. Most Eastern countries think of him as a benevolent dictator, who while concerned for the good of his country, implemented repressive policies and stifled democracy. He has been called a modern example of Theocritus's Philosopher king both positively and pejoratively.

Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Ivan Istina, Kovachev's tutor and founder of the Znaniya School.

Simeon was born the fifth child and only surviving son of Boris Kovachev, a middle-class military officer in the Tengarian Imperial Army, in 1901. His family hailed from the town of Stelsti in the southern region of the Empire of Tengaria, near the city of Istros. He would often read alone rather than play with his older sisters and other children, and is said to have been a quiet and serious child. He had a keen and sharp intellect, learning to read by age 4. As their only son, his parents were ready to invest money in him to get him a good education. When he was five, his parents hired a tutor to teach him. The teacher happened to be a young and brilliant philosopher and polymath Ivan Istina, a native of Istros who taught Simeon but was also taking a sabbatical in order to do research and contemplate in leisure. Through this, Simeon was already exposed at a very young age to the basics of a liberal education, mastering Euclid's elements, among other things. Simeon took to his studies quite well, already showing a deep love for the intellectual life. After three years Istina left to go back to Istros and teach his philosophy to the the Agora. Simeon, already ahead of his peers and a precocious student, was accepted into the Sila military school in the city of Lenovo at the age of eight.

At the school, he consistently and diligently applied himself to his studies and duties, and was consistently at the top of his class. However, he did not make any friends, and modern historians now associate that he might have been bullied by the other boys at the school, although this did not affect his studies. The fact that he was lower class than many of the students and his quiet disposition also probably hindered him from making friends. His classmates later reported that he was quiet, serious, and distant from everyone else, preferring to study and to read in his room over social events. He did engage in athletic activities with the other students, although his interaction with them caused him to not fit well into team sports. However, he preformed well in individual sports he was a strong wrestler and runner. He graduated the Sila School at the top of his class at age 16, and was accepted into the Tengarian Military Academy in the city of Istros.

Tengarian Military Academy

The Tengarian Military Academy in Istros.

Life at the Military Academy was different than the life at the Sila School. Although the Sila school was also run by the military, the Military Academy was a school which focused on developing good military officers in addition to just educating. As such, although Simeon excelled at the athletics and his duties, he ran into trouble with his leadership qualities and communal life. His teachers, recognizing his intellectual brilliance, told him he would make a poor officer if he could not get along with his men. His first year at the Academy was plagued by these issues, and the discouragement which he felt soon began to affect his life. Eventually his studies suffered slightly as well, and his grades dropped him several places. While his life had not completely fallen apart and he was still in the top group of students, by the end of the year he no longer was the top student of the class.

After the completion of the first year, he remained over the break in the city of Istros, and became re-acquainted with the Ivan Istina and the other philosophers of the Znaniya School, who offered free lectures and discourse in the Agora. His old tutor agreed to help teach him both the study of ethics and of rhetoric, so that he could better cultivate the abilities a good soldier should have. Soon he was a regular frequenter of the School, and not only took his tutor's teaching, but also firmly embraced their Teleological philosophy. He decided especially to become Xenagoras's ideal of the virtuous man laid out in the Ethics. Not only did he become a disciple of the school, but he also was able to use the school to begin to make friendships with other students interested in their philosophy, and was able to better learn how to engage with others and refine his speech.

The next term, both his classmates and teachers were astonished by his change. Although still in his working stages, he became more active with the communal life of the school, and began to make friends and to establish relationships with his fellow cadets. He once again climbed to top of his class, and also continued going to lectures at the Agora in his free time. After continuing his studies for another two years, he graduated the Academy at in 1920 at the top of his class, and was granted a commission as an officer in the Tengarian Imperial Army as a Starshi Leytenant. His connections from the school and his prodigious talent seemed ready to grant him a promising career. He was placed in command of a unit of light infantry in Tengaria's First Division, which were the most well trained and best equipped of the Tengarian Military, mostly comprised of fast-moving light infantry skilled in fighting in rough terrain.

Military Career

Early Service

First recorded picture of Kovachev as a young officer.

The first 7 years of his service saw Tengaria at peace. As such he saw no active service, but instead spent his first years as an officer learning how to command and how to lead the men under his command. He was a popular commander, and tried to get to know each and every one of his men, often eating and drinking with them. However, he also at the same time had a reputation for being strict, setting a high bar for his men and punishing those who were not diligent about their duties. He also worked diligently along with his men, in order to be an example. His units had the reputation of being severe but well run and ordered. This combined with his high promise seen by the general staff saw him get promoted several times during his early career- to Kapitan by age 22, Mayor by age 24, Podpolkovnik by age 26, the youngest in the army. His success was unprecedented in the army, but his career was watched with great interest by the command staff and with envy by many of the other officers. Word of his rise even reached the ears of Dragomir III, the Emperor, who invited him to the Imperial Palace to come visit him on several occasions, and during one of these visits he was made a Knight in the Order of Saint Vasil by the Emperor.

During one of these assignments in the city of Lenovo at the age of 22, he met and became acquainted with Teodora Denov at a soldier's ball. Teodora came from a middle-class family and whose father was a part of Imperial administration. The two began a friendship and exchanged letters, meeting with each other when an assignment brought him to the capital. The relationship between them grew stronger, and the couple were married in 1924. Their relationship was a happy one, and although Simeon's duties kept him occupied most of the time, but he began to take more leave in order to spend time with his wife. The two owned a house in Lenovo, although Teodora would often make the journey to visit her husband's posts while he was on duty as well. Eventually Teodora became pregnant and their first child was born in 1926, a son, who was named Gregori. Less than a year after his son was born, the Great War broke out across Euclea and the rest of the world. He would not see his family again until the war's conclusion.

The Great War

Kovachev with his men during the early stages of the war.

With the outbreak of the Great War in February of 1927, Tengaria entered into the war on the side of the Grand Alliance. Kovachev was immediately called into action. After bidding his family farewell, he was deployed on the Ravnian Front as one of the chief officers in the First Division, on the far northern edge of the front along the shores of Lake Min. In the first months of the war, Kovachev's forces made several important gains into Ravnian territory around the shore of Lake Min. Most notable of these was his unit's spearhead assault on Fort Min, a Ravnian fort on the shores of Lake Min, with minimal casualties. For this victory he was promoted to Polkovnik, and moved up to commanding his regiment since his commander was killed during the assault. His forces were able to seize the fort and hold it against a Ravnian counterattack. He was awarded the St. George Medal by the Emperor for his courage in battle, the second highest award for Tengarian bravery.

The Tengarian line made significant advances during the first part of the war, and Kovachev's unit was no exception. However, the Ravnians eventually began to deploy reinforcements, halting the Tengarian advance and turning the front into a stalemate. Only in the very north on the shores of Lake Min was any real progress made, as Tengarian's elite infantry continued to beat the Ravnian forces. However, they could not advance too far, elsewise they would overextend and become cut off from the line and destroyed. Thus for streches of months, Kovachev's units were forced to remain in the same general vicinity as the rest of the line crept at a snail's pace. Since his troops were specialized in rapid warfare, they constantly moved around to keep effectiveness. His troops moved from position to position, constantly harrying Ravnian forces and inflicting minor hit and run defeats on them. Even as they continued to do well, news reached them that the rest of the front was only slowly gaining on the Ravnians, and that the Ravnians were holding back the advancing Tengarian forces quite well. And so the stalemate continued on, without major change on either side. To make matters worse, news that the Eastern Front against the Amathians was faring poorly did not encourage the soldiers.

In the waning days of 1927, Kovachev's forces were engaging in a skirmish with Ravnian forces. A Ravnian pillbox was pinning down most of his men, preventing them from moving on, and inflicting heavy casualties. Several attempts to take the pillbox failed, until Kovachev personally led an assault on a Ravnian pillbox, taking it out of commission, and was wounded in the right shoulder while bringing back wounded men from the previous assaults back to the line. Simeon was hospitalized for a few months off of the front as he healed from his wound, not arriving back on the front until April of 1928. For this act of heroism, Kovachev was granted the Tengarian Golden Cross, the highest decoration for valour in Tengaria, and was also elevated to a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Vasil. Because of this, Kovachev also secured a promotion to Brigaden general, taking command of an entire brigade.

Kovachev when awarded his Tengarian Golden Cross.

In the Summer of 1928, as a last ditch effort to break the Ravnian front to commit more troops to the Eastern Front, Tengarian forces launched an offensive to break the stalemate on the Ravnian Front. Operation Nakovalnya initially was successful, pushing back the line somewhat, but stagnated along most of the line. However, in the northern portion of the front, Kovachev's brigade and other forces broke through the Ravnian line, causing the northern portion of the Ravnian line to collapse. Continuing to hit hard, the First Division continued to inflict losses and secure important objectives from Ravnia before coming to a halt when they could go no further without overextension. For his actions during the campaign, Kovachev was promoted to General-mayor, finally coming to command the entire First Division. While the Operation had been a success, men vital to the integrity of the Ravnian front were moved to counter the further advances of the Amathians. The Ravnian front, especially around the south, was now weakened, and began to be pushed back slowly towards the south. The forces on the northern flank, however, were able to hold against the Ravnian forces.

As the war continued, the situation became worse for Tengaria. The Amathians continued to advance, taking the city of Drangovo the winter of 1929. At the beginning of spring in 1930, the Ravnian forces smashed through the southern flank of the Ravnian front, causing the Tengarian forces to collapse and retreat northwards. Their path exposed, Ravnian forces were able to march into Krasiv and attack Tengaria from the west. Now with the South exposed, most of the Tengarian forces began to be beaten back on two fronts, as the enemy approached closer and closer to the capital of Lenovo. However, the forces to the north held against Ravnian assaults. The Emperor, seeing the crisis, promoted Kovachev to full rank general, placed him in charge of the remnants of the Ravnian Front, and ennobled him, naming him the Count of Stelsti. Despite his new commands, all Kovachev could do was check Ravnian assaults, keeping them from reaching Vasilgrad and keeping Lenovo from being attacked in the west. However, in order to do this, he had to withdraw all his troops from the progress points they had made in the Ravnian front. The Amathian forces still continued to press on, laying siege to the capital in late August.

By the beginning of September, the city was almost certain to fall. The Amathians were heavily pressing the cities, and most of the other Tengarian armies had been captured or had surrended. As a proven loyalist to the Empire and in command of the largest remaining portion of Tengarian soldiers, the Emperor named Kovachev as the Regent of the Tengarian Empire while he went on his infamous expedition to Soravia. Finally, on September 6, the city of Lenovo fell. Kovachev learned that he had been named as the Regent in Dragomir's absence. Knowing about the fall of the capital city, he took his remaining forces and withdrew to the rugged hills of Visoclesia. He determined that he would fight until the bitter end, and decided to rename the remnants of forces which he led as the Tengarian National Army. By the end of October, his forces had established themselves in the North, and prepared to fight a guerilla war.

Personal Life

Family

Main Article: Kovachev Family

Kovachev is regarded as the head and founder of the Kovachev political family

Quotes

"If I die, know that I die for for God and for the good of my fatherland. This war is horrible- I could never love war for its own sake. I have seen my men die in front of my eyes, torn apart by artillery and gunfire. It is ugly and disgusting. But at the same time, it is glorious, based on account of the good which it aims. I will lay down my life for this greater good, for the sake of the preservation of the nobility which our fatherland stands for. This is my honor and my sacred duty, and greatest gift I can make of my life."

-Letter to Tedora Kovacheva from the Ravnian frontline, March 29, 1928

Titles and Honours

His Excellency Simeon Kovachev, President of Tengaria

Tengaria: Knight of the Collar of Order of St. Vasil
Tengaria: Knight Commander of the Order of St. Boris
Tengaria: Tengarian Golden Cross
Tengaria: St. George Medal