"Before I invented the "Trapeze of Death", I was known as Lazar Dobrich, that's the name they used on posters and programmes. The Señor of World Circus Art will always be remembered for the most risky act in the ring - the Trapeze of Death, with a hand outstretched towards the other world, but actually with a longing for the earthly in its extreme power, freedom and beauty.

From a young age, he practised on the bars and rings and loved to walk on his hands. Born in 1881 in the village of Ravno Pole in the Sofia region, the future circus artist discovered his vocation at the age of sixteen. He was in Paris at the time, a student on a scholarship at the Polytechnic School in the French town of Asnières. He spent everything he had left to buy a ticket.

"With all his money he bought the cheapest ticket to the Folies Bergère variety show," says Magdalena Gigova in the programme "Addresses of Love" on Radio Sofia, BNR. "The show featured the Romanian Dimitrescu troupe. During the interval, the young Bulgarian met one of the acrobats, Iv Florian, who introduced him to the boss. On the same day, Lazar left the school to join the Romanian troupe and travelled with them to Brussels. On 1 October 1897, he made his professional debut with the most dangerous act in the programme, the Salto Mortale. His success was incredible".

A year later, in the same Parisian music hall that had opened his eyes to his vocation, he fell into the darkness. Flying with outstretched arms from the top of the tent towards the safety net, he crashed into one of the supporting beams. "No need to hurry, he's dead," murmured one of the sleepy nurses as the medics rushed his limp body to the hospital. But the man under the canvas made a faint moan, and instead of being taken to the morgue, he was taken to the operating theatre.

Having miraculously survived death, he begins another flirtation with the Unbeatable Force, who seems to be testing his courage to see how close he can get. And she gives him the perfect idea.

"In 1905, Berlin was flooded with colourful posters," Magdalena Gigova continues. "Bold letters screamed: 'The Bulgarian Ivanov - Inventor of the 'Trapeze of Death'. Ivanov - that's Lazar Dobrich's surname, which sounded both more patriotic and easier to pronounce. The Schumann Circus was packed to the rafters, the 'Trapeze of Death' spun and the audience went wild. After that, circus directors competed to include Lazar Dobrich in their programmes.

In his book, The Death Leap, he describes the moment of inspiration that made him the most sought-after circus performer.

"One day I was walking through the fair in the Hungarian town of Papa, south of Budapest. I was watching the swing boats, the kind you see in amusement parks today. A young man, in his desire to outdo everyone else and impress his sweetheart, pushed his boat so hard that it went over the horizontal line. I continued to watch the boat, consumed by a thought - what if the horizontal support beam were replaced by a strong metal axle, the boat could flip over, if only someone could push it hard enough. Could I not do this and create an unprecedented, sensational act?"

He toured Europe, Asia and North America with his death-defying trapeze act. But to add drama to the show, he needed a lady - "young, slender, elegant and beautiful" - to introduce him to the audience and stand in the ring during the act. He was recommended a young circus rider who introduced herself: "My name is Minnie Nietzsche. My father was a scholar - a philosopher - but the struggle for life forced me to become a circus artist because I had no means to continue my education". When asked what her father's first name was, she replied "Friedrich". However, after the huge success of the tour in Germany, the assistant felt overshadowed by his fame and returned to her original role in the ring.

When mobilisation began, Lazar Dobrich, like many of his contemporaries, returned to Bulgaria, driven by a sense of patriotic duty. He fought in two wars - the Balkan War and World War I. Afterwards he continued to tour the world, achieving unprecedented success.

"Hundreds of thousands of kilometres lie behind me. I have circled the earth once, been baptised by the equator six times. I have seen the world from the top of Vesuvius, been caught in the violent storms of the Pacific Ocean and survived the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that killed 100,000 people," the newspaper Vecherni Novini quoted him as saying in 1969.

Meanwhile, life did not spare him his next ordeal.

He experienced a bad shipwreck - almost like the one on the 'Titanic'," adds Magdalena Gigova. After a trip to England, Lazar Dobrich and his troupe were to travel to Dresden and from there to the Netherlands. Suddenly a terrible storm broke out. He spoke to the boatswain, who told him that it would be a miracle if they reached the Dutch coast.

"I woke up in hospital - we were all deserters from the claws of death," he would recall after the shipwreck. With the compensation money, he commissioned the first "Trapeze of Death".

Although he was welcomed with open arms all over the world, he never forgot his homeland. In 1919, together with his brother Alexander, who was also a circus artist, he built the "Colosseum" circus in Sofia. He also founded the "Royal-Dobrich" circus, trained many of the circus artists in post-war Bulgaria and became the chief director of the "Bulgarian Circus Directorate".

He passed away at the age of 89, leaving the circus arts with the acts of "Jockey Riding", "Suspended Ropes", "Five Man Trapeze", "Persh", "The Ladder on Legs" and "Tightrope Dance". Today, his grandson Christopher Dobrich, who lives in the United States, is following in his grandfather's footsteps.