Panayot Hitov

Who was Panayot Hitov?

Panayot Ivanov Hitov was a Bulgarian hajduk, national revolutionary and voivode.

Born in 1830 in Sliven, he became a hajduk in Georgi Trankin's band of rebels in 1858. Two years later, after the death of Trankin, Hitov succeeded him as voivode of the band, which became one of the most active in southeastern Bulgaria. Some of his subordinates included Hadzhi Dimitar, Stoyan Papazov and Dyado Zhelyu. Around 1864–1865, Hitov began to regard his actions as part of the national liberation movement, and was in correspondence with Georgi Sava Rakovski. In 1864, while in Serbia, he gathered band members among the Bulgarians in Kragujevac and Belgrade and moved to the region of Berkovitsa and Pirot. According to Rakovski's plan as presented in "1867 Provisional Law on the National and Forest Bands", Hitov was to be the chief Bulgarian voivode.

Following Rakovski's death on April 28, 1867, Hitov entered Bulgaria from Romania at Tutrakan with a band of thirty, the band's standard-bearer being Vasil Levski. With his band, Hitov headed to the Balkan Mountains and spent some time around Kotel and Sliven. His band did not have the goal to organize an uprising, but to whip up support for an organized resistance against the Ottoman rule among the Bulgarians.