Panayot Chitov

Panayot Chitov

Panayot Ivanov Chitow ( Bulgarian Панайот Иванов Хитов * 11. November 1830 in Sliven ; † 22. March 1918 in Russe , today Bulgaria ) was a Bulgarian Heiducke , Voivod and freedom fighters during the Bulgarian National Revival .

Life

Panajot Chitow was born in 1830 in the southern Bulgarian "City of 100 Voivodes" in the Ottoman Empire at the time, the son of a wealthy sheep farmer. In 1858 he became Hajduke in the Tscheta of Georgi Trankin . Two years later, after Trankin's death, he was elected Cheetah leader by the other Hajduks. At that time his group was the most active in the whole of south-east Bulgaria. Under his leadership were, among others , Khadji Dimitar , Stojan Papazow and Djado Schelko . Between 1864 and 1865 he made contact with Georgi Rakowski , the ideologist of the Bulgarian struggle for freedom. It is also due to his influence that Chitov dissolved his Cheta in order to found a new one and put it at the service of the liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule. For this purpose, Chitow recruited fighters from the Bulgarian population in Belgrade and Kragujevac in 1864 . Under his leadership, the Cheta settled in the mountainous region around Pirot and Berkowiza to fight against the foreign rulers.

Because of his experience, Chitov was proclaimed by Rakovsky in the Temporary Law of the Cheetas for the summer of 1867 (Bulgar. "Привременен закон за народните и горски чети от 1867-лв. Лето"). With that, all Bulgarian Cheetas were under the military leadership of Chitow. Rakowski and Chitow aimed at coordinating military actions in the fight against the foreign rulers. After Rakowski's unexpected death on April 28, 1867, the grand plans failed.

Chitow continues the work in the spirit of Rakowski that Bulgaria can only be liberated militarily from the outside. He crossed the Romanian-Ottoman border in the direction of the Balkan Mountains in a 30-man Cheta near Oltenița - Tutrakan . The standard-bearer of the Cheta, which was active in the region around Sliven and Kotel , was Wasil Levski . Its aim was not to provoke another unprepared insurrection, but rather to create structures for a later, large-scale and well-prepared insurrection.

In August of the same year 1867 he allied himself with the Tscheta of Filip Totju . The two Chetas crossed the Balkan Mountains from east to west towards Serbia. Back in Serbia, Chitow retired as a pensioner in Belgrade and received a pension from Serbia. His contacts and experiences were also valued by the Serbian rulers and they tried to win him over to their side.

During this time (1868–1871) Chitow stayed in close contact with the new ideologist of the Bulgarian struggle for freedom, his former standard bearer Wasil Levski. However, both had differences about how this freedom struggle should look. While Levski was an advocate of the idea that a successful struggle could only take place from among the people in subjugated Bulgaria and to build a network of revolutionary committees in Bulgaria for this purpose, the great voivod leader saw success only in liberation from the outside with the support of neighboring countries .

Chitow was also an advocate of the idea that the Bulgarian liberation struggle should be coordinated with the Serbian military conflicts against the Ottoman Empire. It was at this point that the 38-year-old voivode clearly realized that the small scattered free troops were unable to defeat the strong military of the Ottoman Empire. And although he felt obliged to help the young revolutionaries in the person of Levski and the newly formed Bulgarian Central Revolutionary Committee in Bucharest, he tried again to expand the area of ​​the irregulars through secret agreements with foreign voivodes. Without consulting Levski and the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRZK), which has now been founded in Bucharest , Chitow entered into a commitment with the Montenegrin voivode Matanovic in August 1871 to organize and carry out a joint, simultaneous uprising in Bulgaria, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Albania.

Panayot Khitov as a citizen of Russia

It was not until April 1872 that Chitow became a member of the BRZK. In the same year he published his memoirs ("Die Balkan-Hajduken", translated into German by Rosen, Leipzig 1878). In the Serbian-Turkish War , Chitow, like Hajduk Welko, was appointed voivode and fought alongside the Serbs. In July 1877, however, Chitow became the chief voivode of the Bulgarian Chetas of Filip Totju , Iljo Wojwoda and Christo Makedonski in the Serbian army.

Chitov's ideas failed because of resistance within the BRZK. On the basis of his many years of experience, Panayot Chitov came to the conclusion that the April uprising of 1876 would fail and did not take part in it, although, as previously suggested by Rakovsky, he was seen as the leader of the Cheetahs and Supreme Voivode.

Despite its bloody suppression, the “April Uprising” struck “an incurable wound” in the heart of the Ottoman Empire and led to the Russo-Turkish War from 1877 to 1878, which brought Bulgaria freedom. Panajot Chitow took an active part in the war as a volunteer and leader of a Cheta and, through his knowledge of the terrain and the secret paths, helped the Russian troops to successfully cross the Balkan Mountains. He received two medals for bravery for this.

After the liberation of Bulgaria, Chitow settled in Russe, where he was politically active. As in his youth, he joined a revolutionary organization that wanted to unite the partially independent Principality of Bulgaria and the province of Eastern Rumelia (southern Bulgaria), which was under Turkish rule , which were separated under the Berlin Treaty of 1878. In 1885 Chitow headed one of the committees of the Bulgarian Secret Central Revolutionary Committee (BGZRK) in his hometown of Sliven, which launched a coup against the government in the Ottoman province and proclaimed the unification of Bulgaria. In the subsequent Serbian-Bulgarian war , Chitow took part as a volunteer.

After a failed coup by the pro-Russian forces against the Bulgarian prince Alexander I , who was supported by Russia , a counter-coup followed. After the re-establishment of the Tsar and the subsequent reign of Prime Minister Stefan Stambolow , Chitov fell out of favor because of his pro-Russian policy. Chitow was sent to prison in 1892 for supporting pro-Russian forces. Thanks to great support from the population, Chitow was able to leave the prison on a bail of 5,000 leva, which was colossal at the time.

"That I had to experience being imprisoned by Bulgarians"

, wrote Panayot Chitov afterwards with bitterness.

Chitow died on March 22, 1918 in Russe at the age of 87. Before that, he described his stormy life in a small book entitled “ My journey in the Stara Planina Mountains and the life of some Bulgarian old and new voivodes ”.

Since 2013 carries Hitov trace his name, a mountain ridge in Graham Land in Antarctica.

literature

• Konstantin Jireček , Alexander Neroslawsky: History of the Bulgarians , Textor Verlag, 2008, ISBN 3938402113 , pp. 552-575