Voivode Boycho

Boycho Voivode, known as Tseperanski of Tryavna, was a Bulgarian hajduk and revolutionary of the first half of the 19th century. He came from the Tseperani family, which inhabited a hamlet of the same name in the village of Tseperanite, now part of Voneshta Voda near Tryavna.

Boycho Voivode is known as a prominent participant in the Bulgarians’ armed resistance to Ottoman rule. He took part in the Bulgarian uprising in Thrace in 1829 and led Bulgarian detachments in the fighting for Silistra during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829 and the Crimean War in 1856.

Boycho Voivode drew up the first code of the hajduk movement, known as the Law of Boycho Voivode. This code was observed by the detachments during the 19th century.

Born around 1802, Boycho Voivode was orphaned at the age of seven after his father, also a hajduk, was killed by the Turks. Together with his elder brother Petar and younger brother Georgi, Boycho organised an independent Bulgarian company and placed it at the disposal of the Russian command.

In 1829, during the uprising in Thrace, Boycho Voivode and his company operated actively south of the Balkan Mountains, destroying Turkish supply convoys and attacking bands of bashi-bazouks.

After the Peace of Adrianople in September 1829, Boycho Voivode joined Georgi Mamarchev’s 500-strong detachment with the aim of raising an uprising in various Bulgarian regions. The movement was suppressed, and Boycho Voivode and his brothers were arrested and imprisoned in Siberia.

Boycho Voivode continued his activities after imprisonment, organising hajduk operations throughout the Ottoman-held Danubian and Black Sea regions. He participated in the Crimean War in 1856, when he was killed in combat with the Turks.

His pupils and followers included the voivodes Filip Totyo, Panayot Hitov, Dimitar Kalachliyata, Peyu Buyukliyata and Zlatyo Konarchanina, as well as many other former hajduks and members of revolutionary detachments who observed the revolutionary Law of Boycho Voivode.