Hajduk Dobri

Dobri Bogdanov Novakov was a well-known hajduk from Koprivshtitsa.

He received a good education at the local school, where the educator Neofit Rilski taught before retiring to Rila Monastery. With his brothers Ivan and Stoyno, he learned his father's trade of making woollen cloth and garments, but later joined the livestock-tax collector Petko Doganov.

Dobri married Doganov's daughter Maria and became standard-bearer in the band of Angel Voyvoda, known as a protector of the poor. The band fought oppression and social inequality in the empire. After Lefter Voyvoda's death, Dobri returned to Bulgaria and formed a small band near Kalofer, operating in the Balkan Mountains and eastern Sredna Gora against Turkish robber gangs.

He returned to Bulgaria in 1867 after Lefter's death. Around St Demetrius's Day, as winter approached, the band dispersed, and he went home to Koprivshtitsa to see and comfort his family. His wife Maria died that year. Their children Maria and Stefan were sent to Klisura, while their son Nedko was adopted by the Kiskinekov family in Koprivshtitsa. Maria Dobreva later married the April Uprising revolutionary Tancho Shabanov and became the mother of the anarchist Nesho Shabanov.

Dobri's children returned to Koprivshtitsa in 1876, after their father's death. Following his wife's death, he had formed a small band near Kalofer, active in the Karlovo and Kalofer sections of the Balkan Mountains and eastern Sredna Gora. Through the revolutionary committee in Rohmanli, he sent Vasil Levski a substantial sum to buy printing equipment for the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee in Bucharest. His band played an important role in clearing Turkish robber gangs from these areas.

In 1870, Dobri organised an ambush in which the wealthy Kazanlak merchant Ivan Klatnov was killed. After Dobri's death, the authorities captured his men, and almost all died in Ottoman prisons. Only Stoyan Klatnata escaped to Wallachia. Dobri's body was buried beside the Rahmanliyska River, while his severed head was taken to Plovdiv.