Hajduk Mateya Ludov

Mateya Ludov of Koprivshtitsa was a Bulgarian revolutionary and leader of a hajduk band operating in Sredna Gora, the Balkan Mountains, the Adrianople region and the Aegean region. His activity began sometime after about 1820.

Captured by the Ottomans, he was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in chains in Constantinople. The influential notable Valko Chalakov, who had good relations with the grand vizier and Sultan Mahmud II, secured his release.

Other accounts place him in Plovdiv prison. In 1843, while carrying beams with other prisoners to repair a bridge over the Maritsa, he was recognised by his fellow townsman Stoyan Chalakov. Chalakov petitioned Plovdiv's governor, and Mateya was pardoned and released. The source then states that no further information about him survives.

It nevertheless records that during the April Uprising of 1876, a gathering of local notables chose Mateya to deliver a letter to the Ottoman government. Instead of receiving the promised reward, he was imprisoned.