Revolutionary Mladen Pavlov

Mladen Pavlov Kalinov, also known as the Little Schoolmaster of Kozloduy, was a Bulgarian revolutionary and member of Botev's detachment.

He was born in Vidin in 1848 into a family of craftsmen. He studied in his home town, at the Belgrade Theological Seminary and at Gabrovo High School. From 1874 to 1876 he worked as a teacher in several settlements in the Oryahovo region.

In 1876 he was teaching in Kozloduy and helped prepare the April Uprising. It was he who greeted Botev's detachment with signals on the Kozloduy bank on 17 May 1876. After the detachment's defeat he was captured and passed through several prisons and courts in Bulgaria, but escaped to Romania.

During the Russo-Turkish War he worked as a guide, interpreter and scout for the Romanian army, which liberated the Oryahovo–Kozloduy region. After the Liberation he worked as a judicial clerk, lawyer and mayor of Kozloduy, but was arrested during Stambolov's rule.

In 1882, together with his fellow townspeople, he erected the first volunteers' votive cross, made of acacia wood, on the Kozloduy bank. In subsequent years he settled in Dolni Vadin, where his house served as a museum dedicated to the member of Botev's detachment. In his accounts and memoirs, the Little Schoolmaster of Kozloduy drew attention to Botev's ideals. As a direct participant in Botev's detachment, he conveyed intriguing details of the events surrounding its landing and of revolutionary activists in the Vratsa Revolutionary District.