Revolutionary Toma Hitrov

Toma Stanev, or Stanchov, Hitrov was a prominent Bulgarian national revolutionary and one of Bulgaria's pioneers of photography.

He was born in Lovech, in the Ottoman Empire, in 1840. He completed the Dolnokraysko School in Lovech and left Bulgaria at the age of 16 to settle in Romania. There, Hitrov studied photography in Bucharest and opened his own studio, first in Bucharest and later in Ploiești. Over the years, he became known for portraits of leading figures in the Bulgarian national movement, including Vasil Levski, Hristo Botev, Zahari Stoyanov, Nikola Slavkov, Panayot Hitov, Nikola Strandzhata and others. He also took the best-known portrait of Hristo Botev and photographed many other important moments in the Bulgarian people's struggle for freedom.

In 1875, Hitrov and Petar Fakirov were appointed voivodes and organisers of the uprising in the Troyan region, but he returned to Romania after the plans were postponed. He helped organise Hristo Botev's detachment and subsequently served as deputy voivode in Filip Totyu's detachment during the Serbo-Turkish War of 1876. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, Hitrov served in the Bulgarian Volunteer Corps' mounted company and later in the Third Volunteer Battalion, fighting at Stara Zagora, Kazanlak, Shipka and Sheynovo.

After the Liberation, Hitrov and his wife Elena Cherneva opened the Slavyanska Svetlopisnitsa, or Slavonic Photographic Studio, in Sofia, where they worked until 1885. He also served as a volunteer in the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885, fighting bravely in the unit of Captain Kosta Panitsa and Ivancho Atanasov.

Toma Hitrov is remembered as a distinguished national revolutionary and as one of the first Bulgarian photographers to create historic photographs of the Bulgarian people's struggle for freedom.