Ivancho Hadzhipenchovich

In 1857, he supported the publication of A Traveller in the Woods, a long poem by Georgi Sava Rakovski, a leading figure in the Bulgarian National Revival.

In 1872, he wrote a memorandum to the Grand Vizier, Mahmud Nedim Pasha, exposing the existence of a secret Bulgarian revolutionary society and its possible ties to Serbia.

From then until 1873, he served on a three-member government commission investigating the Arabakona train robbery [bg], involving the theft of tax revenues from the Royal Treasury, and the activities of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee.

As part of their report, involving atrocities committed by the bashi-bazouk, an irregular military force, he brought the severed hand of a child to Istanbul,[citation needed] documenting what has come to be known as the Batak massacre.

He was appointed to a third commission, to specifically examine the events of the massacre, but he no longer enjoyed the full trust of the Ottoman authorities, so he was dismissed and he returned home in 1877.