[5] When she was 20 and working as a head teacher in the Panagyurishte girls' school since 1874,[5] she was asked to sew the flag for the April Uprising by Georgi Benkovski, which she accepted.

Following the harsh suppression of the revolt by Ottoman forces, she was captured, subjected to repeated assaults and rapes, beaten, and deprived of food except for bread and water for over a month in the Plovdiv prison.

[3] [5] While in Moscow, she also managed to arrange the upbringing of 32 orphans from Panagyurishte, including her younger brother, through a ladies' charity committee.

[9] In 1898, her husband Vasil Dipchev was elected a deputy to the National Assembly of Bulgaria and the family moved to Sofia.

He soon died after that as a consequence of the Black Mosque beatings, leaving Rayna with six children, the oldest of which was only 13 years old.

[9] Later, Rayna worked in the Sofia quarters of Orlandovtsi and Malashevtsi, maintaining strong ties with the family of Hristo Botev.

For the commemoration of the April uprising's 25th anniversary in 1901, Rayna Knyaginya prepared three copies of the original flag, two of them surviving until today and the other one being destroyed during the bombings of Sofia in World War II.