Petko Rachev Slaveykov was born on November 17, 1827, in the town of Turnovo. Writer and journalist, public and political figure; Member of Bulgarian Literary Society (later the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). He presided the Second National Assembly. Minister of Education and Minister of Internal Affairs (1880).
In 1881 he stood against the Authorities Regime, set by Knjaz Alexander I Batemberg, because of which he was expelled from the Principality of Bulgaria together with other Liberal Party leaders. He emigrated with his family to the capital of East Roumelia - Plovdiv, where Pencho Slaveykov studied in the Plovdiv High School while his father was a teacher there. They lived in Plovdiv until 1884, when P. R. Slaveykov moved back to Sofia again.
While living in Plovdiv, P. R. Slaveykov continued his fight against the conservative block of the Knjaz. For two years (1881-83) he was teaching in Plovdiv. Together with Petko Karavelov, he started publishing the Independence newspaper (1881-82), which was the successor of the Sofia newspaper called Independence, a secret publication of the Liberal Party. P. R. Slaveykov went on the fight for restoration of the Turnovo Constitution. He was also the editor of the comic newspaper called Koukourigou (in English Cock-a-doodle-doo), 1882-83.
Slaveykovs presence in Plovdiv could be traced in the Slaveykovs house, the Slaveykovs school and the Slaveykovs cafe (the latter is situated on the small Vuzrazhdane Square in the southeast foot of the Dzhambaz Tepe hill, almost opposite the Marazliyata school), where Slaveykov used to respectively live, work, and take his rest. For two years he was coming each morning to that cafe, a few houses from where he lived to have some coffee and some chat. The old Revival-period house where he spent those two years, today hosts the Plovdiv Teachers House and is still a place where issues like education, knowledge and culture are discussed.