| Background Infonotes: The Ancient Thracian and Roman city of Durostorum (Dorostorum) – known as Dorostol or Drastar (Drustur) during the periods of the Bulgarian Empire in the Middle Ages – is the precursor of today’s Bulgarian city of Silistra. It was originally founded as an Ancient Thracian settlement on the Lower Danube. In 29 AD, the Romans built there a fortress keeping the settlement’sThracian name of Durostorum (or Dorostorum). After his victories wars over the Dacians north of the Danube, Roman Emperor Trajan stationed the elite Claudius’ 11th Legion – Legio XI Claudia – at Durostorum, and the fortress remained its permanent seat until the demise of the Roman Empire. In 169 AD, during the reign of Emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161-180 AD), Durostorum was made a Roman city – a municipium. Between the 2nd and the 4th century AD, it was a major urban and military center of the Roman Province of Moesia Inferior (later divided into Moesia Secunda and Scythia Minor), and amajor Roman stronghold against the barbarian invasions. The earliest 12 Christian saints from the territory of today’s Bulgaria are Roman soldiers executed in Durostorum during the Great Persecution of Emperor Diocletian between 303 and 313 AD, including St. Dasius and St. Julius the Veteran. In 388 AD, today’s Silistra became the seat of a Christian bishopric. Roman general Flavius Aetius (391-454 AD), who is known as “the last of the Romans” for his army’s victory over the Huns in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains in 451 AD, was born in Durostorum. During the barbarian invasions of Sarmatians, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars the city was ransacked several times. It was rebuilt during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I the Great (r. 527-565 AD). The Slavs settled in Durostorum around 590 AD, and named it Drastar (Drustur). The city became part of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680 – 1018 AD) around 680 AD. Bulgarian Khan (or Kanas) Omurtag (r. 814-831 AD) is known to have built there a large imperial palace known as the Danube Palace of Bulgarian Khans where later Bulgarian Tsar Simeon I the Great (r. 893-927 AD) resided in 896-897 AD. In 895 AD (during the Bulgarian-Hungarian War of 894-896 AD), the Magyars(Hungarians), allies of Byzantium, besieged the Bulgarian army under the personal command of Tsar Simeon I the Great in the fortress of Drastar but were repulsed. The next year the Magyars were decisively defeated by the Bulgarians in the extremely fierce Battle of Southern Buh (in today’s Ukraine) which eventually led their tribes to retreat to the west and settle in the region of Pannoniaessentially founding today’s Hungary. |
| Background Infonotes: The Tsarevets Hill is one of two main fortified historic hills in the medieval city of Tarnovgrad, today’s Veliko Tarnovo , in Central Northern Bulgaria, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empirebetween 1185 and 1396 AD. Together with the Trapesitsa Hill, Tsarevets was one of the two fortressesof the inner city acropolis of Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo). The Tsarevets Hill is a natural fortress on the left bank of the Yantra River, and is surrounded by it on all four sides with the exception of a small section to the southwest. It is located southeast of the Trapesitsa Hill. The Tsarevets Fortress had threegates, the main one being its southwestern gate. The name of Tsarevets stems from the word “tsar”, i.e. emperor. The first settlement on the Tsarevets Hill in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo dates to the Late Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age), around 4,200 BC. The hill was also inhabited during the Bronze Age and Iron Age by the Ancient Thracians, and there have been hypothesis that it was the site of thelegendary Ancient Thracian city Zikideva – even though a recent hypothesis claims that Zikideva was in fact located in the nearby fortress Rahovets. An Ancient Bulgar settlement was built on theTsarevets Hill in the 9th century AD, during the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) which later grew into a city. The Tsarevets Hill rose to prominence as the center of the Second Bulgarian Empire(1185-1396 AD) in 1187, after the successful Uprising of Asen and Petar, later Tsar Asen I (r. 1190-1195 AD) and Tsar Petar IV (r. 1185-1197), who ruled as co-emperors, against the Byzantine Empire in 1185-1186 AD. Thus, the construction of the Tsarevets Hill Fortress began in the 12th century AD. The total length of the Tsarevets Hill fortress wall is 1,1 km, and it reaches a height of 10 meters (on top of the natural defenses of the hill’s slopes) and a width of 2.4-3.6 meters. The most vulnerable point of the Tsarevets fortification was the southeast section with its gate; however, it was protected by the so calledBaldwin’s Tower because it is known that after defeating the Crusader knights from the 3rd Crusade in the Battle of Adrianople in 1205 AD, the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan captured the Latin Emperor of Constantinople Baldwin of Flanders, and kept him captive in the tower for several months, untilBaldwin’s death. The Baldwin’s Tower was restored in 1933 by Bulgarian archaeologist and architect Alexander Rashenov; the restored Baldwin’s Tower was modeled after the surviving fortress tower in another medieval Bulgarian city, the Cherven Fortress. |
| The Early Byzantine and medieval Bulgarian city of Missionis/Krum’s Fortress is currently beingexcavated by a total of 30 archaeologists and workers with funding totaling BGN 50,000 (app. EUR 26,000) of which BGN 30,000 have been provided by Targovishte Municipality, and the rest – byprivate donors. “This year we haven’t received any government funding. That is why the funding that we are operating with is still rather decent. There are still some people who cherish the archaeological monuments and help us,” Konakliev notes. Another view of the 14th century lead cross reliquary and 10th-11th century lead icon of Virgin Mary found in the medieval Bulgarian city of Missionis/Krum’s Fortress near the city of Targovishte. Photo: Forte Radio Background Infonotes: The Early Byzantine and medieval Bulgarian fortress of Missionis, also known as Krumovo Kale (Krum’s Fortress) is located 7 km southwest of the northeastern Bulgarian city of Targovishte.The fortress has an area of 25 decares (app. 6 acres), while the medieval city itself covered an area of 150-200 decares (up to 50 acres). The eastern section of the fortress wall has a gate with two towers. The Missionis/Krum’s Fortress was built in the 6th century AD, during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I the Great (r. 527-565 AD) as part of Byzantium’s fortifications in today’s Northern Bulgaria designed to stop the barbarian invasions of the Slavs, Ancient Bulgars, and Goths. The fortress was destroyed by the barbarians in the 6th century AD. During the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD), in the 9th century AD an Ancient Bulgar settlement emerged on top of its ruins. At the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), the fortress wall was rebuilt of stones and mortar as part of fortification system defending the then Bulgarian capital Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo). A lot of information about the medieval city of Missionis/Krum’s Fortress is found in the Tabula Rogeriana, the work of Arab geographer Muhammad Al-Idrisi, completed in the court of Norman King Roger II in Sicily in 1153 AD. |
| They ruled as co-emperors; both of them were murdered, and were succeeded by their young brotherTsar Kaloyan (r. 1197-1207). The Asen Dynasty (House of Asen) that they started ruled the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1185 until 1257 AD. Their empire ruled territories from the Carpathian Mountains in the north to the Aegean and the Adriatic in the south (see the map below) restoring most, if not all, of the territorial, military and economic might of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD). It also spurred the intensive development of Bulgarian culture and literature that later led to theSecond Golden Age in the 14th century (the First Golden Age of Bulgarian culture having occurred in the 9th-10th century AD during the reigns of Knyaz Boris I (r. 852-889), Tsar Simeon I (r. 893-927), and Tsar Petar (r. 927-970). The military campaigns and battles of Tsar Ivan ASen II of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Map by Kandi, Wikipedia A view of the restored St. Dimitar Solunski Church at the foot of the Trapesitsa Hill in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo, with its surroundings. Photo: Magnus Manske, Wikipedia A poster for the celebrations of the 830th anniversary since the liberation of Bulgaria from the Byzantium and the foundation of the Second Bulgarian Empire showing the St. Dimitar Solunski Church. Photo: Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History Background Infonotes: The St. Dimitar Solunski (St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki) Church in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo is arestored church based on the excavations of the original medieval church with the same name which existed there during the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD) with its capital in Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo). The St. Dimitar Solunski Church is connected with the restoration of the medieval Bulgarian Empire,after in 1018 AD Byzantium had conquered most of the Bulgarian territory and destroyed the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD). According to Byzantine chronicler Niketas (Nicetas) Choniates (ca. 1155-1215 AD), the St. Dimitar Solunski Church in Veliko Tarnovo is where in 1185 AD, local boyars (nobles), brothers Asen and Todor (Teodor), who later took the name “Petar” after Tsar Petar I (r. 927-969 AD), becoming Petar IV,proclaimed the restoration of the Bulgarian state. |
| The capitals of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680 – 1018 AD) had been Pliska (680-893 AD) and Veliki Preslav (893-970 AD) in today’s Northeast Bulgaria, and Ohrid (from the end of the 10th century until 1018 AD) in today’s Republic of Macedonia. “Last year, when we started the excavations we knew that Tarnovgrad had three monasteries dedicated to the Holy Mother of God. We didn’t know where they were located. The Virgin Mary was the patron of the city, and the cult for her was very strong there. We have found the church of thismonastery complex, and we have enough data to suggest that this probably is the Dormition of the Mother of God Monastery mentioned by Grigoriy (Gregory) Tsamblak (ca. 1365-1420, Bulgarian cleric and metropolitan of Kiev – editor’s note),” explains the archaeologist. He reminds that upon the discovery of the monastery in 2014 his team also found graves of medieval Bulgarian aristocrats and clerics, and a brick tomb of a noble woman. Under the head of one of the buried men, the archaeologists found a brick with engraved verses 1-4 from the Gospel of John, which is the first time such a discovery has been made in Bulgaria. A map of Tarnovgrad, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), today’s Veliko Tarnovo, showing the location of Frenkhisar (the Frankish Quarter) in the southeast. Map: Martyr, Wikipedia The 2015 excavations were started by Vachev’s team with the goal of studying further the necropolisand the buildings of the 13th century monastery they found in 2014. “[However,] we came across artifacts suggesting that we may unearth [structures from] earlier periods. To my great satisfaction, we have revealed partly this Early Byzantine basilica. Its size is 40 meters by 20 meters, and there is no doubt that this was an extremely important building changing our perceptions about Veliko Tarnovo and the inheriting of the religious sites,” Vachev states. He elaborates that in the Early Byzantine period the Tsarevets Hill towering above the site where the basilica is situated apparently grew into one of the largest fortified cities in provinces of Byzantium, i.e. the Eastern Roman Empire, a successor of the glorious Ancient Roman city of Nicopolis ad Istrum whose ruins are located to the north of Veliko Tarnovo. |
| The now defunct Kamenyak train station in Northeast Bulgaria which was built by the Ottomans with materials extracted from the Great Basilica and other medieval Bulgarian archaeological monuments in Pliska and Veliki Preslav. Photo: National Museum of History Stones from the 9th century AD Great Basilica in the then Bulgarian capital Pliska which were removed from the building in the 19th century by the Ottoman Turks but were left over from the Ottoman railway construction efforts can still be seen lying around the abandoned Kamenyak train station in Northeast Bulgaria. Photo: National Museum of History The Hitrino train station in Northeast Bulgaria. Its first floor was built in the 19th century, still in the Ottoman period, with materials from the archaeological monuments in the medieval Bulgarian capitals Pliska and Preslav. Photo: National Museum of History The restorers have have already started using surviving original stones for the reconstruction of the basilica that they found lying around on the spot of the archaeological monuments in Pliska, the once glorious capital of the Ancient Bulgars which today is a tiny town. The National Museum of History in Sofia has also announced that the Mayor of Hitrino Municipality, Nuredin Nuredin, has already given the restorers original stones from the basilica, of which the municipal authorities were in possession. “The use of authentic material is recommendable as part of the intensifying restoration of ancient fortresses and temples across Europe, " the Museum notes in its statement. The Great Basilica in Pliska, the first capital of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) south of the Danube, was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14th century even though part of its ruins are known to have survived until the 1860s when the Ottoman Empire built its first railway line connecting the Bulgarian cities of Varna on the Black Sea, and Ruse on the Danube. The Ottoman authorities are known to have used construction materials from the basilica and other marvelous Bulgarian archaeological monuments in Pliska and Veliki Preslav, another early medieval Bulgarian capital, not only for railway construction but also for building military barracks and mosques. |
| In 131 AD, Ahtopol was mentioned as Auleuteichos in the Perlus of the Euxine Sea, a guidebook of the Black Sea towns, by Greco-Roman historian Arrian of Nicomedia, as being located 43.5 km away from Chersonesus (another Ancient Greek city on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast with the same name as theAncient Greek colony on the Crimean (Taurica) Peninsula). In the 6th century AD, a fortress wall was built to defend the city against the barbarian invasions, possibly during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I Dicorus (r. 491-518 AD) or Emperor Justin I (r. 518-527 AD). Parts of this Late Antiquity Fortress wall are still preserved up to a height of 3-4 meters; the walls are thick between 1.5 and 2.8 meters. Agathopolis was first conquered by the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) under Khan Krum (r. 802-813 AD) in 812 AD. It was settled with Slavs under his successor, Khan Omurtag (r. 814-831 AD). Subsequently, during the Middle Ages, the city changed hands between the Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire numerous times. It was part of Bulgaria until 864 AD, and then again from 894 until 970 AD. Arab geographer Muhammad Al-Idrisi mentioned Agathopolis as a major city in 1150 AD. At the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), the region of Agathopolis was reconquered by the Bulgarians in the Uprising of Asen and Petar in 1185. It was part of Bulgaria until 1263, and was then reconquered in 1304, in the Battle of Skafida near Poros (Burgos, today’s Burgas). The city changed hands between Bulgaria and Byzantium several more times until the end of the 14th century. Before that, in 1366 AD, the Count of Savoy Amadeus IV (r. 1343-1383) conquered Ahtopoland the other cities on Bulgaria’s southern Black Sea coast for five months. It was ultimately conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453, together with the conquest of Constantinople and the othersurviving Byzantine ports in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. During the period of Ottoman Yoke, i.e. when Bulgaria was part of the Ottoman Empire, Ahtopol remained an important port. Ahtopol was visited in 1663 by Ottoman traveler Evliya Celebi, and was mentioned in his books of travels as “Ahtabolu " . It was liberated by Bulgaria in the Balkan War of 1912. |
| In the Late Antiquity, Apollonia, also called Sozopolis lost some of its regional center positions to Anchialos, and the nearby Roman colony Deultum (Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium). After the division of the Roman Empire into a Western Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire (today known as Byzantium) in 395 AD, Apollonia/Sozopolis became part of the latter. Its Late Antiquity fortress walls were built during the reign of Byzantine Emperor Anastasius (r. 491-518 AD), and the city became a major fortress on the Via Pontica road along the Black Sea coast protecting the European hinterland of Constantinople. In 812 AD, Sozopol was first conquered for Bulgaria by Khan (or Kanas) Krum, ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) in 803-814 AD. In the following centuries of medieval wars between the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire, Sozopol changed hands numerous times. The last time it was conquered by the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD) was during the reign of Bulgarian Tsar Todor (Teodor) Svetoslav Terter (r. 1300-1322 AD). However, in 1366 AD, during the reign of Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371 AD), Sozopol was conquered by Amadeus IV, Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383 AD, who sold it to Byzantium. During the period of the invasion of the Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century AD, Sozopol was one of the last free cities in Southeast Europe. It was conquered by the Ottomans in the spring of 1453 AD, two months before the conquest of Constantinople despite the help of naval forces from Venice and Genoa. In the Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Sozopol was a major center of (Early) Christianity with a number of large monasteries such as the St. John the Baptist Monastery on St. Ivan Island off the Sozopol coast where in 2010 Bulgarian archaeologist Prof. Kazimir Popkonstantinov made a major discovery by finding relics of St. John the Baptist; the St. Apostles Monastery; the St. Nikolay (St. Nikolaos or St. Nicholas) the Wonderworker Monastery; the Sts. Quriaqos and Julietta Monastery on the St. Cyricus (St. Kirik) Island, the Holy Mother of God Monastery, the St. Anastasia Monastery. |
| The first settlement on the Tsarevets Hill in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo dates to the Late Chalcolithic (Aeneolithic, Copper Age), around 4,200 BC. The hill was also inhabited during the Bronze Age and Iron Age by the Ancient Thracians, and there have been hypothesis that it was the site of thelegendary Ancient Thracian city Zikideva – even though a recent hypothesis claims that Zikideva was in fact located in the nearby fortress Rahovets. An Ancient Bulgar settlement was built on theTsarevets Hill in the 9th century AD, during the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) which later grew into a city. The Tsarevets Hill rose to prominence as the center of the Second Bulgarian Empire(1185-1396 AD) in 1187, after the successful Uprising of Asen and Petar, later Tsar Asen I (r. 1190-1195 AD) and Tsar Petar IV (r. 1185-1197), who ruled as co-emperors, against the Byzantine Empire in 1185-1186 AD. Thus, the construction of the Tsarevets Hill Fortress began in the 12th century AD. The total length of the Tsarevets Hill fortress wall is 1,1 km, and it reaches a height of 10 meters (on top of the natural defenses of the hill’s slopes) and a width of 2.4-3.6 meters. The most vulnerable point of the Tsarevets fortification was the southeast section with its gate; however, it was protected by the so called Baldwin’s Tower because it is known that after defeating the Crusader knights from the 3rd Crusade in the Battle of Adrianople in 1205 AD, the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan captured the Latin Emperor of Constantinople Baldwin of Flanders, and kept him captive in the tower for several months, until Baldwin’s death. The Baldwin’s Tower was restored in 1933 by Bulgarian archaeologist and architect Alexander Rashenov; the restored Baldwin’s Tower was modeled after the surviving fortress tower in another medieval Bulgarian city, the Cherven Fortress. The medieval church of the Bulgarian Patriarchate is located in the center of the Tsarevets Hill. It is called the Church of the Ascension of God, and was restored in 1981. The church was known as the“mother of all Bulgarian churches”, and was part of a complex with a territory of 2,400 square meters. Right next to it are the ruins of the imperial palace of the monarchs from the Second Bulgarian Empire which had a territory of almost 3,000 square meters. Both the imperial palace and the Patriarchate’s complex were surrounded by fortress walls and protected by towers. The archaeological excavations on the Tsarevets Hill have revealed the foundations of a total of 470 residences which housed the high-ranking Bulgarian aristocracy, 23 churches and 4 urban monasteries as well as a medieval inn. In the northern-most point of the Tsarevets Hill there is a high cliff cape known as the Cliff of Executions which in the 12th-14th century AD was used for executing traitors by throwing them into the canyon of the Yantra River. |
| Knyaz Boris realized that the Christianization of Bulgaria gave Byzantium great influence over the domestic affairs of the Bulgarian Empire. Thus, juggling the differences of Rome and Constantinople,he eventually managed to get Byzantium’s Ecumenical Patriarchate as well as the Pope in Rome to recognize an independent (autocephalous) Bulgarian Archbishopric, which was created in 870 AD in an unprecedented development for Europe because independent churches had been only those founded by Apostles or Apostles’ disciples. For example, the Papacy in Rome had been challenging Constantinople’s claim of equality to Rome on the grounds that the Church of Constantinople had not been founded by an Apostle of Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, this development was also a success forByzantium, and during the decade after 870 AD, Pope Adrian II and his successors kept trying desperately to convince Bulgaria’s Knyaz Boris to leave Constantinople’s religious sphere. Knyaz Boris I Mihail sealed the success of his deed, the adoption of Christianity, in 886 AD whenBulgaria welcomed the disciples of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, St. Kliment Ohridski and St. Naum Preslavski, helping them to teach thousands of Bulgarian clergymen to serve in Bulgarian. Thus,Bulgaria adopted the Bulgarian script, also known as the Slavic script – first the Glagolithic and then the Bulgarian (Cyrillic) alphabet. This allowed Knyaz Boris, and his successor Tsar Simeon I the Greatto declare Bulgarian (also known as Old Bulgarian or Church Slavonic) as the official language of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church during the Council of Preslav in 893 AD (which also moved Bulgaria’s capital from Pliska to Veliki Preslav (Great Preslav)). As all over Europe religious services were held in the “official” church languages Latin and Greek, this “nationalization” of the liturgy language byBulgaria became another exceptional development in medieval Europe after the recognition of the independent Bulgarian church. Tsar Simeon I the Great was the ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD) in 893-927 AD. |
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