Ottomans’ further

The existence of the Bulgarian state became an obstacle on the way to the Ottomans’ further penetration into Central Europe. In spite of its weakness and dependence, it presented a constant threat to the right flank of the Turkish troops which had penetrated deep into the west. That is why Murad’s heir Bayazid I, The Lightning, decided to put an end to the Turnovo Kingdom. In 1393 he invaded Moesia at the head of a numerous army and after a siege which Lasted three months, succeeded in capturing Turnovo. One hundred and twenty boyars were massacred in the main church, thousands of Turnovo citizens were taken slaves and Patriarch Evtimi, who had headed the defence of Turnovo until the last moment, was sent into exile to the Rhodopes. Ivan Shishman hid himself in the Danubian stronghold of Nikopol, expecting help from the Hungarian King. The latter, however, never came to his assistance and Nikopol was captured and Ivan Shishman was killed. Only the Vidin Kingdom remained, but a Turkish garrison was also stationed in Vidin.

Powerful Hungarian Kingdom

The Ottomans reached the frontiers of the then powerful Hungarian Kingdom, which forced the Hungarian King Sigismund to prepare in 1396 a big crusade against the Turks. The Ruler of Vidin Ivan Stratsimir opened the gates of his town to the crusaders and joined them with his troops, but the army of the crusaders suffered utter defeat. That was the end also of the Vidin Kingdom.

Bulgaria’s fall under Ottoman domination, accompanied by ravaging devastations and cruel massacres of the population, was a veritable catastrophe for the Bulgarian people. The country’s political and intellectual elite was destroyed or forced to emigrate. The famous literary centres which had brought glory to Bulgarian mediaeval culture were extinguished. The persecutions were not only national, but also religious. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church was destroyed as a religious institution and the Moslem religion was proclaimed as official. The majority of Bulgarian towns were depopulated and occupied by the Turkish administration and military garrisons, while the productive Bulgarian population sought refuge in the mountains and remote regions. Thus, the social and economic base of the 14th century cultural renaissance of the Bulgarian people – the flourishing towns — was done away with.

Deprived of its state, cultural and religious institutions, the Bulgarian people were reduced to a Turkish rayah, without any rights, cruelly oppressed and exploited by the conquerors. A considerable part of the Bulgarians were forcefully assimilated, and their most fertile lands were taken by compact masses of Turkish colonists. The Ottomans pursued a systematic and purposeful policy of sapping the vitality of the subordinated peoples and enhancing their own national feelings. Thousands of Bulgarian girls were forcefully converted to the Moslem religion and taken into the harems of the Turkish feudal loids (spahis, beys). An inhuman tax called devshourme was introduced, according to which the healthiest, handsomest and cleverest Bulgarian boys were taken away from their families to special barracks where they were isolated from the outside world and turned into soldiers, excellently schooled and fanatically loyal to Islam. These were the notorious janissaries — known for their high military qualities and morale, crack infantry of the Sultan, which sowed terror in the subordinated population and covered the Turkish arms with glory. Some of the most capable janissaries rose to the ranks of Turkish dignitaries and military commanders, who contributed a lot to the successes of the Ottoman Empire.

 

The Peasant Tsar

After the death of Ivan Assen the most influential boyar families started bloody internecine struggles for the throne, which were skilfully used by Byzantium for enhancing its influence among the Bulgarian aristocracy. During the reign of Konstantin Assen( 1257-1277), who lacked will power and was incapable as a ruler, a number of feudal lords separated themselves from the central power, while the Byzantines conquered vast Bulgarian territories in Thrace and Macedonia. Konstantin Assen married the Byzantine princess Maria, after which the Byzantines began openly to command in Turnovo.

Konstantin Assen

The unceasing feudal internecine struggles and the frequent incursions by Byzantine troops resulted in economic ruin and sharp deterioration of the situation of the peasant masses, which became disastrous when the Tartars made their appearance in the North – a numerous and belligerent people from the steppes who had already subordinated most of the divided Russian principalities. The boyars, hidden behind the stone walls of their fortresses, left the defenceless peasants at the mercy of the Tartars. Konstantin Assen himself became a vassal of the Tartar Khan Nogai,

The people, left to themselves, had to think about their own defense. In this struggle, the name of the swineherd Ivailo from Northeastern Bulgaria gained ever increasing popularity. In 1277 at the head of a group of dare-devils, he routed several Tartar detachments which had set out to loot the villages. Ivailo’s glory spread with lightning speed throughout the country and soon he had gathered a whole army under his colours, consisting mainly of desperate peasants in search of protection. The Tartars were chased to the other bank of the Danube and then came the turn of the avid and venal boyars, who had caused to the people even more sufferings than the Tartars.

In the style of mediaeval superstition, Ivailo declared that he had heard a voice from heaven ordering him to save his people from those who looted and tortured them. The peasant volunteers in his army, who had risen to de-fend their land and homes from the foreign invaders, turned into an insurgent army which captured a number of feudal castles, storehouses for food and arms and was headed for the capital. The tsar, who had not dared come out of Turnovo’s walls while Ivailo’s peasant forces were shedding their blood to repel the Tartars, rallied his army and set out against Ivailo’s ‘rabble’. The latter, steeled in the cruel battles with the Tartar hordes, defeated the army of the Tsar in the very first encounter. The Tsar himself fell in the battle.

 

Decline of the Bulgarian State

Under Simeon’s successor, Tsar Peter, the Bulgarian state began to decline irresistibly. The Magyars took away the Bulgarian lands north of the Danube. The Serbians rose to arms and won their independence. Chaos reigned in the country. Encouraged by Bogomil preachers, the peasants refused to pay taxes and to perform the diverse corvees. The number of feudal lords (boyars) who refused to obey the Tsar was growing, which weakened the central power.

The Byzantine Empire could hardly have found a more opportune moment to square accounts with its dangerous northern neighbour. In 968, summoned by the Byzantine Emperor, Russian contingents of the Kiev Prince Svyatoslav invaded North-Eastern Bulgaria. The Byzantines, however, were taken by surprise when Svyatoslav signed an agreement with the Bulgarian Tsar Boris II for joint struggle against Byzantium. In face of this fresh menace, the Empire gathered forces and in 971 managed to defeat the Russian and Bulgarian troops. Boris II was taken prisoner and brought to Constantino-ple, but this was not the end of the Bulgarian state. After the fall of the Bulgarian capital and of the eastern parts of the country, the other regions continued to offer stubborn resistance for another half century. The sons of Komit Nikola – David, Moses, Aaron and Samuil – played an exceptional role during the years of this resistance. They were rulers of southwestern Bulgaria. The first two were killed in battle, Aaron as bribed by the Byzantines and Samuil killed him for this treason.

Samuil proclaimed himself as Tsar of Bulgaria and Prespa (today in Yugoslavia) – as his capital. He waged a manly struggle against the Byzantines for almost thirty years, and for a short period of time he even enlarged his state by liberating the country’s northeastern part and conquering the whole of Thessaly, present-day Albania, and some Serbian territories. In 986 Samuil dealt a crushing blow on the Byzantine Emperor Basil II at the Trayanova Vrata Pass (Trayan’s Gate) near the town of Ihtiman. The Emperor saved himself by some miracle and for a long time had no desire whatever to fight the Bulgarians. Almost twenty years had passed before he ventured again to attack Bulgaria in 1014.

Armies of Bulgaria and Byzantium

The armies of Bulgaria and Byzantium, led by the two rulers, met at the northern foothills of the Belassitsa Mountains, not far from the present-day town of Petrich. The front attack brought the Byzantines no success, so they used roundabout paths, appeared in the Bulgarians’ rear and routed the army. Basil had his revenge for the defeat at Trayanovi Vrata, but he was not satisfied. In order to break the morale of the Bulgarians and make them give up all further resistance, he ordered all 14,000 Bulgarian soldiers taken prisoner to be blinded and sent them back to Samuil in Prespa through the winter bliz-zards. He had left one soldier with one eye in every 100 blinded men to show them the way. For his cruelty which had no equal even in those cruel times, Basil II was nicknamed Bulgaroctonos — Slayer of the Bulgarians.

 

Cradle of Medieval Slav Culture

At the time when the alarming events described above were taking place in Great Moravia, Bulgaria was the biggest and most powerful Slav state. Moreover, because of the reasons we have already mentioned, she was in great need of an alphabet and of a Christian clergy to preach in the Slav language. The persecuted disciples of Methodius were fully aware of the needs and possibilities of the Bulgarian state, and after their teacher’s death they set out for Bulgaria, which at that time had common frontiers with Great Moravia. The local district rulers in Bulgaria gave them a hearty welcome and sent them to the capital, where Prince Boris was eagerly awaiting them. Methodius’s best known disciples who came to Bulgaria were Clement, Nahum and Angelarius. Clement was dis-patched to the south-western parts of the country as Bishop of Ohrid, while the other two remained in the capital. In only a few years, hundreds of young people, thirsty for knowledge, were taught to read and write in the Slav-Bulgarian language and were then sent as priests and administrators to all parts of the country. Scores of religious books were translated from the Greek and ousted completely the Greek language from the church services.

Grand Council of Boris

In 893 Prince Boris organized a Grand Council in the capital of Preslav, which adopted important decisions. Boris’s younger son Simeon ascended to the throne instead of Vladimir, the opponent to Christianity. The capital was transferred from heathen Pliska to Preslav. The Slav (old Bulgarian) language was proclaimed as official state and church language instead of Greek, while the numerous Greek clergy was replaced everywhere by Bulgarian priests. The sound foundations for the rapid development of an original Slav-Bulgarian culture were laid and the most important channels of Byzantine influence were cut off. The catalysts which were to speed up the process of merger between Slavs and Bulgarians, a process which had been going on for more than two centuries had been found.

The reign of Simeon, the greatest ruler of mediaeval Bulgaria, was marked with brilliant military victories which put the very existence of the Byzantine Empire to trial and turned Bulgaria into an empire. In a number of decisive battles, the biggest one at Acheloe (not far from present-day Nessebur), Simeon succeeded in crushing the military might of the Byzantines. He then led his armies in two victorious marches to the walls of Constantinople (in 921 and 923-924) which placed the Byzantine Empire on the brink of annihilation. The Bulgarian state extended from the Carpathian mountains in the north to the Aegean Sea and Central Greece in the south, from the Adriatic coast and present-day Croatia in the west to the Black Sea in the east, in other words, it occupied almost the entire Balkan Peninsula and present-day Hungary.

Central Committee and the Committee of Elders

Having learned about the activities of the Central Committee and the Committee of Elders, Rakovski returned to Bucharest and started an energetic propaganda against making the Bulgarian national-liberation move-ment dependent on foreign states1 policies. He succeeded in winning over the majority of the emigrants and formed a ‘Supreme National Civil Command’ which was guided by the principle of sending armed detachments to Bulgaria. In 1867 Rakovski succeeded in preparing two detachments under the leadership of the voevodesPanayot Hitov and Filip Totyu, but his death put an end to his future plans.

After Rakovski’s death the initiative again passed into the hands of the Committee of Elders, which agreed with the Serbian government that a special military school was to be set up in Belgrade for 200 Bulgarian youths — the Second Bulgarian Legion. The latter, however, had the fate of the First Legion — it was disbanded only several months later. Most of its members went back to Romania and formed a 125-men-strong detachment, headed by the voevodes Hadji Dimiter and Stefan Karadja. In July 1868, the detachment crossed the Danube and engaged in several bloody battles with the Turks. The last of these battles took place on Mount Bouzloudja in the Balkan Range and ended in the death of most of the revolutionaries, including the voevode Hadji Dimiter.

The heroic end of this detachment marked the decline of the detachment tactics. It became obvious that these detachments, sent from outside, in spite of their excellent military schooling, heroism and selflessness of their members were incapable of rousing the people in a mass uprising, History had made it imperative for the Bulgarian national-liberation movement to pass over to a new, higher stage of development and this stage was linked with the name of another great son of Bulgaria – Vassil Levski.

Vassil Ivanov Kounchev Levski

Vassil Ivanov Kounchev Levski was born in 1837 in the town of Karlovo. His father, a poor master-dyer, died early, and Levski had to leave the intermediary school after the second grade. His uncle insisted on his becoming a monk and that is why Levski was also known as ‘The Deacon’. The monastery, however, could not satisfy the young man, who wished passionately to devote his life to the national cause. He ran away from the monastery and took part in both of Rakovski’s legions, then served as standard-bearer of the detachment of Panayot Hitov and he would have joined the detachment of Hadji Dimiter and Stefan Karadja were it not for his falling gravely ill. Soon after that detachment was defeated, however, Levski returned to Bulgaria, but already as an emissary of the Secret Bulgarian Revolutionary Committee entrusted with the task of studying the situation in the country. A year later he made a second tour of the country, visiting scores of towns and villages and all regions of Bulgaria.

You can easily follow his route in your Bulgaria tour.

Koubrat’s death

The sons, however, did not fulfil the behest of their wise father. After Koubrat’s death, like the majority of all multitribal state formations at that time, ‘Great Bulgaria’ disintegrated under the impacts of the Khazars coming from the east. Part of the Proto-Bulgarians set out to the north and formed there, at the place where the Kama River disgorges its waters into the Volga, the so-called Volga Bulgaria. Another part of them, led by Koubrat’s son Asparouh, withdrew to the estuary of the Danube and started from there frequent incursions into the Byzantine lands to the south of the big river.

The Establishment of the Bulgarian State

In the year 680 the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IV Pogonatus launched a massive attack, by land and sea simultaneously, against the Proto-Bulgarians and the Union of seven Slav tribes in Moesia. Asparouh, however, defeated his army and moved southwards as far as the Balkan Range. There he built his fortified camp of Pliska (not far from today’s town of Shoumen) and concluded an agreement with the chiefs of the seven Slav tribes for waging a joint struggle against the common enemy – the Byzantine Empire. This was not an agreement difficult to conclude, for Proto-Bulgarians and Slavs had known each other for quite a long time. They had been neighbours at the time of‘Great Bulgaria’ and some of them had entered both the Hunnish Tribal Union and the Avar Khaganate. In order to check a further penetration of Proto-Bulgarians southwards, the Byzantine Emperor signed a peace treaty with Asparouh in the beginning of 681, recognizing officially the birth of the Bulgarian, or more precisely, of the Slav-Bulgarian state.

The new state of Byzantine

The new state spread between the Danube, the Black Sea, the Balkan Range and the Timok River to the west. It gradually enlarged its territory and came to occupy some time later the center of the Balkan Peninsula. The land was beautiful and fertile, but very unquiet, for it was the crossroads of important routes linking the north with the south, Europe with Asia. In times of peace riches flowed in via the ‘Old Road’, which was also called ‘Apia Trajana’, ‘The Military Road’, ‘The Diagonal Road’; intensive trade and cultural exchange was carried out which contributed to the country’s rapid progress. The periods of peace, however, were shorter than those of war. Unlike the newly- created West-European states, which had emerged and developed upon the ruins of the Roman Empire and which were later reached by the barbarian waves after the latter had broken their crests, Bulgaria had had the impertinence to emerge in the very heart of the well-preserved Eastern Roman Empire and had to pay dearly for her impertinence. The powerful Empire looked down on the uninvited newcomers and spared no effort in its attempts to throw them back to the other side of the Danube or to assimilate them in the way it had done before with numerous other barbarian tribes. This forced the Bulgarians to wage exhausting life-and-death wars in the course of centuries for their free national existence.

The Churches of Arbanassi

As a Christian settlement, the church was a prime figure in both the development and definition of Arbanassi. From the church came the Greek language, the idea of formal learning and education which, for the time, survived the Moslem invasion, and formed the basis for much of the religious back ground of Eastern Europe today.

Some seven churches survive today as an indication of the strength of the faith of the people of Arbanassi, to not only build, but preserve the structures and traditions of the Christian faith within a Moslem world.

Those churches are …

1- Rodestsvo Hristovo -“The Birth of Christ”

2-” Saint Dimitur”

3- “The Saint of Archangel Michail & Gavril”

4-” Saint Atanasii”

5-” Saint George “

6- “Holy Mother of God “

7- “Saint Nikola “

Much of the large part that the church plays in the history of Arbanassi can traced to the Turnovo region, indeed the initiative and decoration of the churches belongs to the eminent Bishops of Turnovo, such as Gerasim the Second, Nikifor, Atenasii, who pioneered the establishment of Eastern Orthodox themes throughout Eastern Europe.

Arbanassi was an interesting development to Christian leaders of that time, as much of the Christian faith had been persecuted and removed from everyday life under the Ottoman Empire, so a particular focus of their attention was the Church of The Birth of Christ. Over many years there was continuous work on the renovation and decoration of the church to become a Christian shrine in what were considered non-Christian lands.

That church became the focus of religious art, and some of the murals that adorn the walls of this church represent over eighty years continuous work by many artists that literally lived and died in producing these murals. Another highlight is the carved altar and surrounds that are treated with gold leaf, depicting the tree of Christ, a work of stunning size and complexity. The rest of the church is filled with icons and other murals that are not only typical, but the best preserved of such Christian art of the period.

This is not to neglect the other churches in Arbanassi, which while having the same architectural form, contain a wealth of mural and iconography that is  the very best representation of post Byzantine religious art in the Balkans.

These churches also contain art from the masters of Aton, such as the church of “Sveti Atanasie”, whose frescos date from 1667, and show great similarities to monuments and religious architecture from Greece and Crete.

In the church of “Saint Archangel Michail and Gavrail” we see late 16th century artwork sponsored by the wife of Niku Kutukli, Kiriaky, who had undertaken a pilgrimage to the holy city of Jerusalem. Such was her enthusiasm, she enlisted the artists Georgi from Bucharest, and Michhail from Thessalonika to adorn the dome of the church in what is a great example predating other frescos utilizing the same perspective technique in Western Europe.

The frescos in the Church of Saint Dimitur, finished late 1621, are simply the finest achievements of late middle age mural work to be found in Europe, and so are unique in their preservation and condition.

Arbanassi also held an attraction for those who required a retreat from the ways of the world, and the monasteries of “Uspenie Bogorodichno” and “Saint Nikola” which still remain today as places of quiet contemplation.

Monasteries of Arbanasi

Under the territory of Arbanasi there are two monasteries “Uspenie Bogorodichni” and “Sveti Nikola”. It is not clear when the hostel was established, but the chapel is the oldest building within the priory, established 1680.By colours style and type, the frescos are similar to the church “Church of the Birth of Christ”.

The chapel of “Sveti Nikola” was in active use until the raid on Arbanasi in 1798, which leftthe buildings partially destroyed, but renovation took place 1808 to its original form, and by 1833 the monastery complex was well established. In the vestibule, some of the origin frescos are still to be seen, along with a variety of wood carvings. Both monasteries are in active use today.