Bulgaria’s ‘Old Capitals Act’ Seeks to Boost Development of Pliska, Veliki Preslav, Veliko Tarnovo & Vidin

A new piece of legislation dubbed the “Old Capitals Act” is supposed to boost the development, promotion, and research of Bulgaria’s medieval capitals which are today on its territory.

The bill for the Old Capitals Act is a non-partisan initiative of MPs from right-wing, left-wing, and nationalist political parties which was first announced in March 2016.

It has now been drafted and formally submitted to be voted on by the Bulgarian Parliament.

While the archaeological and architectural preserves of Bulgaria’s medieval capital enjoy special status under the existing legislation, the new law will provide for their “centralized management” and regulation which is supposed to help procure for them more funding from the central budget.

The special law refers to those medieval Bulgarian capitals which are located on present-day Bulgaria’s territory:

• Pliska, capital of the First Bulgarian Empire in 680-893 AD);

• Veliki Preslav (“Great Preslav”), capital of the First Bulgarian Empire in 893-970 AD);

• Veliko Tarnovo (“Great Tarnovo”), also called Tarnovgrad in the Middle Ages, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1185-1393 AD, with its three main citadels, Tsarevets, Trapesitsa, and Momina Krepost (Maiden‘s Fortress), also known as Devingrad (Virgin’s Town).

• Vidin, which was the capital of the short-lived Vidin Tsardom (1371-1396/1422), a rump state of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

The other medieval Bulgarian capitals, which were temporary capitals of the First Bulgarian Empire at the end of the 10^th and the beginning of the 11^th century, namely, Skopje (970-992; 1072), Prespa (992-997), Ohrid (997-1015), and Bitola (1015-1018), are located today in the Republic of Macedonia.

Under the new legislation, the archaeological and architectural preserves of Bulgaria’s medieval capitals will be managed by the Council of Ministers, including the Ministers of Culture, Finance, Regional Development, and Tourism, and by the local mayors.

The Council of Ministers will be entitled to grant the respective municipalities or other entities management rights for the archaeological and architectural preserves for 10-year periods.

The MPs who drafted the bill for the Old Capitals Act believe that the legislation will help boost cultural tourism, and, respectively, the economic development in Bulgaria’s Districts of Shumen, Veliko Tarnovo, and Vidin. The bill is yet to be voted on by the Bulgarian Parliament.

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While Pliska, Veliki Preslav, and Veliko Tarnovo (Tarnovgrad) were the most glorious and famous capitals of the medieval Bulgarian Empire, they were not the only ones.

(That is, not counting the capitals of the Ancient Bulgars during their resettlement throughout Eurasia before the 7th century, or even the capital of Old Great Bulgaria located in today’s Ukraine and Southwest Russia, which is believed to have been the ancient city of Phanagoria, a claim that is increasingly being disputed.)

At the end of the 10^th and the beginning of the 11^th century AD, the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire was moved from the geographic region of Moesia (today’s Northern Bulgaria between Danube and the Balkan Mountains) to the geographic region of Macedonia (in today’s Republic of Macedonia).

The most famous of these last capitals of the First Bulgarian Empire was the city of Ohrid in 997-1015 AD, during the reign of Tsar Samuil (r. 997-1014 AD).

Skopje (today’s capital of the Republic of Macedonia) is believed to have been the temporary capital of Bulgaria in 970-992 AD) and again briefly in 1072 AD, during a major Bulgarian uprising against the Byzantine Empire (all of the First Bulgarian Empire had been conquered by Byzantium in 1018, and remained part of it until 1185).

The city of Prespa is believed to have been used as a capital of Bulgaria ca. 992-997 AD, while the last rulers of the First Bulgarian Empire, Tsar Ivan Vladislav (r. 1016-1018 AD), is believed to have had his capital in the city of Bitola.

Throughout its history, Bulgaria has also had some regional capitals, i.e. capital cities of smaller Bulgarian states such as the Vidin Tsardom (1371-1396) with its capital in Vidin and the Dobrudzha Despotate (Principality of Karvuna) (ca. 1340 – ca. 1388/1414) with its capital in Karvuna (today’s Kavarna) and later in Kaliakra.

After Bulgaria’s Liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, and its partition into several pieces, the southern Bulgarian city of Plovdiv was capital of the entity known as Eastern Rumelia (encompassing much of today’s Southern Bulgaria) for 7 years, until the National Unification of the Principality of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia in 1885.

Today’s Bulgarian capital Sofia was selected as the capital of the Third Bulgarian Tsardom in 1878-1879, right after Bulgaria’s National Liberation from the Ottoman Empire.

The draft legislation of the Great Old Capitals Act stipulates a special status only for the most powerful capitals of the medieval Bulgarian Empire – Pliska, Veliki Preslav, and Veliko Tarnovo, and makes no mention of any other of Bulgaria’s old capitals.

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Background Infonotes:

Pliska and Veliki Preslav (Great Preslav) are two of the capitals of the First Bulgarian Empire. Pliska was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire in 680-893 AD, and Veliki Preslav in 893-970 AD, at the height of the Bulgarian state. The state capital was moved from Pliska to Veliki Preslav, a new medieval city nearby, in 893 AD in order to seal Bulgaria’s adoption of Christianity and the Bulgarian (Slavic, Cyrillic) script (in 865 and 886 AD, respectively). The ruins of both Pliska and Veliki Preslav can be seen today in the Shumen District in Northeast Bulgaria.

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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 Empire between 1185 and 1396 AD. Together with the Trapesitsa Hill, Tsarevets was one of the two fortresses of 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 three gates, 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 the legendary 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 the Tsarevets Hill in the 9^th 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 12^th 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 3^rd 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 12^th-14^th century AD was used for executing traitors by throwing them into the canyon of the Yantra River.

For some 200 years the medieval Tarnovgrad, also known as Tsarevgrad Tarnov (i.e. the Tsar’s City), together with its fortresses Tsarevets, Trapesitsa, and Momina Krepost (“Maiden’s Fortress”), also known as Devingrad (“Virgins’ Town”), rivaled Constantinople as the most important city in this part of Europe, with some of the most glorious and famous Bulgarian Tsars – Tsar Asen (r. 1190-1195), Tsar Petar (r. 1185-1197), Tsar Kaloyan (r. 1197-1207), Tsar Ivan Asen II (r. 1218-1241), Tsar Konstantin Asen Tih (r. 1257-1277), Tsar Ivaylo (r. 1277-1280), Tsar Todor (Theodore) Svetoslav (r. 1300-1322), Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371), and Tsar Ivan Shishman (r. 1371-1395) – ruling their empire from Tsarevets.

Tsarevets and the rest of Tarnovgrad had a tragic fate, however, after in 1393 AD, after a three-month siege, it became the first European capital to fall prey to the invading Ottoman Turks. This was somewhat of a logical outcome after the de facto feudal disintegration of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the second half of the 14^th century. After Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371 AD) lost his two eldest sons – Ivan in 1349 AD and Mihail in 1355 AD – in battles with the Ottoman Turks, he failed to prevent a number of Bulgarian feudal lords from seceding, and on top of that divided the remainder of the Bulgarian Tsardom between his two surviving sons. His third son Ivan Sratsimir (r. 1371-1396) received the smaller so called Vidin Tsardom, with the Danube city of Bdin (Vidin) as its capital, and his fourth son Ivan Shishman (r. 1371-1395) received the rest, the so called Tarnovo Tsardom, with the capital proper of Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo). Just two decades later all Bulgarian lands, disunited and even warring among themselves, fell prey to the invading Ottoman Turks, ushering Bulgaria into five centuries of Ottoman Yoke (1396-1878/1912), and signifying a practically irreversible loss of its former great power status.

As the last ruler of Tarnovgrad, Tsar Ivan Shishman was not in the capital at the time it was besieged by the forces of Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389-1402 AD), its defense was led by the legendary Bulgarian Patriarch St. Euthymius (Evtimiy) of Tarnovo (ca. 1325-ca. 1402-1404 AD), the founder of the Tarnovo Literary School. After they conquered the Bulgarian capital on July 17, 1393, the Ottoman Turks slaughtered its population – an especially dramatic scene was the beheading of 110 captured Bulgarian aristocrats, and razed to the ground the Bulgarian imperial palace and the churches and monasteries of the Bulgarian Patriarchate. Tsarevets and Veliko Tarnovo were liberated from the Turks in the summer of 1877 in the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878 that restored the Bulgarian state.

The archaeological restoration of the Tsarevets Hill Fortress began in 1930 and was completed in 1981, the year that was celebrated, now somewhat questionably, as the 1300^th anniversary since the founding of the Bulgarian state. Tourists visiting Tsarevets can view the so called “Sound and Light” audiovisual show, an attraction using lasers and music to tell the story of the medieval Bulgarian Empire as well as Bulgaria’s fight for freedom against the Ottoman Empire, and the story of Bulgaria’s National Liberation. It was first launched in 1985 for the 800^th anniversary since the Uprising of Asen and Petar. The Tsarevets Fortress was granted a protected status by the Bulgarian government for the first time in 1927, and in 1964 it was declared a “monument of culture of national importance”.

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The Trapesitsa 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 Empire between 1185 and 1396 AD. Together with the Tsarevets Hill, Trapesitsa was one of the two fortresses of the inner city acropolis of Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo). The Trapesitsa Hill is a natural fortress on the right bank of the Yantra River, and is surrounded by it on three sides. It is located northwest of the Tsarevets Hill. The Trapesitsa Fortress had four gates, the main one being its southern gate, which was also connected with the Tsarevets Fortress with a bridge across the Yantra River. There are two hypotheses about Trapesitsa’s name. The first one is that it comes from the Bulgarian word “trapeza” meaning a “table” or “repast”, possibly referring to the receptions of the medieval Bulgarian Tsars; the second hypothesis is that the word comes from “trapezium” because the hill is in fact is a trapezoidal plateau.

The first archaeological excavations on the Trapesitsa Hill Fortress in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo between 1884 and 1900 revealed the foundations of 17 medieval Bulgarian churches with fragments of rich murals, colorful mosaics, and beautiful floor tiles. The documented artifacts discovered there include crosses, necklaces, coins, rings, earrings, vessels. The churches on Trapesitsa were richly decorated with various architectural forms such as pilasters, niches, blind arches, colored slabs, among others.

The largest preserved church on the Trapesitsa Hill known as “Church No. 8″ is named after the 10^th century AD Bulgarian saint, St. Ivan Rilski (St. John of Rila) (876-946 AD); it was surrounded with other buildings which are believed to have been part of a monastery complex. It is known that in 1195 AD, Bulgaria’s Tsar Asen I (r. 1189-1196 AD) transported the relics of St. Ivan Rilski from the city of Sredets (today’s Sofia) to Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo), and had them placed in the specially constructed church on the Trapesitsa Hill. The Bulgarian archaeologists believe that a room in the southern part of Church No. 8 was the reliquary for St. Ivan Rilski’s relics. The relics of St. Ivan Rilski (St. John of Rila), who is Bulgaria’s patron saint, were kept in Veliko Tarnovo until 1469 AD when they were transported to the Rila Monastery where they are kept to this day in what became a major event for the Bulgarians during the early period of the Ottoman Yoke (1396-1878/1912), as the Second Bulgarian Empire had been conquered by the invading Ottoman Turks in 1396 AD.

The numerous and richly decorated small churches indicate that the Trapesitsa Hill harbored the homes of the medieval Bulgarian nobility, the boyars, and the supreme clergy. More recent excavations, however, also indicate that the imperial palace of the early Bulgarian Tsars from the House of Asen (the Asen Dynasty, r. 1185-1257 AD) was in fact located on the Trapesitsa Hill, and the imperial seat was possibly moved to the nearby Tsarevets Hill only later, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Asen II (r. 1218-1241 AD). In the recent years, the Trapesitsa Hill has been excavated by Prof. Konstantin Totev from the Veliko Tarnovo Branch of the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and by Prof. Hitko Vatchev from the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History.

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The Hill of Momina Krepost (“Maiden’s Fortress”), also known as Devingrad (“Virgins’ Town”), is one of the historic hills of Tarnovgrad, the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), today’s city of Veliko Tarnovo. It is a Late Antiquity Early Byzantine and medieval Bulgarian fortress located about 600 meters to the east of the Tsarevets Hill, one of the two fortresses of the inner city acropolis of Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo), on the right bank of the Yantra River. In the Late Antiquity and Early Byzantine period, the fortress of Momina Krepost (“Maiden’s Fortress”), also known as Devingrad (“Virgins’ Town”), was established to protect the connection of the Early Byzantine town on the Tsarevets Hill to the road between Nicopolis ad Istrum (north of Veliko Tarnovo) and Kabile (near today’s southeastern Bulgarian city of Yambol). The Maiden’s Fortress is located on a triangular hill with three terraces.

The Maiden’s Fortress in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo was first explored by Czech-Bulgarian archaeologist Karel Skorpil who together with his brother Hermann Skorpil founded modern-day Bulgarian archaeology at the end of the 19^th century. Later excavations and observations were carried out there in 1942-1943 by Dr. Ivan Velkov, in 1963 by Bogdan Sultov from the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History, and more recently by Assist. Prof. Evgeni Dermendzhiev from the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History. The citadel of the Maiden Fortress is about 300 meters long and 30-40 meters wide, and has a total area of 9 decares (app. 2.2 acres). The Maiden Fortress was built at the end of the 5^th century AD by Byzantium, and was used the Byzantines in the 6^th and the beginning of the 7^th century AD. During the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD) it was part of the Bulgarian capital Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo).

The medieval name of the Maiden Fortress or Virgins’ Town is known from a marble slab inscription discovered on the Tsarevets Hill during archaeological excavations which mentions Devingrad. It was published by Nikola Angelov, and was construed by Ivan Galabov who believes it refers to the Maiden’s Fortress. According to Prof. Velizar Velkov (1928-1993), the name might stem from the Thracian name of the city. The Thracians used the word “deva” to mean a city (dava in Greek, and deva in Latin) meaning a fortified place. The Slavs, however, translated the word as “deva” meaning a virgin. The Ottoman conquerors after them called it kuzhisar (kuz meaning a girl, and hisar – a fortress). After Bulgaria’s Liberation from the Ottoman Empire in 1878, the name became Momina Krepost, Maiden’s Fortress.

There are also numerous legends which claim that the fortress was named after young girls who committed suicide there out of their desperate love, or found a heroic death. One of the legends has it that Velislava, the beautiful daughter of Strashimir, a rich and powerful Bulgarian boyar (a medieval Bulgarian title for a noble second in rank only to the Tsar, i.e. Emperor) was in love with a brave and beautiful but poor young man named Borimir. Instead, Strashimir wanted to marry Velislava to the rich but cowardly Svetoslav. Borimir was summoned to the Bulgarian army during a Byzantine invasion, with the war putting off the wedding between Velislava and Svetoslav. When the Bulgarians fended off the attack and peace was restored, the wedding was supposed to take place but the night of the wedding celebrated with a feast in the imperial palace in Tarnovgrad, Velislava disappeared and was found in her wedding dress near the Yantra River, after she had jumped off the tower of the fortress across from the Tsarevets Hill. After her death, Borimir left a flower on her grave, and nobody ever saw him again, and the locals called the fortress where the young woman committed suicide the “Maiden’s Fortress”.

Another legend tells about a young woman named Malina who decided to rebel against the hated Bulgarian Tsar Boril (r. 1207-1218 AD) who was an usurper of the throne in Tarnovgrad taking it after his predecessor Tsar Kaloyan (r. 1197-1207 AD) was murdered. Malina and her beloved man Valkan gathered a band of rebels to march against the Tsar. As they raised their flag, Malina’s red scarf, as a banner on the high hill opposite the Tsarevets Fortress to summon the rebels, however, two arrows suddenly killed them. Despite that Malina held onto the banner, and the rebellion was launched. Malina’s banner is said to have been seen on the high hill at moonlight, and that’s why the locals called it the “Maiden’s Fortress”.

According to a third legend, one of the daughters of Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II (r. 1218-1241 AD) refused to marry a rich boyar. As she disobeyed her father’s will, she founded a monastery on the hill across from Tsarevets where one day out of sorrow she jumped off the cliff into the Yantra River – hence the name the “Maiden’s Fortress”.

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The Ancient Roman fortress Bononia and the fortified medieval Bulgarian city of Badin / Bdin with the surviving castle (fortress) Baba Vida (“Grandma Vida”) are the predecessors of modern-day northwestern Bulgarian Danube city of Vidin.

The history of Vidin began in the 3^rd century BC when it was founded as a Celtic settlement named Dunonia (meaning “fortified hill”) called Dunavia by the Ancient Thracians. After the region was conquered by Ancient Rome in the 1^st century BC, the Romans called the settlement Bononia, and turned it into a major fortress on the Limes Moesiae (the Danube Limes), the frontier Lower Danube region of the Roman Empire that was supposed to stop barbarian attacks from the north and east. According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zdravko Dimitrov from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Bononia was the largest Roman fortress on the Lower Danube, with a fortified territory of 200 decares (app. 50 acres). Its fortress walls were 2.7-3 meters thick, and it had several huge fortress towers; for example, fortress tower No. 8 excavated by Dimitrov in 2014 had a diameter of 30 meters (some suppose that the floors inside the fortress towers were used as a military barracks). The coins and ceramics unearthed in 2014 indicate that the Roman fortress Boninia was built in the 320s or the 330s AD, during the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine the Great (r. 306-337 AD) even though the archaeologists who worked on the excavations in Bulgaria’s Vidin in the 1970s at first thought that it was constructed somewhat later, at the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5^th century AD. Much of the modern-day city of Vidin appears to be lying on top of the ruins of the huge Roman fortress Bononia, which was part of the Roman province of Moesia Superior. Among the archaeological finds in the city of Vidin, Bulgarian paleo-ornithologist Prof. Zlatozar Boev from the National Museum of Natural History in Sofia has identified bird bones dating from the 8^th until the 17^th century AD of 7 bird species, including the western capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), also known as the wood grouse, heather cock or capercaillie, which is now extinct in this part of Bulgaria; the common crane (Grus grus), and some of Bulgaria’s earliest remains of a domesticated turkey (Meleagris gallopavo f. domestica) in Bulgaria.

When the Slavs settled in the region of today’s Northwest Bulgaria in the Early Middle Ages, they called the city Budin or Bdin. The medieval Bulgarian fortress, or castle, to be more precise, known as Baba Vida was built in the 10^th century AD, during the First Bulgarian Empire (632/680-1018 AD), on top of the foundations of the Roman fortress Bononia. The Baba Vida Castle is said to be the best preserved medieval Bulgarian fortress since the numerous other Bulgarian fortresses were destroyed by the invading Ottoman Turks at the end of the 14^th century AD (the Ottoman Turks called Baba Vida a “virgin” fortress because it was not taken by them by force). The Baba Vida Castle (Fortress) surviving today was the inner and most fortified part of the medieval city of Bdin (Vidin), and was in fact used as the castle of the local feudal lord; remains of the city’s outer fortress wall have been revealed in Vidin’s quarter Kaleto (“kale” is the Turkish word meaning “fortress” used to denote many fortresses across Bulgaria). The Baba Vida Castle has an area of 5 decares (app. 1.25 acres), and consists of two concentric rectangular walls with 4 fortress towers, which used to be surrounded by a water moat (which still fills up with water today when the level of the Danube rises), and had a drawbridge (which is today replaced with a stone bridge). It lies on top of the remains of a large fortress tower in the northeastern section of the Roman fortress Bononia.

The name of the Baba Vida (meaning “Grandmother Vida”) Fortress or Castle is believed to stem from a Bulgarian folklore legend, which says that a rich Bulgarian boyar (aristocrat) divided his feudal estate among his three daughters – Vida, Kula, and Gamza. Vida received the city of Vidin (Bdin), Kula received the area of today’s town of Kula, and Gamza received the area of the town of Gamzigrad (today in Serbia, located on the site of the Ancient Roman city of Felix Romuliana built by Roman Emperor Galerius (r. 293-311 AD)). Vida was the only one of the three daughters who managed to build a huge fortress, and she never married because she dedicated her life to the fortress’s defense against foreign invaders.

According to Byzantine chroniclers, in 1003 AD, during the reign of Bulgarian Tsar Samuil (r. 977/997-1014 AD), the fortress city of Bdin withstood successfully an eight-month siege led personally by Byzantine Emperor Basil II the Bulgar-slayer (r. 976-1025 AD) who eventually defeated the First Bulgarian Empire in 1018 AD. Before that, in 971-976 AD, Vidin is said to have been the center of the feudal region ruled by Samuil (one of the four Cometopuli (counts)) while his three other brothers ruled feudal regions to the south.

Badin / Bdin was a very important city during the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), and especially in the second half of the 14^th century AD. It was technically the last Bulgarian capital to be conquered by the Ottoman Turks. After Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander (r. 1331-1371 AD) lost his two eldest sons – Ivan in 1349 AD and Mihail in 1355 AD – in battles with the Ottoman Turks, he failed to prevent a number of Bulgarian feudal lords seceding, and on top of that divided the remainder of the Bulgarian Tsardom between his two surviving sons. His third son Ivan Sratsimir (r. 1371-1396) received the smaller so called Vidin Tsardom, with the Danube city of Bdin (Vidin) as its capital, and his fourth son Ivan Shishman (r. 1371-1395) received the rest, the so called Tarnovo Tsardom, with the capital proper of Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo). Just two decades later all Bulgarian lands, disunited and even warring among themselves, fell prey to the invading Ottoman Turks, ushering Bulgaria into five centuries of Ottoman Yoke (1396-1878/1912), and signifying a practically irreversible loss of its former great power status. The modern-day look of the Baba Vida Castle was shaped during the reign of Tsar Ivan Sratsimir of the Vidin Tsardom when the fortifications of the city of Bdin (Vidin) were strengthened. Its best preserved tower is 16 meters high, has 2.8-meter thick walls, and is known as Sratsimir’s Tower. Before that, in 1365 AD, the city of Bdin (Vidin) was occupied by the Hungarians who called it Budony; however, they were driven out by the Bulgarian forces in 1369 AD.

The Ottoman Turks conquered the Tarnovo Tsardom (whose territory roughly corresponded to today’s Central Bulgaria) in 1393-5 AD (the main capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, Tarnovgrad (today’s Veliko Tarnovo), fell after a three-month siege in 1393), and the Dobrudzha Despotate (also known as the Principality of Karvurna, in today’s Northeast Bulgaria and Southeast Romania) in 1395 AD, as well as the feudal states in the regions of Thrace and Macedonia which were part of the Second Bulgarian Empire. By that time, Tsar Ivan Sratsimir, ruler of the Vidin (Bdin) Tsardom, had become a vassal of the Ottoman Turkish sultan. However, in 1396 AD, Hungarian King Sigismund of Luxembourg (r. 1387-1437 AD, later Holy Roman Emperor in 1433-1437 AD), organized a crusade against the Ottoman Turks leading Tsar Ivan Sratsimir to lend him full support. King Sigismund’s Crusade, however, ended in a disaster for the Christian forces in the Battle of Nicopolis (today’s Bulgarian town of Nikopol), after which Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I had Tsar Ivan Sratsimir chained and exiled in Bursa, Anatolia, where he was either killed or died in a dungeon, allegedly in 1402 AD. Tsar Ivan Sratsimir’s heir, Konstantin (Constantine), however, was saved as the Ottoman forces entered Bdin (Vidin) in 1396 AD, and later together with his first counsin, Fruzhin, the son of Tsar Ivan Shishman, the ruler of the Tarnovo Tsardom, staged the so called Uprising of Konstantin and Fruzhin in 1408-1413 AD against the Ottoman Turks in today’s Northwest Bulgaria, which was ultimately unsuccessful. The majority of the Bulgarian historians believe that his was the end of the Vidin (Bdin) Tsardom, and of the Second Bulgarian Empire, respectively.

Some Bulgarian historians believe, however, that Tsar Ivan Sratsimir’s son became Tsar Konstantin II Asen (r. 1397-1422 AD) ruling as the Emperor of Bulgaria based in Bdin (Vidin), and controlling at least some of the northwestern territories of the Second Bulgarian Empire. A number of historical sources mention the Bulgarian Tsardom (Empire) and Tsar Konstantin II Asen from 1396 until 1422 AD, leading to the conclusion that after 1396 the Vidin Tsardom remained a vassal state of the Ottomans while also fighting against them. According to this “alternative history” which has not made its way into Bulgarian history textbooks yet, in 1408-1413 AD, Tsar Konstantin II and his first cousin Fruzhin did not stage an uprising but the former was helping the latter try to regain his former throne in Veliko Tarnovo. After 1413-1417, Tsar Konstantin II spent most of his time in Serbia and Hungary, and is known to have died in 1422 in the Serbian royal court in Belgrade. Even though according to the mainstream history of Bulgaria, the Vidin Tsardom, and all of the Second Bulgarian Empire, was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1396 AD, Ottoman records do not mention the existence of a Vidin Sanzhak (sancak in Turkish was an administrative unit in the Ottoman Empire) until 1430 AD. The other “last” Bulgarian Tsar, Konstantin II’s first cousin (Tsar) Fruzhin, the heir to the throne in Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo) continued to participate in all Christian campaigns against the Ottoman Empire, which were also expected to achieve Bulgaria’s liberation, including the two unsuccessful Crusades of the Polish King Vladislav (Wladyslaw) III (r. 1424-1444 AD) in 1443 and 1444 AD (also known as Vladislav Varnenchik (Vladislav of Varna) because he was killed in the Battle of Varna in 1444 AD). Fruzhin held a feudal estate in the Kingdom of Hungary, and died in 1460 AD in the city of Brasov in Wallachia.

After they conquered the city of Bdin, the Ottoman Turks called it Vidin based on its Greek name Vidini (which is how, paradoxically, it is still called in today’s Bulgaria), and also used it as a major stronghold. In the 17^th and 18^th century, the city of Vidin was conquered a number of times by the forces of the Austrian Empire. In 1689, the Austrians strengthened Vidin’s fortifications which helped preserve the Baba Vida Castle in a better condition in the following centuries. After the end of the 18^th century, the Ottoman Turks no longer used the Vidin Fortress for defensive purposes but as an arms depot and a dungeon where they kept and tortured Bulgarian freedom fighters. The imprisoned Bulgarian revolutionaries drew letters and signs (which can be seen today) on the walls of the dungeon to keep track of time. Between 1794 and 1807, Vidin was the capital of Ottoman Janissary and separatist Osman Pazvantoglu who conquered for himself a sizable domain of Ottoman lands in today’s Northwest Bulgaria while warring with the Turkish sultan. During the period of Ottoman Yoke, the city of Vidin and the Vidin region were the center of several uprisings of the Bulgarians against the Ottoman rule, including the major uprisings in 1773 and 1850, all of which were crushed by the Ottoman forces with bloody atrocities. After Bulgaria’s National Liberation in 1878, Vidin has remained one of the country’s most important cities.