Bulgaria Marks 575 Years since Battle of Varna in 1444, ‘Battle of Peoples’ in Which Ottoman Empire Defeated Christian Europeans

November 11, 2019 · by Ivan Dikov · in Bulgarian Empire, Middle Ages, Ottoman Empire

The remembrance of the Battle of Varna 575 years later was with a ritual performed by the Bulgarian Navy. Photo: National Museum of Military History

As they celebrate the 30^th anniversary since the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the communist regimes, Bulgaria and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe also mark with remembrance events the 575^th year since the Battle of Varna in 1444, in which the united forces of Christian Europeans aiming to liberate the Balkans were soundly defeated by the early Ottoman Empire.

The 1444 Battle of Varna, near today’s Black Sea city of Varna in Bulgaria, saw the Christian European force led by Vladislav (Wladyslaw) III Jagello, also known as Varnenchik (Warnenczyk), King of Poland and Hungary, and made up of Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Wallachians, Bosnians, Croatians, Bulgarians, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Germans, and Teutonic Knights pitted against the Ottoman Turks and their Janissaries (warriors forcefully converted to Islam when they were seized from their Christian families).

Polish and Hungarian King Vladislav III Jagello Varnenchik’s two campaigns against the Ottoman Empire – in 1443 and 1444 – are sometimes described as Crusades but are the last attempts to liberate Southeast Europe from the Ottomans and to preempt their subsequent incursions into Central Europe (which were successfully stopped only 2.5 centuries later by another Polish King, Jan Sobieski, during the 1683 Siege of Vienna).

The 575^th year since the Battle of Varna was marked with a military ritual of the Bulgarian Navy and a prayer for the memory of the killed warriors in the Vladislav Varnenchik Museum Park on the site of the battle.

The event has been attend by Bulgaria’s Deputy Prime Minister Mariana Nikolova, the Director of the Polish Institute in Sofia, representatives of the Embassy of Hungary in Sofia, Varna’s District Governor, and officials from the local authorities.

“This is battle which has always posed many questions, and which still harbors a lot of secrets,” says Assoc. Prof. Sonya Petkova, Director of the National Museum of Military History in Sofia, which is the parent of the Vladislav Varnenchik Museum Park in Varna.

“These are connected with Vladislav’s fate as well as with many other stories associated with it, which have remained in people’s memory,” Petkova has added.

As part of the Battle of Varna remembrance event, the Museum has opened an exhibition of relevant armaments from its collection, and has held a two-day international history conference entitled, “Vladislav Varnenchik’s Campaigns.”

“There are intriguing exhibits, which have never been shown before, such as an extremely interesting medieval sword from the battle, a bombard, and many other arms,” Petkova points out.

The official remembrance ceremony for the 575th year since the Battle of Varna at the Vladislav Varnenchik Museum Park in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna. Photos: National Museum of Military History

The official remembrance ceremony for the 575th year since the Battle of Varna at the Vladislav Varnenchik Museum Park in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Varna. Photos: BTA

The rump states of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396/1422) were conquered by the invading Ottoman Turks around the turn of the 15^th century, prompting in 1396, Hungarian King Sigismund of Luxembourg (r. 1387-1437 AD, later Holy Roman Emperor in 1433-1437 AD), to stage the first united Christian European crusade-type campaign against the Ottoman Turks, which, however, ended in a disaster for the Christian forces in the Battle of Nicopolis (today’s Bulgarian town of Nikopol).

Several decades later, after reaching the region southeast of Sofia and retreating because of the winter in his first anti-Ottoman campaign in 1443, in 1444, King Vladislav (Wladyslaw) III Jagello and his ally John Hunyadi led an army of some 20,000 European Christian warriors, including Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Wallachians, Ruthenes (Rusyns), Bulgarians, Croatians, Saxons, Lithuanians, and Crusader Knights of Pope Eugene IV (r. 1431-1477).

Before reaching Varna on the Black Sea coast, the Christian Europeans’ forces advanced along the Danube in Northern Bulgaria, with Bulgarian rebels led by Fruzhin, the heir to the Bulgarian throne in Tarnovgrad (Veliko Tarnovo), son of Tsar Ivan Shishman (r. 1371-1395), joining along the way.

On November 9, 1444, the Ottoman army, which is estimated to have been about 60,000-strong, approached Varna from the west catching the Christian forces between the Black Sea, the Varna Lake, and the Frangen Plateau.

In the ensuing Battle of Varna, on November 10, 1444, the European Christian army led by King Vladislav Varnenchik, the Transylvanian voivode John Hunyadi, and Mircea II of Wallachia was outnumbered roughly three to one by the forces of Ottoman Sultan Murad II.

Władyslaw III of Poland leading the cavalry charge in the Battle of Varna, a fragment from a painting by Jan Matejko. Photo: Wikipedia

The two armies faced one another on a front of about 3.5 km. In the rear of the Christian army, the Czech Hussites formed a wagon fort (Wagenburg) armed with bombards.

Even though at first the Christian forces seemed to have gained the upper hand, the brave Polish and Hungarian King perished in the midst of the battle when he led a charge of his personal guard of 500 knights against the 10,000 Janissaries in an attempt to capture Ottoman Sultan Murad II.

Breaching the last lines of the Janissaries, King Vladislav’s horse tripped or was killed, he fell on the ground, and was beheaded on the spot by a Janissary. This immediately disorganized the Christian army, leading it to retreat.

Neither the King’s head, nor his body could be saved during the remainder of the battle. Transylvanian voivode John Hunyadi organized the retreat of the surviving Christian forces, with many Crusaders taken captive and sold as slaves. While the Ottomans were ultimately victorious in the Battle of Varna, their losses were so substantial that they did not realize they had won until three days after the battle.

A map of the Battle of Varna in 1444. Map: Kandi, Wikipedia

The bravery and tragic end of Polish and Hungarian King Vladislav (Wladyslaw) Varnenchik made him a hero in the folklore of many European nations.

For Bulgaria, the Christian Europeans’ defeat in the Battle of Varna sealed its fate for several centuries, a historical period known as the Ottoman Yoke (1396/1422 – 1878/1912). The battle also foreboded the end of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire with the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453.

Bulgaria has dedicated a memorial complex to the Battle of Varna in 1444 AD, and the heroism of the Polish King, known as the Vladislav Varnenchik Museum Park.

The Museum was first opened on the site of the Battle of Varna as a mausoleum in 1935, and then turned into a park museum with an area of 30 decares (app. 7.5 acres) in 1964, on the occasion of the 520^th Year since the Battle of Varna.

Varna has moved to erect a monument of Vladislav Varnenchik in the city at the initiative of the Bulgarian Cultural Institute in Warsaw, Poland, with the statue being a donation by renowned Polish sculptor Prof. Marian Konieczny from Krakow.

The largest recent historical reenactment of the 1444 Battle of Varna was staged back in 2015.

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