History Museum in Bulgaria’s Veliko Tarnovo Celebrates Its 145th Birthday

The Regional Museum of History in the city of Veliko Tarnovo in Central North Bulgaria has turned 145, as it was technically first founded in 1871, seven years before Bulgaria’s National Liberation from the Ottoman Empire.

The History Museum of Veliko Tarnovo, the successor of the medieval city of Tarnovgrad which was the capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185-1396 AD), first emerged as a museum collection within the local chitalishte, i.e. cultural community club, called Nadezhda (“Hope”).

“Chitalishte” is a unique Bulgarian institution that emerged during the Period of National Revival in the 18^th-19^th century while Bulgaria was still part of the Ottoman Empire, a time known as the Ottoman Yoke (1396-1878/1912).

On January 2, 1871, the chairman of the chitalishte Ivan P. Ivanov proposed to its trustees that a museum be established within the cultural community club, a motion which was approved the same day, explains in an article Katya Mitova-Ganeva, chief curator of the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History, for the local daily Yantra Dnes.

On March 18, 1879, a year after Bulgaria’s National Liberation from the Ottoman Empire, almost 70 people, including intellectuals such as Marin Drinov, Vasil Drumev, Tsani Ginchev, and Mihail Seizov, founded in Veliko Tarnovo Bulgaria’s first Archaeological Society chaired by Vasil Beron.

The Society aimed at making the former Bulgarian capital a center of Bulgarian archaeology, and participated in the first exploration of the Trapesitsa Hill Fortress and Belyakovets.

On June 8, 1914, the Archaeological Society in Veliko Tarnovo became part of the Chitalishte “Nadezhda” merging its collection into the cultural club’s museum.

The construction of a special building to house Veliko Tarnovo’s museum, art gallery, and library was started in 1940.

Unfortunately, it had to be terminated during World War II, in 1942, and was only resumed a decade later.

The building of the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History was completed in 1953, and in 1954, the Museum transferred its collections from the building of Chitalishte “Nadezhda” to its new space.

The same building today houses the Veliko Tarnovo Museum of Archaeology which is part of the Veliko Tarnovo Regional Museum of History.

Learn more about the history of Veliko Tarnovo (Tarnovgrad) in the Middle Ages in the Background Infonotes below.

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 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”.