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The conquerors, however, did not content themselves with their victory over Tarnovo, they wanted its full submission and for this purpose they had to crush down the fighting spirit of its inhabitants.
Tarnovo’s history during the first century after its conquest is full of bitterness and humiliation. Its name was changed from the King’s Town of Tuarnovo, to Tarnovia, and from a capital it was turned into a simple provincial town. The roads which formerly connected it with the four corners of the country and the international highways of the peninsula were little used and were soon neglected.
Administratively, Tarnovo was placed under Vidin and later, after the formation of the Danubian district in the 19th century, under Rousse, when an important highway was built connecting Constantinople with Rousse via Adrianopole, Stara Zagora and Tarnovo.
As in many other important towns they had conquered, the Ottomans settled in Tarnovo distinguished military leaders, as well as colonists brought over from the depths of Asia Minor. Part of them were allowed to make their homes on Tsarevets. For this purpose, they pulled down whatever had remained of the palace. The stone pillars were used to prop porches and cowsheds. Part of the royal park was turned into a market garden and the rest -into a cemetery. Where the cross of the church of St. Petka had stood, rose the minaret of the Hissar mosque.
Trapezitsa was not to the taste of the Ottomans. It seemed too distant and the ruins of its numerous churches and chapels filled their hearts with superstitious awe. They did not like Frenkhissar eiher, while in Momina Krepost they placed a military post in the half-destroyed fortifications.
A large Turkish quarter came into being in Sveta Gora under the name of Ichmahlesi. Later on, Turkish families built their homes at the Bashdarluk, in the western end of the town.
The Bulgarians, for their part, continued to live in Assenova Mahala and the valley between Tsarevets and Trapezitsa.
Only a few old Bulgarian houses were preserved in Assenova Mahala, thanks to their stone structure.
After recovering from the initial shock and horrors, all those who had sought refuge in the Dervent caves, began to return one by one. They crossed the gorge in the dark of the night and stole into their half-ruined homes like banished animals.
What the fires had spared, had been sacked by the conquerors or destroyed by the elements. The conquerors had deprived the surviving inhabitants of their political and social rights. Sons had lost their fathers and parents their children. Natural relations had been broken. All felt alike and equally related. They were turned into serfs from which the conquerors demanded obedience and toil in the farms from dawn till dusk. As the inhabitants of Tarnovo could hardly be of use to the conquerors, because they possessed no land, they turned their eyes to the neighbouring villages. Here the sultan had granted large farms to the warriors who had distinguished themselves in capturing the town. Many people were needed to do the work on these farms. To secure their service, the owners of these farms managed to get privileges for the villages lying in their vicinity.
Various legends were spread among the people about this church, turned into a mosque, called Kavan Baba Teke Djamissi. Some said that every March, on the eve of the Day of the 40 Martyrs, a strange ghost appeared. It was the apparition of a young woman of rare beauty, with long hair, dressed in a white garment. She went round the church and sat on the grave, to bemoan the fate of Bulgaria. If a man of another creed cast his eye on her, he would fall, as if smitten by thunder. At dawn, this beautiful woman disappeared, but her tears shone on the tomb stone till the sun dried them.
The minaret of the mosque tumbled down many times, as though the earth did not wish to have it. Skilled master-builders came from as far as Constantinople, laid strong foundations and built it anew, but not even a week would pass before it would tumbledown again.
For this reason Kavan Baba Teke Djamissi had a bad fame, which stuck to it through the centuries. Even Moslems hardly ever visited it. Only one guard stayed in it day and night with his wife, who was incurably ill.
One day in 1856, two men appeared before the gate of the mosque. They had a foreign appearance, but were actually Bulgarian doctors — Pavel Markov, whom the Turks called Paul Marco, for which reason many people believed to be a Frenchman, and Hristo Daskalov, who had studied in Russia. A friend of the guard had sent them to examine his wife. The guard also thought they were Frenchmen and allowed them to come in. While his friend examined the woman, Dr. Daskalov made a sensational discovery. He noticed the old Bulgarian inscriptions on the church columns and copied them. Soon they were known all over Europe. Dr. Daskalov, however, had no way of knowing that only two decades earlier, hundreds of old Bulgarian books had been taken out of the church to be destroyed. It is interesting to know how these books got in the church. When in 1393 Tarnovo was living its last days of freedom, one night a long file of shadows could be seen, climbing down the steep slope of the hill, towards the church of Sts Peter and Paul. On entering the church, every one of them took a heavy bundle of books off his shoulders. Thus, before the eyes of Patriarch Evtimius, part of the Patriarchate library was hidden and built into the wall of the church altar. The shadows resumed their mysterious journey on the following night. This time the Patriarch was waiting for them in the church of the 40 Holy Martyrs. New piles of manuscripts were left here, in a small cell behind the altar. They belonged to the royal library, but were not built into the wall, because the attacks of the Ottoman troops were getting fiercer and fiercer. For four and a half centuries these books stayed in the church, until they were wilfully destroyed.
* * *
This episode is an illustration of the struggle waged by the Bulgarian people and the inhabitants of Tarnovo in particular for their religious freedom. The Tarnovo Patriarchate was actually closed down when Patriarch Evtimi was exiled. Very soon after this sad event, the Greek bishop Jeremiah was sent to Tarnovo to be its religious head. But the Bulgarian Patriarchate was formally abolished in 1572, when the sultan proclaimed the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople as the religious head of all Christians in the peninsula, who were considered by the Turks as one and the same nation. So the Patriarch of Constantinople named the Tarnovo bishop ‘Exarch of all Bulgaria’ and placed a number of dioces under him.
The Greek bishop set about restoring the half-destroyed abandoned churches. They were whitewashed and their frescos were restored and Greek inscriptions added. The Greek bishops did the same in some of the Tarnovo monasteries. They made remarkable improvements in the Arbanassi churches in particular. Both the icons and chandeliers of these churches were renewed.
The struggle against the attempts of the Greek clerev to assimilate Tarnovo was waged for decades with varying success. The long struggle against the Greek clergy brought to the fore a number of outstanding Bulgarians, such as the writers Neofit Boz-veli and Petko Slaveikov. Greatly unpopular among the Bulgarians, the Greek bishops appointed by the Constantinople Patriarch never stayed long in office. Frequent changes were made, which continued up to April 16, 1867, when the people chased the Greek bishop Grigorius away and declared the independence of the Bulgarian church. This took place in the church of Sts Peter and Paul* where the Bulgarian Ilarion Makariopolski was made a bishop.
Late in the 16th century, the town began to develop economically, agriculture was no longer its only source of subsistence, and people from Dubrovnik, Greece and Armenia began to settle in it. The Greek settlers were the most numerous.
As the Greek element gained strength in the town, the Bulgarians found themselves pressed on both sides. Yet instead of taking off the edge of their desire for freedom, the double danger awakened their patriotic consciousness still more.
The Bulgarian element in Tarnovo gradually grew stronger and began to expand. The Bulgarian part of the town crept westward. The Boyar district took shape in the 17th century, around the presend-day street of Nicola Piccolo. Several well-to-do Bulgarians built their houses there, whom the people called boyars, after the old custom. The warehouses of the Dubrovnik merchants were also here. And in the 18th century, the French, Austrian and Russian consuls established their seats in this district.
When the Sultan issued the Hatisherif, a decree granting certain rights to the Bulgarians, the economic initiative graduallys passed into their hands. Several big Bulgarian merchants became prominent in the 18th century. The crafts in the town made rapid headway. Weaving, tanning, dyeing, the craft of the copper smith and tailoring developed. Sericulture made great progress. It was no accident that the Turks began to call the town Kuruskele, or dry port, for large quantities of local goods were shipped from it for the Ouzoundjovo, Adrianople and Constantinople markets. Practically all kinds of goods imported from the West via the Danubian ports or purchased wholesale at the Ouzoundjovo fair for the supply of all North Bulgaria were also concentrated here.
In the first half of the 19th century, the Bulgarians took practically the whole economic life of the town in their hands.
The prosperity of some Tarnovo citizens raised their prestige in the eyes of the Turkish authorities and extended their influence as far as Constantinople. The town continued to grow to the west and to climb up the slopes of Orlovets. Many people, attracted by the opportunities the town offered, left the neighbouring villages and made their homes on Orlovcts. The new settlers built churches, in which the service was performed only in Bulgarian. Thus, the churches of St Nikola (1836), St Mary (1844), St Marina (1850), St Spas (1859), St Atanas (1861) and Sts Constantine and Elena (1872) made their appearance in the new part of the town. With the exception of the church of St Nikola, which was designed by someone else, all these churches were the work of the great Bulgarian master builder Nikola Fichev (1800-1881), known as Kolyo Ficheto, born in the neighbouring town of Dryanovo.
Nikola Fichev’s creative work was closely linked with the town of Tarnovo. An architect of real genius, he was a pioneer in the field of architecture in the Bulgarian Revival Period, especially in the building of churches. In the first centuries of Ottoman rule the Bulgarians were forbidden to build monumental buildings (the small churches were half buried in the ground and could hardly be distinguished from the other houses). Nikola Fichev, however, disregarded this unwritten law, and erected belfries which emphasized the church building in the architectural ensemble of the town. He increased the space traditionally allotted for the church, extended the glass areas, and used new construction materials. Besides churches, Nikola Fichev erected a number of other buildings in the town, the best known of which are the House with the Monkey (1849), Hadji Nikoli’s inn (1858), a large threestoreyed stone building testifying to the brisk economic life in the town during the 19th century, the monumental building of the Turkish konak (1872).
Tarnovo’s inhabitants also took pains to restore the deserted and half-destroyed monasteries in the vicinity of the town. The books of some of them bear witness of the systematic donations made by the Tarnovo craftsmen and merchants. Intellectual emancipation went hand in hand with the struggle for political and religious independence.
Bulgarian schools were opened in the town as early as 1822. Towards the middle of the century, education had made rapid progress. Petko Slaveikov, the eminent Bulgarian writer and publicist, who began his career as a teacher in Tarnovo at the age of sixteen, returned to the town in 1858 and worked energetically for improving the Tarnovo schools, together with Nikola Mihailovski, another Bulgarian educator. The schools contributed a great deal to the intellectual and political revival of the town. Generously sponsored by the craftsmen’s unions, those of them which did not have their own buildings were housed in the churches and private homes.
Cultural life in the town developed so rapidly, that in 1869 a library club named Good Hope, was founded here. An organized movement for women’s rights was also launched.
The town’s economic consolidation continued. A business centre was formed towards the middle of the 19th century. Large warehouses were built, some of which have survived to this day. Spacious new inns went up for the merchants who came from other towns or from abroad. Handicraft workshops also made their appearance.
The population increased. According to the report of the French traveller Ami Boue, in 1836 the inhabitants of Tarnovo were well over 12,000, most of them Bulgarians.
The first industrial enterprises in the town made their appearance in the sixties of the last century. They were founded by resourceful Bulgarians. The oldest of them were engaged in the production of silk and alcohol. Factories for cardboard, beer and pastry were opened later on.
During the 19th century, the town gained further administrative significance. It was visited by several sultans in 1837, 1846 and 1864. Several Turkish administrative buildings went up and considerable care was taken to consolidate the town. On the eve nl (lie Crimean War (1854-1855) the Spanish general Prim visited Tarnovo as the military instructor of the Ottoman army. He inspected the fortifications on the commanding hills around the town. In their strategy the Turks regarded Tarnovo as an important defensive point in the event of a Russian invasion from the north.
When Ivan Bogorov, the well-known Bulgarian publicist, visited Tarnovo in 1865, the town could already boast of enviable prosperity. Men and women dressed in the West European fashion and knew that they could be proud both of the past and present ol their town.
‘It lies on a very steep stony bank,’ Bogorov wrote, describing the central part of the town, as he saw it, ‘which is dotted with houses Irom the top down to the river, placed one above the other like the tiles of a roof.’
When speaking of a town’s architecture, one usually bears in mind its characteristic monuments. In Tarnovo, however, the individual buildings cannot give one an idea of the actual aspect ol the town. One should rather speak of the monolithic character ol its architecture. Naturally, each building has a value of its own when looked upon in relation to its environment. But the picture of the town is created, above all, by the combination of various buildings, their harmony and contrasts.
Tarnovo’s picturesque scenery, however, was by no means the sole factor for its specific architecture in the Revival Period. This specific character is due to a number of other factors. In the first place, the economic prosperity of the population in the 19th century undoubtedly played an important part. And, in the second, the builders embodied in their work the growing national consciousness of the emerging Bulgarian bourgeoisie.
It was not for the sake of security alone that the Bulgarian population preferred to build its houses on the slopes of Orlovets. The southeastern aspect of the hill offers exceptionally good climatic conditions, as most of the houses are exposed to the sun all day long, and the scenery is very beautiful. Undoubtedly, the town would have made still greater progress economically and culturally during the period of Ottoman rule, had it not been ravaged by fires, breaking out several times, which destroyed not only large quantities of goods and interesting old houses, but a great many churches full of valuable paintings and books. Individual buildings, where zealous collectors of old relics had gathered rare works of art and unique manuscripts, were also burnt up.
A violent fire broke out in 1680. It lasted for six days, from March 20 to 25, and destroyed the larger part of the old Tarnovo. The densely built houses and the great deal of wood used in them made the work of the fire brigades futile. The Bashdarluk quarter was burnt up in 1818. It was restored, but a new fire destroyed it on June 28, 1825.
Fires also broke out in 1845, 1847 and 1849. The latter was particularly destructive. It turned into ashes as many as 600 houses, including the two Bulgarian schools. The last disastrous fire in Tarnovo broke out on June 26, 1879, a short time after the Liberation.
Much damage was done by the armed bands of deserters from the Ottoman army and adventurers, known as Kurdjali, who raged in the country at the turn of the 18th century and devastated villages and monasteries. The Kilifarevski, Kapinovski and Arbanashki monasteries were destroyed by the Kurdjali in 1798. The same year the bands pillaged the village of Arbanassi and the rear guard of the troops of Hyussein Pasha, bound for Vidin to put down the rebellion of the Turkish commander Osman Pazvantoglu, who had proclaimed himself independent, passed through Tarnovo and destroyed its suburbs.
The beautiful village of Arbanassi, which had flourished in the 18th century and had begun to build churches with rich murals in the early 17th century, was reduced to ruins in 1810.
* * *
During the dark ages of Ottoman bondage, the inhabitants of Tarnovo rose in arms many times. The former legends about the feats of kings and boyars were replaced by stories about haidouks rind rebels, who haunted the town and its vicinity.
The spirit of revolt bore fruit as early as 1598, when the Tarnovo uprising broke out, organized by Todor Balina, Pavel Djordjich and Shishman III, a self-proclaimed ruler. On their way to the north to break the forces of the first anti-Ottoman coalition, the troops of Sinan Pasha bathed the town in blood. On leaving the devastated town, Sinan Pasha destroyed the surviving old fortress above Kilifarevo, Theodossi Tarnovski’s Monastery of the Virgin and several other monasteries.
Not a full century had elapsed from the uprising of 1598, when the inhabitants of Tarnovo made a new attempt to rid themselves of Ottoman rule. This time their leader was Rostislav Stratsimi-rovich, a descendant of Ivan Stratsimir, the last ruler of Vidin. The second Tarnovo uprising broke out in 1686. It was also bathed in blood. Its leader managed to flee to Moscow with great difficulty.
Another attempt at an uprising, organized by Mara, a widow, Stoyan, her son, and Mircho, a voivode, in 1700 was of lesser significance. But the uprising of 1835 under the leadership of Georgi Mamarchev and Velcho the Glazier which was known as Velcho’s Fight for Faith, greatly shook the whole town and had an effect all over Bulgaria. Its prominent militants, Velcho the Glazier, Georgi Mamarchev, a captain in the Russian Army, Father Sergei, the abbot of the Plakovski Monastery, and Dimiter of Sofia among others, were caught and savagely punished. Velcho the Glazier was hanged in front ol his house at Bashdarluk square which was later given the name of Velchova Zavera (Velcho s Fight for Faith). A modest monument stands at that place today.
Tarnovo was also the centre of two other uprisings: Captain Nikola’s in 1856 and Hadji Stavri’s in 1862. The Tarnovo inhabitants contributed particularly in supporting the extensive liberation movement during the last decade before Bulgaria’s Liberation.
The monasteries in the vicinity of the town played an important part in the liberation movement. The Preobrazhenski, Plakovski, Lyaskovski and Kapinovski monasteries were in the forefront of the fight. They not only offered shelter to the insurgents, but were the centres of important revolutionary meetings and secret storages of arms. Vassil Levski, the great apostle of the Bulgarian liberation movement, always found shelter and safety in the Tarnovo monasteries. Other revolutionaries, such as Father Matei Preobrazhenski, Father Hariton and Hristo Ivanov were also their frequent visitors.
A network of revolutionary committees were set up in Tarnovo district as early as 1866. One of the most interesting figures of the resistance movement against Ottoman rule was to be found in the town itself. This was a woman by the name of Bona Ganeva, whom the foreigners called la Belle Bonne and the Turks -bizim Bona. She kept an inn where foreign visitors stopped, as well as prominent functionaries of the Turkish government. La Belle Bonne saved many a Bulgarian revolutionary from death and supplied the insurgents with valuable information, which she collected cleverly from her visitors.
As Ottoman rule began to near its end, the fight became more fierce. Tarnovo was one of the centres in which the Turks put up bitter resistance to the revolutionary struggle of the Bulgarians. Some of the leading fighters for freedom, such as Philip Totyo, Todor Kableshkov, Vassil Levski, Stefan Karadja, Bacho Kiro and Georgi Izmirliev served terms in the Tarnovo prison.
When the Dryanovo and Gabrovo uprisings were quelled, Ivan Panovche and Bacho Kiro from the Dryanovo detachment were hanged in Tarnovo on May 28, 1876, and so were another ten men from the Gabrovo detachment and the Gabrovo Revolutionary Committee, headed by Tsanko Dyustabanov, a schoolmaster. A granite monument was raised in 1883 at the site of the execution where the western gate of the town stood at that time. The corpses of the hanged insurgents were buried by patriotic Bulgarian women on Orlovets, where a small monument was erected in 1910.
So, in the memorable year of 1876, when the foundations of the Ottoman Empire were being undermined in Bulgaria, a mausoleum of the fighters for freedom was set up in Tarnovo.
Several months elapsed in anxious anticipation. Finally, on June 24, 1877, after 484 years of oppression, Russian troops entered the town. The Ottomans withdrew practically without any fighting. A considerable part of the once numerous Turkish population of the town fled to Shoumen, hoping to come back at the end of the war. But Turkey lost the war and the town was liberated. The dark period of slavery finally came to an end.
Tarnovo’s history during the first century after its conquest is full of bitterness and humiliation. Its name was changed from the King’s Town of Tuarnovo, to Tarnovia, and from a capital it was turned into a simple provincial town. The roads which formerly connected it with the four corners of the country and the international highways of the peninsula were little used and were soon neglected.
Administratively, Tarnovo was placed under Vidin and later, after the formation of the Danubian district in the 19th century, under Rousse, when an important highway was built connecting Constantinople with Rousse via Adrianopole, Stara Zagora and Tarnovo.
As in many other important towns they had conquered, the Ottomans settled in Tarnovo distinguished military leaders, as well as colonists brought over from the depths of Asia Minor. Part of them were allowed to make their homes on Tsarevets. For this purpose, they pulled down whatever had remained of the palace. The stone pillars were used to prop porches and cowsheds. Part of the royal park was turned into a market garden and the rest -into a cemetery. Where the cross of the church of St. Petka had stood, rose the minaret of the Hissar mosque.
Trapezitsa was not to the taste of the Ottomans. It seemed too distant and the ruins of its numerous churches and chapels filled their hearts with superstitious awe. They did not like Frenkhissar eiher, while in Momina Krepost they placed a military post in the half-destroyed fortifications.
A large Turkish quarter came into being in Sveta Gora under the name of Ichmahlesi. Later on, Turkish families built their homes at the Bashdarluk, in the western end of the town.
The Bulgarians, for their part, continued to live in Assenova Mahala and the valley between Tsarevets and Trapezitsa.
Only a few old Bulgarian houses were preserved in Assenova Mahala, thanks to their stone structure.
After recovering from the initial shock and horrors, all those who had sought refuge in the Dervent caves, began to return one by one. They crossed the gorge in the dark of the night and stole into their half-ruined homes like banished animals.
What the fires had spared, had been sacked by the conquerors or destroyed by the elements. The conquerors had deprived the surviving inhabitants of their political and social rights. Sons had lost their fathers and parents their children. Natural relations had been broken. All felt alike and equally related. They were turned into serfs from which the conquerors demanded obedience and toil in the farms from dawn till dusk. As the inhabitants of Tarnovo could hardly be of use to the conquerors, because they possessed no land, they turned their eyes to the neighbouring villages. Here the sultan had granted large farms to the warriors who had distinguished themselves in capturing the town. Many people were needed to do the work on these farms. To secure their service, the owners of these farms managed to get privileges for the villages lying in their vicinity.
Various legends were spread among the people about this church, turned into a mosque, called Kavan Baba Teke Djamissi. Some said that every March, on the eve of the Day of the 40 Martyrs, a strange ghost appeared. It was the apparition of a young woman of rare beauty, with long hair, dressed in a white garment. She went round the church and sat on the grave, to bemoan the fate of Bulgaria. If a man of another creed cast his eye on her, he would fall, as if smitten by thunder. At dawn, this beautiful woman disappeared, but her tears shone on the tomb stone till the sun dried them.
The minaret of the mosque tumbled down many times, as though the earth did not wish to have it. Skilled master-builders came from as far as Constantinople, laid strong foundations and built it anew, but not even a week would pass before it would tumbledown again.
For this reason Kavan Baba Teke Djamissi had a bad fame, which stuck to it through the centuries. Even Moslems hardly ever visited it. Only one guard stayed in it day and night with his wife, who was incurably ill.
One day in 1856, two men appeared before the gate of the mosque. They had a foreign appearance, but were actually Bulgarian doctors — Pavel Markov, whom the Turks called Paul Marco, for which reason many people believed to be a Frenchman, and Hristo Daskalov, who had studied in Russia. A friend of the guard had sent them to examine his wife. The guard also thought they were Frenchmen and allowed them to come in. While his friend examined the woman, Dr. Daskalov made a sensational discovery. He noticed the old Bulgarian inscriptions on the church columns and copied them. Soon they were known all over Europe. Dr. Daskalov, however, had no way of knowing that only two decades earlier, hundreds of old Bulgarian books had been taken out of the church to be destroyed. It is interesting to know how these books got in the church. When in 1393 Tarnovo was living its last days of freedom, one night a long file of shadows could be seen, climbing down the steep slope of the hill, towards the church of Sts Peter and Paul. On entering the church, every one of them took a heavy bundle of books off his shoulders. Thus, before the eyes of Patriarch Evtimius, part of the Patriarchate library was hidden and built into the wall of the church altar. The shadows resumed their mysterious journey on the following night. This time the Patriarch was waiting for them in the church of the 40 Holy Martyrs. New piles of manuscripts were left here, in a small cell behind the altar. They belonged to the royal library, but were not built into the wall, because the attacks of the Ottoman troops were getting fiercer and fiercer. For four and a half centuries these books stayed in the church, until they were wilfully destroyed.
* * *
This episode is an illustration of the struggle waged by the Bulgarian people and the inhabitants of Tarnovo in particular for their religious freedom. The Tarnovo Patriarchate was actually closed down when Patriarch Evtimi was exiled. Very soon after this sad event, the Greek bishop Jeremiah was sent to Tarnovo to be its religious head. But the Bulgarian Patriarchate was formally abolished in 1572, when the sultan proclaimed the Greek Patriarch in Constantinople as the religious head of all Christians in the peninsula, who were considered by the Turks as one and the same nation. So the Patriarch of Constantinople named the Tarnovo bishop ‘Exarch of all Bulgaria’ and placed a number of dioces under him.
The Greek bishop set about restoring the half-destroyed abandoned churches. They were whitewashed and their frescos were restored and Greek inscriptions added. The Greek bishops did the same in some of the Tarnovo monasteries. They made remarkable improvements in the Arbanassi churches in particular. Both the icons and chandeliers of these churches were renewed.
The struggle against the attempts of the Greek clerev to assimilate Tarnovo was waged for decades with varying success. The long struggle against the Greek clergy brought to the fore a number of outstanding Bulgarians, such as the writers Neofit Boz-veli and Petko Slaveikov. Greatly unpopular among the Bulgarians, the Greek bishops appointed by the Constantinople Patriarch never stayed long in office. Frequent changes were made, which continued up to April 16, 1867, when the people chased the Greek bishop Grigorius away and declared the independence of the Bulgarian church. This took place in the church of Sts Peter and Paul* where the Bulgarian Ilarion Makariopolski was made a bishop.
Late in the 16th century, the town began to develop economically, agriculture was no longer its only source of subsistence, and people from Dubrovnik, Greece and Armenia began to settle in it. The Greek settlers were the most numerous.
As the Greek element gained strength in the town, the Bulgarians found themselves pressed on both sides. Yet instead of taking off the edge of their desire for freedom, the double danger awakened their patriotic consciousness still more.
The Bulgarian element in Tarnovo gradually grew stronger and began to expand. The Bulgarian part of the town crept westward. The Boyar district took shape in the 17th century, around the presend-day street of Nicola Piccolo. Several well-to-do Bulgarians built their houses there, whom the people called boyars, after the old custom. The warehouses of the Dubrovnik merchants were also here. And in the 18th century, the French, Austrian and Russian consuls established their seats in this district.
When the Sultan issued the Hatisherif, a decree granting certain rights to the Bulgarians, the economic initiative graduallys passed into their hands. Several big Bulgarian merchants became prominent in the 18th century. The crafts in the town made rapid headway. Weaving, tanning, dyeing, the craft of the copper smith and tailoring developed. Sericulture made great progress. It was no accident that the Turks began to call the town Kuruskele, or dry port, for large quantities of local goods were shipped from it for the Ouzoundjovo, Adrianople and Constantinople markets. Practically all kinds of goods imported from the West via the Danubian ports or purchased wholesale at the Ouzoundjovo fair for the supply of all North Bulgaria were also concentrated here.
In the first half of the 19th century, the Bulgarians took practically the whole economic life of the town in their hands.
The prosperity of some Tarnovo citizens raised their prestige in the eyes of the Turkish authorities and extended their influence as far as Constantinople. The town continued to grow to the west and to climb up the slopes of Orlovets. Many people, attracted by the opportunities the town offered, left the neighbouring villages and made their homes on Orlovcts. The new settlers built churches, in which the service was performed only in Bulgarian. Thus, the churches of St Nikola (1836), St Mary (1844), St Marina (1850), St Spas (1859), St Atanas (1861) and Sts Constantine and Elena (1872) made their appearance in the new part of the town. With the exception of the church of St Nikola, which was designed by someone else, all these churches were the work of the great Bulgarian master builder Nikola Fichev (1800-1881), known as Kolyo Ficheto, born in the neighbouring town of Dryanovo.
Nikola Fichev’s creative work was closely linked with the town of Tarnovo. An architect of real genius, he was a pioneer in the field of architecture in the Bulgarian Revival Period, especially in the building of churches. In the first centuries of Ottoman rule the Bulgarians were forbidden to build monumental buildings (the small churches were half buried in the ground and could hardly be distinguished from the other houses). Nikola Fichev, however, disregarded this unwritten law, and erected belfries which emphasized the church building in the architectural ensemble of the town. He increased the space traditionally allotted for the church, extended the glass areas, and used new construction materials. Besides churches, Nikola Fichev erected a number of other buildings in the town, the best known of which are the House with the Monkey (1849), Hadji Nikoli’s inn (1858), a large threestoreyed stone building testifying to the brisk economic life in the town during the 19th century, the monumental building of the Turkish konak (1872).
Tarnovo’s inhabitants also took pains to restore the deserted and half-destroyed monasteries in the vicinity of the town. The books of some of them bear witness of the systematic donations made by the Tarnovo craftsmen and merchants. Intellectual emancipation went hand in hand with the struggle for political and religious independence.
Bulgarian schools were opened in the town as early as 1822. Towards the middle of the century, education had made rapid progress. Petko Slaveikov, the eminent Bulgarian writer and publicist, who began his career as a teacher in Tarnovo at the age of sixteen, returned to the town in 1858 and worked energetically for improving the Tarnovo schools, together with Nikola Mihailovski, another Bulgarian educator. The schools contributed a great deal to the intellectual and political revival of the town. Generously sponsored by the craftsmen’s unions, those of them which did not have their own buildings were housed in the churches and private homes.
Cultural life in the town developed so rapidly, that in 1869 a library club named Good Hope, was founded here. An organized movement for women’s rights was also launched.
The town’s economic consolidation continued. A business centre was formed towards the middle of the 19th century. Large warehouses were built, some of which have survived to this day. Spacious new inns went up for the merchants who came from other towns or from abroad. Handicraft workshops also made their appearance.
The population increased. According to the report of the French traveller Ami Boue, in 1836 the inhabitants of Tarnovo were well over 12,000, most of them Bulgarians.
The first industrial enterprises in the town made their appearance in the sixties of the last century. They were founded by resourceful Bulgarians. The oldest of them were engaged in the production of silk and alcohol. Factories for cardboard, beer and pastry were opened later on.
During the 19th century, the town gained further administrative significance. It was visited by several sultans in 1837, 1846 and 1864. Several Turkish administrative buildings went up and considerable care was taken to consolidate the town. On the eve nl (lie Crimean War (1854-1855) the Spanish general Prim visited Tarnovo as the military instructor of the Ottoman army. He inspected the fortifications on the commanding hills around the town. In their strategy the Turks regarded Tarnovo as an important defensive point in the event of a Russian invasion from the north.
When Ivan Bogorov, the well-known Bulgarian publicist, visited Tarnovo in 1865, the town could already boast of enviable prosperity. Men and women dressed in the West European fashion and knew that they could be proud both of the past and present ol their town.
‘It lies on a very steep stony bank,’ Bogorov wrote, describing the central part of the town, as he saw it, ‘which is dotted with houses Irom the top down to the river, placed one above the other like the tiles of a roof.’
When speaking of a town’s architecture, one usually bears in mind its characteristic monuments. In Tarnovo, however, the individual buildings cannot give one an idea of the actual aspect ol the town. One should rather speak of the monolithic character ol its architecture. Naturally, each building has a value of its own when looked upon in relation to its environment. But the picture of the town is created, above all, by the combination of various buildings, their harmony and contrasts.
Tarnovo’s picturesque scenery, however, was by no means the sole factor for its specific architecture in the Revival Period. This specific character is due to a number of other factors. In the first place, the economic prosperity of the population in the 19th century undoubtedly played an important part. And, in the second, the builders embodied in their work the growing national consciousness of the emerging Bulgarian bourgeoisie.
It was not for the sake of security alone that the Bulgarian population preferred to build its houses on the slopes of Orlovets. The southeastern aspect of the hill offers exceptionally good climatic conditions, as most of the houses are exposed to the sun all day long, and the scenery is very beautiful. Undoubtedly, the town would have made still greater progress economically and culturally during the period of Ottoman rule, had it not been ravaged by fires, breaking out several times, which destroyed not only large quantities of goods and interesting old houses, but a great many churches full of valuable paintings and books. Individual buildings, where zealous collectors of old relics had gathered rare works of art and unique manuscripts, were also burnt up.
A violent fire broke out in 1680. It lasted for six days, from March 20 to 25, and destroyed the larger part of the old Tarnovo. The densely built houses and the great deal of wood used in them made the work of the fire brigades futile. The Bashdarluk quarter was burnt up in 1818. It was restored, but a new fire destroyed it on June 28, 1825.
Fires also broke out in 1845, 1847 and 1849. The latter was particularly destructive. It turned into ashes as many as 600 houses, including the two Bulgarian schools. The last disastrous fire in Tarnovo broke out on June 26, 1879, a short time after the Liberation.
Much damage was done by the armed bands of deserters from the Ottoman army and adventurers, known as Kurdjali, who raged in the country at the turn of the 18th century and devastated villages and monasteries. The Kilifarevski, Kapinovski and Arbanashki monasteries were destroyed by the Kurdjali in 1798. The same year the bands pillaged the village of Arbanassi and the rear guard of the troops of Hyussein Pasha, bound for Vidin to put down the rebellion of the Turkish commander Osman Pazvantoglu, who had proclaimed himself independent, passed through Tarnovo and destroyed its suburbs.
The beautiful village of Arbanassi, which had flourished in the 18th century and had begun to build churches with rich murals in the early 17th century, was reduced to ruins in 1810.
* * *
During the dark ages of Ottoman bondage, the inhabitants of Tarnovo rose in arms many times. The former legends about the feats of kings and boyars were replaced by stories about haidouks rind rebels, who haunted the town and its vicinity.
The spirit of revolt bore fruit as early as 1598, when the Tarnovo uprising broke out, organized by Todor Balina, Pavel Djordjich and Shishman III, a self-proclaimed ruler. On their way to the north to break the forces of the first anti-Ottoman coalition, the troops of Sinan Pasha bathed the town in blood. On leaving the devastated town, Sinan Pasha destroyed the surviving old fortress above Kilifarevo, Theodossi Tarnovski’s Monastery of the Virgin and several other monasteries.
Not a full century had elapsed from the uprising of 1598, when the inhabitants of Tarnovo made a new attempt to rid themselves of Ottoman rule. This time their leader was Rostislav Stratsimi-rovich, a descendant of Ivan Stratsimir, the last ruler of Vidin. The second Tarnovo uprising broke out in 1686. It was also bathed in blood. Its leader managed to flee to Moscow with great difficulty.
Another attempt at an uprising, organized by Mara, a widow, Stoyan, her son, and Mircho, a voivode, in 1700 was of lesser significance. But the uprising of 1835 under the leadership of Georgi Mamarchev and Velcho the Glazier which was known as Velcho’s Fight for Faith, greatly shook the whole town and had an effect all over Bulgaria. Its prominent militants, Velcho the Glazier, Georgi Mamarchev, a captain in the Russian Army, Father Sergei, the abbot of the Plakovski Monastery, and Dimiter of Sofia among others, were caught and savagely punished. Velcho the Glazier was hanged in front ol his house at Bashdarluk square which was later given the name of Velchova Zavera (Velcho s Fight for Faith). A modest monument stands at that place today.
Tarnovo was also the centre of two other uprisings: Captain Nikola’s in 1856 and Hadji Stavri’s in 1862. The Tarnovo inhabitants contributed particularly in supporting the extensive liberation movement during the last decade before Bulgaria’s Liberation.
The monasteries in the vicinity of the town played an important part in the liberation movement. The Preobrazhenski, Plakovski, Lyaskovski and Kapinovski monasteries were in the forefront of the fight. They not only offered shelter to the insurgents, but were the centres of important revolutionary meetings and secret storages of arms. Vassil Levski, the great apostle of the Bulgarian liberation movement, always found shelter and safety in the Tarnovo monasteries. Other revolutionaries, such as Father Matei Preobrazhenski, Father Hariton and Hristo Ivanov were also their frequent visitors.
A network of revolutionary committees were set up in Tarnovo district as early as 1866. One of the most interesting figures of the resistance movement against Ottoman rule was to be found in the town itself. This was a woman by the name of Bona Ganeva, whom the foreigners called la Belle Bonne and the Turks -bizim Bona. She kept an inn where foreign visitors stopped, as well as prominent functionaries of the Turkish government. La Belle Bonne saved many a Bulgarian revolutionary from death and supplied the insurgents with valuable information, which she collected cleverly from her visitors.
As Ottoman rule began to near its end, the fight became more fierce. Tarnovo was one of the centres in which the Turks put up bitter resistance to the revolutionary struggle of the Bulgarians. Some of the leading fighters for freedom, such as Philip Totyo, Todor Kableshkov, Vassil Levski, Stefan Karadja, Bacho Kiro and Georgi Izmirliev served terms in the Tarnovo prison.
When the Dryanovo and Gabrovo uprisings were quelled, Ivan Panovche and Bacho Kiro from the Dryanovo detachment were hanged in Tarnovo on May 28, 1876, and so were another ten men from the Gabrovo detachment and the Gabrovo Revolutionary Committee, headed by Tsanko Dyustabanov, a schoolmaster. A granite monument was raised in 1883 at the site of the execution where the western gate of the town stood at that time. The corpses of the hanged insurgents were buried by patriotic Bulgarian women on Orlovets, where a small monument was erected in 1910.
So, in the memorable year of 1876, when the foundations of the Ottoman Empire were being undermined in Bulgaria, a mausoleum of the fighters for freedom was set up in Tarnovo.
Several months elapsed in anxious anticipation. Finally, on June 24, 1877, after 484 years of oppression, Russian troops entered the town. The Ottomans withdrew practically without any fighting. A considerable part of the once numerous Turkish population of the town fled to Shoumen, hoping to come back at the end of the war. But Turkey lost the war and the town was liberated. The dark period of slavery finally came to an end.
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