Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ous sultan accompanied by 80,000 soldiers did. Ladislas was killed, his army destroyed. Nine years later, Con-
stantinople fell, and Ottoman expansion continued.
National Revival
The Bulgarian monasteries that had preserved Bulgarian culture and history sparked the
18th- and 19th-century National Revival. This re-a wakening coincided with similar
nation-state sentimentality in Western Europe, and was influenced by monk Paisii Hilen-
darski - his name was taken from his time at the Serbian-sponsored Hilandar Monastery
in Greece.
Hilendarski collected information to compile
the first history of the Slav-Bulgarian peoples
in 1762. He roamed the land, reciting his his-
tory to illiterate people (the Turks forbade
Bulgarian-language publications). It was an in-
stant hit, stirring long-suppressed nationalist
feelings. Hilandarski's emphasis on the great
deeds of Bulgaria's medieval tsars fuelled populist pride.
By the early 19th century, the Bulgarian economy had grown, with merchants from
Plovdiv and Koprivshtitsa supplying wool, wine, metals and woodcarvings to Turkey and
Western Europe. An educated and prosperous urban middle class emerged, especially after
the Crimean War, when the victorious allies persuaded Turkey to open up to foreign trade.
Bulgarian merchants built grand private homes and public buildings in the distinct Na-
tional Revival style. Woodcarvers from Tryavna and painters from Samokov developed a
unique Bulgarian style in designing them. Bulgarian art, music and literature also flour-
ished, and Bulgarian -language schools were opened. Towns and villages built
chitalishti
(reading rooms), providing a communal forum for cultural and social activities and polit-
ical chatter. Turkish recognition of an autonomous Bulgarian Orthodox Church followed
in 1870.
Travels in European Turkey in 1850
by Edmund
Spencer is a first-hand travelogue providing rare in-
sight into the later years of Ottoman rule in the
Balkans.
Revolution & Freedom
The 1876 April Uprising in Koprivshtitsa came after long planning by revolutionaries like
Georgi Rakovski, Hristo Botev and Bulgaria's iconic hero Vasil Levski. The Turks indis-
criminately massacred 30,000 Bulgarian civilians and destroying 58 villages.
