Location: Pliskov, Shumen Province Map
Capital of the First Bulgarian Empire: 681- 893 AD
Historical city of Pliska was a first capital of Danubian Bulgrian
also known as The First Bulgarian Kingdom between years 681 and 893
AD. It was found by first Bulgarian ruler Khan Asparukh who first
defeated the Byzantine forces under leadership of king Constantine
IV and settled the region. Bulgar tribes that the khan led from the
steppes of South Russia were not exactly skilled engineers so lots
of planning and construction was carried out by the Greek and Slavic
professionals. Covering an are of about 23 km² Pliska was protected
by a moat as well as earthwork ramparts. Pliska was captured the
invading Byzantine army in 811 during reign of Khan Krum. However
the Byzantines did not last very long driven by the same leader out
of the country after Battle of Pliska. The beginning of decline for
the city started with baptism of Bulgarian duke Boris I- Michael
(852- 889) and subsequent reactionary pagan revolt of King Vladimir
in 892 who was seeking to re- establish old pantheon of gods. It was
defeated, but the old city with its polytheistic past did not fit
political, religious and military needs of the new Christian state.
Bulgarian capital was moved to
Preslav and Pliska started to decline in importance. It was
eventually burned down by the invading duke Svyatoslav of the Kievan
Rus' (Russian state) and Byzantine Army in the years between 969 and
972. The Russian forces eventually left the region, but the city of
Pliska were eventually abandoned. It was not rebuilt subsequently
although it was inhabited for few more years. Much of the city was
destroyed.
Bulgarian historians tried to rebuild old city of
Pliska with white stone. This controversial move to attract more
tourists is somewhat of a stretch from historic truth, since there
is little evidence on what medieval Pliska and its structures
actually looked like.
Pliska National Historical and Archaeological
Reserve is located 28 km northeast of the town of Shumen and 3 km
from the modern town of Pliska. It is part of the Hundred National
Tourist Sites.
Pliska is the first capital of Bulgaria and
the cradle of today's Bulgarian state. From the founding of the
Bulgarian state in 681 by Khan Asparuh to 893. Pliska is not only
the capital but also one of the largest and richest cities in Europe
and the world. It is remarkable for its architecture, which
Bulgarians carry from their previous populations.
Typically
for a people coming from the steppes, the Bulgarians built their
capital in the middle of the field, which is surrounded by heights,
which are a natural barrier to the enemy. Three defensive belts have
been built. The first is a deep ditch with a high embankment that
surrounds the Outer City. The second is made of huge stone blocks,
forming about 12 m high fortress wall, which on each wall has 2
pentagonal towers and a gate, and the main entrance is on the
eastern fortress wall. The third belt is a brick fortification
protecting the citadel. The entire walled complex is located on an
area of 0.5 sq. Km. The city was gigantic for its medieval scale -
23.3 square kilometers. Khan Krum's palace is built on 500 square
meters and is among the most remarkable monuments. Historians have
also discovered secret exits through which the aristocracy and the
population could escape the city during the siege. The palace had a
reservoir and spacious bathrooms. The second expansion of the city
is connected with the reign of Khan Omurtag (814 - 831). He
completed the fortress walls, built pagan temples and built the
so-called Throne Hall. In the Inner City, the best preserved
building is the Grand Palace. Remains of homes, workshops,
neighborhood churches and outbuildings have been found in the Outer
City.
1.3 km from the eastern gate of the Inner City is the
Great Basilica - the largest Christian church in Southeast Europe
since the conversion of the Bulgarian people.
The discovered
remains are preserved and have been established as an open-air
museum, which can be visited during non-working hours. Finds from
the reserve are exhibited in the museum exposition and are mostly
related to the way of life, material and spiritual culture of the
inhabitants of the old capital.
Traditionally, the Pliska
National Historical and Archaeological Reserve hosts the Summer
Archaeological Seminar, in which high school students in Bulgaria
excavate together with archaeologists and listen to lectures by
famous Bulgarian historians. The summer archeological seminar in
2007 is under the patronage of the President of Bulgaria.
Large basilica in Pliska
The Great Basilica in Pliska is a
religious-palace complex, including a basilica, an archbishop's
palace and a monastery, located near the Pliska National Historical
and Archaeological Reserve.
It was completed around 875 and
is one of the largest basilicas in medieval Southeastern Europe. The
complex is an important monument of the early medieval Bulgarian
culture from its Christian period - from the second half of the IX
to the middle of the XI century. For about 250 years it performed
the functions of a cathedral and a princely, episcopal and monastery
church, it was the center of the spiritual and religious life of the
capital Pliska and early medieval Bulgaria. It is fenced and
protected by a stone wall over 4 m high with ridges.
The
building is built on the so-called cruciform mausoleum, which
provokes much debate among scientists. It was discovered by Totyu
Totev and one of the most mysterious buildings in the first
Bulgarian capital. Its sacred significance for the ancient
Bulgarians is obvious, because then the altar of the Great Basilica
is located on the same place. The hypothesis of Prof. Stancho
Vaklinov is that these are the remains of an unknown type of
Bulgarian pagan temple.
According to the historical museum in
Shumen, before the construction of the basilica on this place there
was an early Christian complex martyrium, consisting of a cruciform
temple and a spring-spring. Pavel Georgiev, who participated in her
research, suggests that the building discovered under the
foundations of the basilica is a martyrium (tomb of a saint who died
a martyr for the faith) of the first Bulgarian martyr St. Boyan
Enravota, executed for betrayal of national traditions by his
brother. Khan Malamir around 832. During the failed revolt of the
pagans in 865, the martyrdom was destroyed. As a sign of the
celebration of Christianity in Bulgaria, Tsar Boris I (nephew of
Enravota) became the founder of the new church built on the site of
the martyrium and thus linked the new religion with an aristocratic
historical monument such as the martyrium.
Another theory, however, which is by arch.
Boyadzhiev, sounds even more convincing. According to her, the
building was originally built for the mausoleum of the Bulgarian
khans. After the christening, an attempt was made to turn it into a
cathedral, but the construction did not withstand these
reconstructions, which necessitated the complete demolition of the
building. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that until then
no mausoleum of a Bulgarian khan was discovered and there is no
evidence of a funeral ritual of the rulers, which is difficult to
explain in the presence of so many preserved monuments from this
period.
According to Assen Chilingirov, historical sources
point to the dating of the Great Basilica to the 4th century during
the reign of Emperor Constantine the Great. After the demolition and
at the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century, the
stones above the foundations were used for the construction of other
monumental buildings near the basilica. In the IX-X century it was
rebuilt with bricks and again destroyed at the end of the X century,
which coincided with the accession of all of eastern Bulgaria to
Byzantium.
Chilingirov criticized the reconstruction, which
gave the basilica a look it had never had, in order to turn it into
a "proto-Bulgarian monument".
From the studied parts of the
Great Basilica it can be seen that the archbishop's residence is
located in the courtyards north and south of the temple, as in the
northern courtyard a residential palace has been studied, and to the
west - a bathroom with a hypocaust. To the south of the basilica, a
three-part building was studied, which housed a didascaleion
(school) and a scriptorium. The didascaleion is proof that in
addition to the liturgical books in the complex, law, architecture
and construction were studied. The students of Cyril and Methodius,
accepted in 886 by Tsar Boris I, who founded the Pliskovo-Preslav
Literary School in Old Bulgarian, probably also worked here.
A necropolis with the graves of members of the monastic fraternity
was excavated in the courtyard southwest of the basilica, and a
secular necropolis with the graves of aristocrats was found in front
of the asps of the basilica. The monastery premises cover the yard
north of the residence. The central place is occupied by the kitchen
and the dining room. In the east wing of the courtyard was found a
two-storey building with 10 identical rooms-cells in which the monks
lived. In the middle of the yard is the large monastery well, and
next to it - the second bathroom, which was with a hypocaust and a
cross-domed structure.
Under the later medieval Great Basilica were found the remains of
a late antique church with a cruciform plan, most likely a martyr.
First Bulgarian state
The town grew on the site of an older
Slavic settlement, as its purely Slavic name Pliska suggests. The
old name of the village is Ağa Baba. Near it, archaeologists from
the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople discovered in
1899-1900 the medieval town of Pliska or Plaskov (Old Bulgarian:
Plskov), the capital of Bulgaria (the First Bulgarian Kingdom) from
the end of the 7th century until about 893, when the capital moved
to Preslav. Here are preserved some of the most important monuments
of the Pliskov-Preslav culture.
Information about the
establishment of the capital under Khan Asparuh (681 - 701) is
contained in the so-called Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle: However,
the evidence is of late date (as early as the 11th century), has an
apocryphal-legendary character and may not be reliable. The earliest
document about the capital is the Greek inscription (821 -822),
carved on the famous Chatalar column, found at a medieval crossroads
northwest of the present-day village of Khan Krum (Tur. Chatalar) in
1905. In its text it is called Plskas ton kanpon, i.e. "The camp of
Pliska" and is explicitly mentioned as the permanent ruling
residence of Khan Omurtag (814 - 830). The name is a Greek
translation of the authentic proto-Bulgarian name from the VIII-IX
century, recorded in the Byzantine works of the X-XI century as
Pliskouba and Pliskoba. The suffix ouba, oba there is a word with an
independent meaning: "a large settlement of degree, camp type".
Therefore, the name is related to steppe cities, capitals of nomadic
peoples in Central and Central Asia, the Caucasus and the steppes of
Eastern Europe, and can be translated similarly as "sunny city" or
"shining, white city".
The first mention of sources in Pliska
is from 763 - 764, and the last mentioned events are from 1087 -
1088.
The main restored buildings from the first Bulgarian
capital are located about 3 km north of the present town of Pliska.
The remains of the medieval city cover an area of about 23 km². It
was surrounded by a shaft and an earthen ditch, full of water, up to
10 m wide, up to 7 m deep and over 20 km long. Behind this moat
began the outer city, which was inhabited by artisans and peasants.
At its heart was the inner city, and in the center - the khan's
settlement, which had a small palace with strong defensive walls,
called the Citadel, a large palace and basilica built of stone
blocks. The inner city has the shape of an irregular trapezoid with
sides in the directions of the world from 612 to 788 m. The
thickness of the walls is up to 2.60 m. Each wall had a gate, three
of which were uncovered. A secret exit was found next to one of the
gates, which led away from the wall and was almost invisible.
The first palace in Pliska was wooden. This is evident from the
holes found during the excavations by stakes driven into the ground.
The first stone palace was built during the reign of Khan Krum. This
is evidenced by Byzantine chroniclers, who describe the conquest and
destruction of Pliska by Emperor Nicephorus Genicus in 811. The Krum
Palace was more than 70 by 60 m in size, on 2 floors, with a height
of about 10 m along with the towers. A reconstruction of the palace
is on display in the museum. Khan Omurtag built a new palace,
smaller in size, but with preserved foundations and a large part of
the ground floor. The building had apartments for the inn and its
guests. On the second floor was the throne room. The palace had its
own aqueduct, preserved to this day.
The third part of Pliska
is the Citadel. It was the main residence of the inn and his family.
It is surrounded by an additional fortress wall. Near the palace of
Omurtag was the cult center of the proto-Bulgarian capital.
In Pliska, the Bulgarian ruler Prince Boris baptized the Bulgarian
people in 864. Another extremely important event related to the
Bulgarians was the reception of the creators of the Slavic alphabet,
the Holy Brothers Cyril and Methodius, in the first Bulgarian
capital.
The Middle Ages
The town is in ruins from the
17th century. Most of the stones from the fortress walls and the
palace complex were stolen to build houses in the modern village of
Pliska and the surrounding villages. (This is a common practice of
the population living around archeological sites and reserves, such
as Cherven and Perperek.)
Numerous remains of the early Slavic and Old Bulgarian culture
have been found in Pliska. Among the bone remains from the 9th -
10th century by the paleoornitologist Prof. Zlatozar Boev 7 species
of birds have been identified, of which the most interesting are the
bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) and the wild Colchicus pheasant
(Phasianus colchicus), which disappeared in the middle of the 20th
century. colchicus). In addition, finds of a raven (Corvus corax), a
large white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons), as well as numerous
remains of a domestic hen were found. [8] Later, the remains of a
domestic hen (Gallus gallus domestica) and a domestic goose (Anser)
were also found there. anser), bustard (Otis tarda), falcon (Falco
peregrinus), rock / domestic pigeon (Columba livia), as well as
domestic donkey (Equus africanus asinus), domestic pig (Sus scrofa
domestica), domestic goat (Capra aegagrus hircus ), etc. These
findings prove the practice of hunting, animal husbandry and
falconry in our ancient capital.
Adjacent to Pliska is the
old Bulgarian mound in Novi Pazar.
Principality of Bulgaria
In 1914, the Nadezhda credit cooperative was founded in the city.
During the Ottoman rule, the city was called Ağa Baba. It
regained its old name in 1925.
Republic of Bulgaria
Since
the autumn of 2006 the reserve has a new museum building and a new
exposition. The museum is very well arranged with interesting
reconstructions and detailed boards. Near the museum is the tomb of
Karel Shkorpil, whom the ancient Bulgarian capital conquered to such
an extent that he wanted to be buried there.