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Vidin is a regional and municipal town in northwestern Bulgaria,
located along the Danube. It is the administrative and economic
center of the eponymous municipality of Vidin and Vidin district.
The NSI determines the population of the city at 41,583 inhabitants
as of 2018.
Geography
Location
The city is located by
the Danube. It is the first major port in the country along the
river and the starting point of the Republican Road I-1, leading to
the border with Greece at the Tower. 2 km from the city is the ferry
complex, which in 2013 was replaced by a second bridge along the
Bulgarian river, called "New Europe" (formerly known as "Danube
Bridge 2" or "Vidin - Calafat Bridge") . Opposite Vidin is the town
of Calafat, Romania. In the land of the town of Vidin is located the
village of Novoseltsi, which has no land of its own.
Vidin is a city with a centuries-old history. It was created in
antiquity. It originated on the site of the ancient Celtic
settlement of Dunonia, where the Romans later built a fortress town
called Bononia, which the Bulgarians called Bdin (connecting it with
the verb bdya / i). During the Roman Empire it was one of the main
cities of the province of Upper Moesia, covering lands from today's
Northwestern Bulgaria and Eastern Serbia.
During the Second
Bulgarian State, Tsar Ivan Alexander entrusted the management of the
Vidin despotate to his son by his first wife, the Vlach Theodora
Basarab Ivan Sratsimir, who crowned him king, who separated from the
Tarnovo kingdom and created the Bdina (Vidin) kingdom, which later
was conquered by the Ottoman Turks.
In 1444 Vidin was
besieged by Vladislav Varnenchik, and in the 17th and 18th centuries
it was conquered by the Austrians, attacked by the Hungarians and
Romanians. Tsar Ivan Sratsimir has a sister Dorothea of Bulgaria,
married to Tvardko I; his wife is Anna Basarab, whose sister Anka
Basarab is married to his first cousin and king of Dushan's kingdom,
Stefan Uros V.
As part of the Ottoman Empire, Vidin was an
important administrative and economic center (pashalak). From 1400
to 1700 Vidin was part of a buffer zone between the Ottoman state
and Austria and was repeatedly conquered by Austrian troops.
In 1738 in Vidin the population was predominantly Turkish. For some
time it was ruled virtually independently, when Osman Pazvantoglu
was ruler of Vidin - from 1798 to 1807. In 1806 the former janissary
Osman Pazvantoglu imprisoned several hundred lay people and priests
from Vidin and the surrounding area, mainly with Bishop Kalinik in
the church of St. Petka and stabs them before the altar. The city
was the center of uprisings in 1773 and 1850.
The siege of
Vidin during the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885 ended successfully for
the Bulgarians, who repulsed all attacks of the Serbian army.
In the early years of the twentieth century, the city was known
for its enduring support for the Democratic Party. At the outbreak
of the Balkan War in 1912, 19 people from Vidin were volunteers in
the Macedonian-Edirne militia.
Over the years it has been
successively named: Dunonia (III century BC); Danube (Thracian);
Dee; Bononia (Roman); Budin (VII century - the beginning of the X
century); Bdin (X-XV c.); Bunin; Budim; Budin; Bodin (1569); Vidini
(Greek); Vidin; Pidin; Bidin; Bodin; Kyradenum; Bishiters; Vedin
(1669); Vidin (tour)
In 1950-1952, during collectivization,
57 families (173 people) from the city were forcibly evicted by the
communist regime.