Siege of Tarnovo

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Bulgarian-Ottoman Wars

The last liturgy of St Patriarch Evtimiy.
Date April - 17 July 1393
Location Tarnovo, Bulgaria
Result Decisive Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Bulgarian Empire Ottoman Empire
Commanders
Patriarch Evtimiy Celebi
Strength
Unknown Unknown but significantly larger
Casualties and losses
Heavy Heavy
v • d • e
Bulgarian-Ottoman Wars
Peritor – Ihtiman – Chernomen – Tarnovo

The siege of Tarnovo occurred in the spring of 1393 and resulted in a decisive Ottoman victory. With the fall of its capital, the Bulgarian Empire was reduced down to a few fortresses along the Danube.

Contents

[edit] Origins of the conflict

Tarnovo exceeded all Bulgarian towns by its size, its treasures, and its partly natural, partly artificial fortifications. Therefore, the Turks attacked this centre of Bulgaria first .

[edit] The battle

In the spring of 1393, Bayazid gathered his troops from Asia, crossed Helespont and joined with his western army; probably that included some Christian rulers from Macedonia. He entrusted the main command to his son Celebi, and ordered him to depart for Tarnovo. Suddenly, the town was besieged from all sides. The Turks threatened the citizens with fire and death if they dis not surrender.

The population resisted but eventually surrendered after a three-month siege, following an attack from the direction of Hisar, on July 17, 1393. The Christian priests were immediately expelled from the churches, and were replaced with Turkish imams. The Turks captured also the kivot with the Old Testament, and the relics of Christian saints; the last were thrown to be eaten by the dogs or burned. The Patriarch's church "Ascension of Christ" was turned into a mosque, the rest of the churches were also turned to mosques, baths, or stables. All palaces and churches of Trapezitsa were burned down and destroyed to the ground. The same fate expected the tzar palaces of Tsarevets; however, parts of their walls and towers were left standing until 17th century.

In the absence of Tsar Ivan Shishman, who attempted to fight the Turks elsewhere, leading the remnants of his troops to the fortress of Nikopol, the main Bulgarian leader in the town was Patriarch Evtimiy. He went to the Turkish camp with the intention of assuaging the Turkish commander. When Celebi saw the Patriarch approaching , serenely and calmly, as though all horrors of war were only wall pictures, Bayazid's son stood up, greeted him kindly, offered him a seat, and listened to his pleas; however, afterwards he fulfilled very little of his promises.

Subsequently thrown out of his patriarchal home in Tsarevets, Evtimiy moved to the little church under the hill which he devoted to the Saints Apostles Peter and Paul; there he tried to encourage the citizens with kind words and consolation.

Celebi left the town after appointing a local commander who "made a storm, stronger and more terrible than the first one, the remembrance of which causes people to suffocate and shiver." The town commander used treachery to get rid of the bolder and more warlike Bulgarians because he knew that he would be safer if they were dead. He gathered all eminent citizens and boyars under pretence that he wants advice from them on some common activities. When they gathered, unsuspecting, a wholesale massacre was carried out. No one was spared, neither old nor young, and no one asked for mercy. All of them, 110 people, were killed. The ground was covered with blood, and the corpses were thrown in the fields outside the town.

Evtimiy was imprisoned in a dungeon. The pasha ordered to strip him of his priest's garb, to take him to the town wall and behead him publicly, so that everybody sees the death of their leader. The kind old man bent his head down to be cut off but (as the legend has it ) there was a miracle: the hand of the executioner hung in the air, horror overtook the pasha and all the Turks, and they freed Evtimiy.

[edit] Aftermath

Later, Bayazid sent an order to move to the East all citizens of Tarnovo who belonged to more eminent families, who were richer, and more beautiful. Then they sent Evtimiy on exile in Thrace. The Patriarch left Tarnovo, surrounded by his expelled fellow citizens, and leaning on his crozier, bitterly mourned the fate of his fatherland. The sight was such that even the stones wept.

Fathers parted with their children, brothers parted with their sisters forever. At the south side of the Balkans, the Turks who guarded this sad procession, ordered Evtimiy to separate from the others. All exiles kneeled around the Patriarch, kissed his hands, called him "father", women put their children before him. Happy were those who were able to touch their lips to the end of his dress; some plucked the grass at the place where he stood, and those who were away from him, cried bitterly after receiving his last blessings. Evtimiy advised them to preserve their Christian faith, kneeled among them and prayed; then he stood up and blessed them for the last time. When someone asked him who will guard Bulgarians from then on, Evtimiy answered "the blessed Trinity, now and for ever", and the Turks led him away. The exiles of the Mitropoly of the Asens disappeared without a trace in the center of Asia Minor; they probably fell to the swords of Tamerlanes hordes, who turned half of Asia Minor into a desert.

Evtimiy lived out his days in Thrace where he preached all the time in towns and villages, in houses, and fields; he preached against conversion to Islam and taught moral values. He gave to the poor the money that boyars and their women lavished on him; the testament was his only treasure. This last Tarnovo patriarch died in exile and was canonised as a national saint of his people.

The citizens of Tarnovo that remained in the town were forced to witness the horrible, in the literal sense of the word, "complete devastation of the town". Turkish colonists occupied Tsarevets which from then on was called Hisar; they terrorised all other citizens from there. The disciples of Evtimiy dispersed to Russia and Serbia, taking with them Bulgarian books, in the same way as the Greek learned men enriched the West with the old classics. Many merchants and boyars converted to Islam. The famous cathedral "Saints Forty Martyrs", built by Ivan Asen II, somewhat damaged after the battle, was turned into mosque; both Christians and Muslims believe until this day that in the eve of Saint Forty Martyrs (March 9), miracles are happen in there. Its minaret often fell down, and earlier in 20 century they found that the reason for this are the tombs of tsars and national saints found underneath.

The fall of Tarnovo and the exile of patriarch Evtimiy mark the destruction of the Bulgarian national church. As early as August 1394, the Constantinople patriarch appointed the Moldovan mitropolite to carry the episcopal trebes in Tarnovo where he came the following year. In 1402, Tarnovo had its own mitropolite, subjected to the Byzantine patriarch. Thus, the Bulgarian state fell under Turkish rule while the Bulgarian church fell under Greek rule.

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