Плевен

The city of the Pleven epic and Panorama, heart of the Danube plain.

The history of Pleven begins in ancient times - there was a Thracian presence on these lands, and during the Roman era, the fortified road station Storgozia was built here in the province of Mysia, on the road between Eskus and Philippopolis. An early Christian basilica from the 4th century, considered one of the largest in the Bulgarian lands, has been preserved from this era. During the Middle Ages, the settlement was a fortress of the First and Second Bulgarian kingdoms, with developed crafts and its own minting. The earliest documented mention of a name close to today's "Pleven" is from 1270 in a charter of the Hungarian king Stefan V. During the Ottoman period, the city was known as Plevne and was an administrative center under the rule of the Mihaloglu family. During the Renaissance, the people of Pleven built schools and churches and preserved their Bulgarian cultural identity. The most fateful page in the history of the city was the Pleven epic in 1877 during the Russo-Turkish war of liberation. The Ottoman general Osman Nuri Pasha fortified the city and the siege began on 20 July 1877. After the failed assaults of 20 and 30 July and the Great Assault of 11–12 September, in which Gen. Mikhail Skobelev briefly captured two redoubts, the Russian command headed by Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and Gen. Eduard Totleben imposes a complete blockade. On the side of Russians and Romanians, the troops of the Romanian King Carol I fought. After an unsuccessful breakthrough on December 9, Osman Pasha surrendered on December 10, 1877, after nearly five months of siege. Liberation came in 1878. In memory of the epic, on the centenary itself - December 10, 1977 - the "Pleven Epic 1877" Panorama was opened, a unique monument on the Balkan Peninsula. In the 20th century, Pleven established itself as an important administrative, cultural and industrial center of Northern Bulgaria with machine building, oil refining and textiles. In 1974, the Medical University - Pleven was founded, which today is among the leading in the country.