Sofia, Capital of Bulgaria, 1914
A look at the growth and architecture of Sofia, Bulgaria following the nation's transition to self-rule in 1878.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Bulgaria and Her People by Will Seymour Monroe, 1914.
Sofia, the handsome capital of the new kingdom, was an important town in pre-Roman days. The Shop tribes of peasants who live in the mountains near by may be the descendants of the ancient Dacians who occupied the town when Diocletian made it the capital of Lower Dacia. It was a prosperous town when it was captured by Krum and his Bulgars in 809. He made it the capital of his kingdom. It was occupied by the Turks in 1383 and remained in their hands, save for a brief period when it was occupied by the Hungarians under John Hunyady in 1443, until they were driven out by General Gurko in 1878.
Lady Montagu of England tarried in Sofia a few days on her way from London to Constantinople in 1717. She tells us that Sofia is one of the most beautiful towns in the Turkish empire. Under Turkish rule Sofia was the residence of an Ottoman governor, and for many years it was an important centre for trade with Ragusa. It was the headquarters of Mustafa Pasha during the Turko-Russian campaign of 1829. An English traveller who visited the city in 1860 calls it “a miserably poor place." The same traveller in 1890 writes: "Of all the cities of the east, Sofia has made the greatest improvement."
On the eve of liberation Sofia is described as "a concourse of mean, red-tiled little houses and cabins of wood and plaster. Its crooked, narrow lanes, leading nowhere in particular, were unpaved. In rainy weather they were no better than sewers. In Turkish Sofia no Christian woman dared venture out of the house after dark, or far from it in the daytime. There were no street lamps. No man went out of doors in the night-time without a lantern."
When the author visited Sofia for the first time fourteen years ago, it still retained the character of a Turkish town. But a great transformation has taken place during the last dozen years. A beautiful city has been created upon the ruins of the old squalid Turkish town. Handsome public buildings and private residences, broad and well-paved streets, tramways and electric lights, and all the appurtenances of a modern city are now found at the modern capital, which is the social and intellectual as well as the political centre of the new national life.
The process of transformation was begun under the reign of Prince Alexander of Battenberg. He built the royal palace and had constructed a number of public buildings. The royal palace is a solid rectangular edifice surrounded by high drab-coloured walls. The entrance to the palace is through massive iron gates. It can scarcely be called a handsome building.
When King Ferdinand got firmly seated on his throne he took up the matter of transforming his capital into a thoroughly modern city. Large parts of the old Turkish town were pulled down. Five-story houses, chiefly of brick encased in stucco, replaced the hovels of wood and mud. Narrow, dirty alleys were widened into broad thoroughfares and paved with macadam. The work of building the new city was interrupted by the Balkan wars, but it has been actively resumed during recent months.
The Djul-Dschamija, with its slender minaret, is one of the few reminders of the evil Turkish days. Parts of the mosque are said to have been erected by Trajan as a heathen temple in the Roman days. Constantine the Great consecrated it as a Christian church and dedicated it to Saint George. The Turks five hundred years ago transformed it into a mosque and added the minaret. It is still used as a house of worship by the Moslem residents of Sofia.
The Buyuk Djamia, with its nine metal cupolas, was the most important sanctuary during the days of Turkish occupation. To-day it houses the Bulgarian National Museum. The museum contains the beginning of a collection that will ultimately represent the historical development of the country from earliest Dacian times to the present day. A considerable number of monuments belonging to pre-historic times, as well as numbers of relics belonging to the Roman and Byzantine periods of Macedonia and Bulgaria, have been secured. Many of the old Slavic inscriptions in stone have great historical value. The museum has notable collections of bas-reliefs, bronzes, and coins. Here also is found the beginnings of a national gallery of painting and sculpture. Such works of art as have been purchased by the national government are displayed in the museum. Bulgaria also has an interesting ethnographic collection at present housed in a private building. An ethnographic museum building is shortly to be erected at Sofia.
The Tscherna Djamia, or Black Mosque, is now used as a place of worship by the Orthodox church. The most significant religious monument in the city is the ruin of the church of St. Sofia, a basilica with three naves that dates from the year 1329. The cathedral or church of Sveti Krai, with three cupolas, is one of the least attractive public buildings in the city. It is a modem structure and is the chief place of worship of the state religion. It contains the remains of the Servian king Stefan Uros II.
The new cathedral of Alexander Nevsky, just completed at a cost of one and one-fourth million dollars, is the most important building in the city. It was erected as a memorial to Russian valour in the war of liberation. It is built in the Russian-Byzantine style. The general details of the church, such as the large central dome and many of the smaller bulbous domes, are distinctly Russian. The domes are gilded and produce a rather fierce and dazzling effect. The facade is of local white stone, and the marbles used in the interior decorations were brought from Italy, Brazil, and Africa. Quantities of Mexican onyx were also used in the decoration of the interior.
A Russian, Professor Pomerantzeff, was the chief architect, and the interior decorations were entrusted to Russian and Bulgarian artists. The walls and domes of the interior are covered with paintings of Scriptural and historical subjects and the chapels are ornate with mosaics and paintings. The thrones for the bishop and the king are especially rich in ornaments. One feels, however, a lack of intimate relation behind the forces that produced the great and costly cathedral — architect, artists, decorators, and building commission. Divided responsibility must account for some of the ill-adjusted relations. Instead of farming out the interior decorations to a considerable number of Bulgarian and Russian artists, it probably would have been better to have placed the matter in the hands of one artist and held him responsible for the harmonizing of details.
The paintings by Bulgarian artists are the best in the cathedral. There are some notable paintings by Mirkvicka, such as “The seven saints to the Slavs,” “The Virgin and Child,” “The prophets Moses and Aaron,” “The contest of Christ and the devil,” “God the Father,” and “Christ in the Temple.” Mitoff also has done some highly creditable work in the new cathedral. Among his paintings are Saints Kyril, Method, and Boris, the Patriarch Eftmi, “Ivan Rilsky,” and “Maria and the Child.” The frescoes over the right altar are by Mitoff, and the mosaics of the king's throne were made from his drawings. “Christ with the Poor,” “St. George,” and several other saints are the work of Stefan Ivanoff. There is an interesting series of holy men by Malinoif, Petroff, Berberoff, and Mihailoff.
The Bulgarian National Theatre, the home of opera and drama, is a handsome modern structure erected at a cost of four hundred thousand dollars. It has a competent corps of actors and singers and produces standard works by native and foreign dramatic and music composers. The theatre receives an annual appropriation from the national government.
Two other recent public buildings are the palace of the Holy Synod and the public bath, both the work of the Bulgarian architect Momtchiloff. All the decorations in the Holy Synod are the work of Bulgarian artists — Mirkvicka, Mitoff, and Ivanoff. Besides the paintings, there are some fine wood carvings and tapestries in the palace of the Holy Synod by native artisans.
The new public bath at Sofia is the finest institution of its kind in the world. It was erected at a cost of six hundred thousand dollars over a hot spring that has been famed for its mineral properties since the days of the Romans. The temperature of the water as it comes from the ground is 117 degrees Fahrenheit. The bath is not only a handsome structure in the Byzantine style of architecture, but its equipment is modern and commodious.
The new post-office is the work of the Bulgarian architect Jordan Malinoif, who has also planned many of the fine private residences of Sofia. He was the president of the commission that had charge of the cathedral of Alexander Nevsky. The chamber of commerce is the work of the Bulgarian architect Fingoif. The Bulgarian Agricultural Bank is an attractive modern building. It has interesting mural paintings in the council chamber by Mirkvicka and Mitoff. The sobranje, or parliament house, is one of the older buildings of the capital, but it produces a good effect. The academy of arts when completed will be one of the striking public buildings of the capital, and costly new university buildings are shortly to be erected.
In the public square in front of the sobranje is the handsome equestrian statue of the Tsar Liberator, Alexander II of Russia, to whom Bulgaria pays willing homage. Among other monuments at the capital is one erected in memory of Vassil Levsky, a Bulgarian patriot, executed by the Turks in 1873, and another commemorating the services of the physicians and surgeons who fell in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78.
There is a small but attractive public garden in the heart of the city, and a larger public garden in the suburbs, with its fine acacias, its fountain, and its miniature lake. The lion's bridge spanning the river that flows through the city is an interesting piece of work. The city is well drained; it has an excellent water supply that is brought from Mount Vitosha; there are several broad and attractive avenues, and all the thoroughfares are well lighted.
Sofia is situated on a rolling upland plain that is encompassed in every direction by lofty mountain ranges. Its elevation is 1,700 feet above the level of the sea. The plateau on which the city is built extends for miles in all directions, thus affording infinite space for expansion. The dilapidated Turkish town of twenty-five thousand inhabitants has grown in a quarter of a century to a handsome city of one hundred five thousand inhabitants. In the suburbs of the city are breweries, sugar-refineries, and cotton mills and silk mills. The climate of the city is healthful; and, overlooking the plain on which it is located, is the superb peak of Mount Vitosha.
Monroe, Will Seymour. Bulgaria and Her People. Page Co., 1914.
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