Silistra fortress
The fortress Silistra ( Bulgarian Силистренска крепост Silistrenska krepost ), in Turkish Medzhidi Tabiya named after the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I , under whose reign the current expansion took place, is a fortress in Bulgaria , on the right bank of the here 2½ km wide Danube . The Silistra Fortress is listed as number 51 among the 100 national tourist objects of Bulgaria created by the Bulgarian Tourism Association . It is located south of Silistra .
The fortress of the ancient city founded as Durostorum had already served the Kyiv Grand Duke Svyatoslaw I as a retreat in 971 after he had lost the Eastern Bulgarian Empire he had conquered to the Byzantines. The free withdrawal granted by the Byzantines after his capitulation was bound by Svyatoslav's promise never to enter the Balkans again. In 1595 the city of Silistra was cremated by the Turks. In 1811 the fortress was conquered by the Russian Empire after only five days.
On the other hand, she resisted a siege in the war from 1828 to 1829 and surrendered to the Russian general Alexandre Andrault de Langeron after six months in the second .
The last fortress was built by the Ottomans in the fortress quadrangle Silistra - Varna - Shumen - Rustschuk between 1841 and 1853. The construction took place according to the plans of the German officer Helmuth von Moltke , who visited Silistra in 1837. The construction was led by Bulgarian builders from Drjanowo and the Silistra region. In total, more than 300 Bulgarians were involved in the construction, some of them from the Silistra region had to do forced labor. The fortification of Silistra originally consisted of 11 detached forts that spanned the city. The only remaining fort bears the name of the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid I, who visited the place in 1847. It is still signposted today as "Medschidi Tabija" (Bulgarian Меджиди табия). The fort itself consists of the casemate , two powder magazines, a polygonal system with two capons on the front and one on the back. There was also a secret tunnel into the city. So that they could not reveal the construction plans of the fortress, the construction workers were relocated to Anatolia after completion. The builder himself was summoned to Constantinople and hanged there.
During the Crimean War , the Russian troops under Ivan Fyodorovich Paskewitsch could not conquer Silistra in 1854. Two storm attempts were bloody repulsed. The British Captain Butler, who was subordinate to the Ottomans, stood out for his defense of the Arab-Tabia earthworks . The Ottoman general Omar Pasha brought up a relief army on June 10th. The siege of Silistra therefore had to be abandoned by the Russian side on June 21, after 55 days and the loss of 12,000 men.
In 1877 Silistra was again surrounded by the Russian army and after the Russian victory in the Russo-Turkish War in February 1878, the Turks evacuated it. The fortifications were supposed to be demolished according to the Berlin Treaty , but were still preserved around 1889.
The Fort Medjidi Tabia is today the best preserved fortress from the former fortress square. This is because it always served as a military base over the years that followed. During the Second World War units of the Wehrmacht were located here . After the war, the citadel served the local Bulgarian military academy until 1956. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2003, the facility was sold to an arms collector who now operates it on its own.
Opening times daily, entrance fee for schoolchildren BGN 1, adults BGN 2, photo permit BGN 5.
literature
- Silistria . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 14, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 976.
- Letters from headquarters or the truth about the war in the Krimm. Volume I, p. 45.
Web links
- The Silistra Fortress , multilingual, on the owner's website
- The Silistra Fortress , in Bulgarian, on the website of the Bulgarian Tourist Board
Coordinates: 44 ° 6 ′ N , 27 ° 16 ′ E