Great Mosque of Sofia

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The Bujuk Jamija today as the National Archaeological Museum
inside view
Bujuk Jamija 1920 in front of the Union Palace Hotel on the right and the Hotel Imperial on the left

The Great Mosque of Sofia ( Bulgarian Буюк ​​джамия Bujuk Jamija , Turkish Sofya Büyük Camii ) is a former mosque in the Bulgarian capital Sofia , opposite the presidential seat. It is one of the most important architectural monuments of Bulgaria from the Ottoman period and is located next to the Banja Bashi Mosque and the Bosnali Mehmed Pasha Mosque in the center of Sofia. The building has housed the National Archaeological Museum since 1892 .

location

The former mosque (Bujuk Dschamija) is today opposite the seat of the Bulgarian President, in the immediate vicinity of the Lagro architectural complex , between the streets Lege (Bulgarian Леге), Tsar Oswoboditel (Bulgarian Цар Освободител), Saborna (Bulgarian Соборн) and Knjaz Aleksandar I (Bulgarian Княз Александър I) included.

Building history

The Great Mosque is the oldest building of its kind in Sofia. A building inscription has not survived, but according to some written records, the former mosque of the great Mahmud Pasha (German for Koca Mahmut Paşa Camii ) was a mosque complex with numerous buildings and corresponded to the Ottoman tradition of building mosques. The name of the complex was carried over to the neighboring district in the following centuries, even up to the end of the 19th century the street in front of the mosque was called Büyük Cami sokağı , today it is called Lege .

In 1451 the Grand Vizier Veli Mahmud Pasha under Mehmed the Conqueror became Governor General ( Beylerbey ) of Rumelia with his seat in Sofia. On his initiative, construction of the Great Mosque began in the same year and was completed in 1494, 20 years after the death of Mahmud Pasha. The first name of the mosque was Kodscha Mahmud Pascha Mosque (Bulgarian Коджа Махмуд паша джамия / Kodscha Machmud Pascha Jamija; Turkish: Koca Mahmut Pasha Camii). In the immediate vicinity of the mosque, other buildings were erected, including a caravanserai , a medrese and a water reservoir, so that a mosque complex ( Külliye ) was created.

The area of ​​the mosque was archaeologically examined in 1939 and 1998. During the excavations in 1939, angular masonry was found under the southern wing. They were built from oval river stones and a belt consisting of five rows of flat bricks that do not match the era and shape of the rest of the building. Among the finds was a statue of Artemis . During the second excavation in 1998, an area of ​​around 120 m² of the garden in front of the mosque and the current administration building of the museum were examined. Culture layers from several periods were found. The oldest finds come from a prehistoric settlement located under the nearby Alexander Batemberg Square . During the excavations, finds from the early Iron Age (8th - 7th centuries BC), two layers of buildings from the Roman period of Sofia (when this area was part of the agora , the ancient market), finds from the 11th and 12th centuries Century, as well as the floor plan of a building whose masonry runs parallel to the mosque and was most likely the former inn of the mosque complex .

The floor plan of the Great Mosque is a square building with a side length of 36.6 m. It was aligned with the four cardinal points, with minor deviations. The area is divided into nine identical squares by four pillars and the associated pilasters . A dome was erected over each of the nine squares. All domes have the same diameter and are supported by pointed arches . From the outside, the domes are covered with lead leaves. The central domes that lead to the mihrab are higher than the rest.

The development of Ottoman sacred architecture on the Balkan Peninsula and the interaction between Ottoman and Western architecture in the various regions of the Ottoman Empire has not yet been studied in detail. Scientists see the Great Mosque in Bursa (Ulu Cami) as a model for the mosque architecture with several domes, as can also be found in part in the Balkans. It was built after 1395 by the architect Ayvaz Pascha .

The walls of the Great Mosque were built from small blocks with mortar and covered with bricks. This so-called cell structure is characteristic of Ottoman construction. In the first centuries the mosque probably had an arcaded vestibule ( narthex ), which was roofed with five domes.

In the oldest surviving image of the Great Mosque, a colonnade with a sloping roof can be seen on the front facade and the minaret to the right of the central building. The portal was probably built in the 19th century, after one of the two great earthquakes in 1818 or 1858, to replace the damaged or dilapidated narthex. In this picture of the mosque, no windows are visible in the central dome either. The central dome was probably only broken during the major renovation in 1938 to allow better light penetration into the interior of the building. At the end of the 19th century the portal and the minaret were in ruins, only five arch markings were visible. During the Russo-Ottoman War of Liberation (1877-1878), the abandoned mosque was converted into a hospital.

The need to create cultural institutions in post-war Bulgaria and the lack of suitable buildings, as a result of Sofia's declaration as the capital of the Principality of Bulgaria , brought about the rededication of the abandoned building of the Great Mosque of Sofia at the suggestion of Konstantin Jireček . For example, after the military hospital had moved, the Ministry of National Education handed the building over to the recently founded National Library at the end of 1879 , which was to use it for an antiquity museum. However, the building was in a desolate condition. In order to be able to use it at all, a third of the mosque was divided into four rooms with the help of wooden boards. The larger part became a reading room. The library in the mosque was officially opened to visitors on March 2, 1880. A makeshift reconstruction that was carried out before the opening cost 7,000 leva.

A report from the then director of the library to the Ministry of National Education has been preserved from 1885. In this he explains that it is impossible to stay in the mosque: “The rooms are very damp, stuffy, dark and cramped. The building is low and built into the earth, where a heavy and disgusting smell forms, which is the result of the dampness, the stuffy air and the moldy fabrics on the walls. ”The mosque housed the library until the spring of 1885. During this At that time the offices of the state printing house were also located in the Great Mosque; The printing machines were housed in two temporary outbuildings. One of the outbuildings was built on the west facade, on today's Lege Street, and the other on the opposite facade on Knjaginja Clementine Boulevard (today Atanas Burow Square). These buildings existed until 1887: After that, the State Printing Office moved into its own new building. After a renovation, the former mosque was used as a national archeology museum from 1892, and the museum was opened to the public in 1905. It was badly damaged by a bomb in 1944 and restored by 1948.

literature

  • A. Monedzhikova: Sofiia prez vekovete , Sofia 1946
  • Julia Mineva-Milcheva; Elisaveta Alexandrova-Koeva: West Bulgaria , Bulgarian National Heritage "Ferdinandeum" publishing house, 2006
  • Vassil Nikolov (ed.): National Museum of Archeology. 100 years from the opening of the first exhibition May 18, 1905 - May 18, 2005 . Borina, Sofia 2006. ISBN 954-500-145-3 , pp. 29-36

Web links

Commons : Great Sofia Mosque  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 42 ° 41 ′ 46.8 "  N , 23 ° 19 ′ 28.4"  E