Everything about Etropole totally explained
Etropole (Етрополе) is a town in western
Bulgaria, part of
Sofia Province. It is located close to the northern slopes of the
Balkan Mountains in the valley of the Malki
Iskar 80 km from
Sofia.
History
The area was first settled by the
Thracian tribe of the
Triballi in the
7th-6th century BC due to its position as an important crossroad connecting the
Danube with
Macedonia and
Thrace close to two key Balkan passes. The forces of
Philip II of Macedon (339 BC),
Alexander the Great (335 BC), the
Celts and the
Roman legions passed through the valley in the Antiquity. The region developed as a centre of trade and economy, as evidenced by findings of
Macedonian and
Greek coins, Greek ceramics, luxurious items and decorations.
The ore ledges brought
Saxon miners to the town in the 16th century. They introduced the
samokov hammer technology and helped for the area's establishment as a centre of craftsmanship and mining, with
gold,
copper,
silver and
iron being extracted in the 16th and 17th century. Handicrafts such as iron-, gold- and coppersmithing and cutlery prospered. The economic upsurge of the settlement aided the development of culture and education in the nearby
Etropole Monastery in the period, where biblical and
liturgical books were copied in a specific original
calligraphic style, of which 76 hand-written volumes were preserved.
A monastery school was established in 1613 and a public one (yet still monastery) followed in 1811. One of the first school buildings in Bulgaria was constructed in 1828-1830 by merchants and rich craftsmen from Etropole. A revolutionary committee part of
Vasil Levski's
Internal Revolutionary Organization was founded in Etropole in 1870 in order to help the
Liberation of Bulgaria from
Ottoman rule. The town was liberated on
24 November 1877 by
Russian forces under
Joseph Vladimirovich Gourko during the
Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 and served as a governing centre for the 40-day winter march of the Balkan Mountains of the
Imperial Russian Army.
Further Information
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