Antiquity and the Middle Ages

The first records of Shumen date back to the Chalcolithic. Excavations by Raphael Popov in 1907 founded the settlement mound Kodzadermen, inhabited in the Middle and Late Chalcolithic (approximately 4500-4000 BC). It has a diameter of 60 m and a height of 5 m and, located 6 km north of the town.^[4]

Restored wall fragments and tower of the Shumen fortress, with ruins in the foreground.

Earliest reports for Shumen fortress date back to the early Iron Age. From the 12th century BC is the first fort, surrounding accessible parts of the area. Archaeological surveys, conducted in 1957, 1961 to 1987, determined the chronological periods, the lifestyle and the livelihood of the inhabitants of the fortress. It had a wall thickness of about two meters, built of rough stones. In the 5th century BC a second wall was built in front of the former.

In the 2nd century the Romans built a military fortress on the ruins of the Thracian fortifications. The construction of the wall is already bonded to mortar; a tower was constructed above the gate; square tower was built to the west and semicircular to the south. In the 4-5th centuries the entire hill was fortified with a new wall with nine towers. Between the 8th and the 10th century the fort was renovated, for the purpose the Roman wall and towers were used and to the northeast was built a new wall with two towers.

Middle Ages

In 681 khan Asparukh incorporated the territory into the First Bulgarian Empire. In 811 Shumen was burned by the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus. He was killed at the Battle of Pliska. Khan Krum of Bulgaria encased Nicephorus's skull in silver and used it as a cup for wine drinking. The Bulgarian fortification of the 7-10th centuries developed into a feudal city with a castle with surrounding inner and outer defensive zones, in which can be counted 28 towers and bastions, three gates and five small porticoes, and many churches and workshops (12th to 14th century). During the golden age of Bulgarian culture under Simeon the Great (893-927), Shumen was a centre of cultural and religious activity, and may have borne the name Simeonis.

During the Second Bulgarian Empire, Shumen was a significant military, administrative and economic center, displacing the old Bulgarian capital Preslav and developing outside the fortress. In the medieval city of Shumen the main religion was the Orthodox Christianity, evidence of which were the found in the outline of the walls, seven churches, commemorative coins with the image of crosses, angels, and numerous findings of Orthodox crosses separately, as well as their image on rings and on other artefacts, found in the graves and the homes. Change occurs only after the Ottoman conquest of the city in the 15th century, when Islam was introduced.

Ottoman Empire

In 1388 the sultan Murad I forced it to surrender to the Ottoman Empire.^[3] After Władysław Warneńczyk's unsuccessful crusade in 1444, the city was destroyed by the Ottomans and moved to its present location.

After the Middle Ages, the Turks used the ruins of the city for the construction of the several baths and mosques. In the 17th - 18th centuries Shumen was turned into a strongly fortified military town, with a large garrison in the fortress, many Turks, Jews, Tatars, Armenians settled there. According to Konstantin Jirecek, at the time of the Ottoman conquest there were 800 houses in Shumen, and in the 17th century they already numbered 4000-5000.^[5] In the 18th century it was enlarged and fortified.^[3] Three times (1774, 1810 and 1828) it was unsuccessfully attacked by Russian armies.^[3] The Turks consequently gave it the name of Gazi ("Victorious").^[3] In 1854 it was the headquarters of Omar Pasha and the point at which the Turkish army concentrated (see Crimean War).^[3] Many Turks were settled in the area during the Ottoman period to spread the Islamic faith among the Slavic Bulgarian Christians and many Muslim Turkic men married Bulgarian women and converted them to Islam during the period .

Bulgarian National Revival

In the 19th century Shumen was a communication hub of importance in the Ottoman Empire.^[6] In 1820 Porter wrote that Shumen had "a suburb in which its Christian inhabitants live".^[7]

Postcard from Shumen, 1912

During the 19th century, Shumen was an important centre of the Bulgarian National Revival, with the first celebration of Cyril and Methodius in the Bulgarian lands taking place on 11 May 1813 and the first theatre performance. A girls' religious school was established in 1828; a class school for girls and a chitalishte (community centre) followed in 1856. The first Bulgarian symphony orchestra was founded in the city in 1850. In the same year, influential Hungarian politician and revolutionary leader Lajos Kossuth spent a part of his exile in the then-Ottoman town of Shumen. The house he lived in is preserved as a museum.

Third Bulgarian State

Climate

Ethnic, linguistic and religious composition

According to the latest 2011 census data, the individuals declared their ethnic identity were distributed as follows:^[16][17]

• Bulgarians: 61,584
• Turks: 10,029
• Romani: 2,165
• Others: 600
• Indefinable: 552
• Undeclared: 5,925

Total: 80,855

Religion

The population of the city is majorly Eastern Orthodox, with a significant portion of Muslims and much smaller minorities of other religions.

In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Shumen is a part of the Eparchy (diocese) of Varna and Veliki Preslav and the capital of the Shumen church district (okolia). There are two major Orthodox temples in the city, the Church of the Holy Ascension (est. 1829) and the Church of the Three Holy Hierarchs (est. 1857), and a few chapels.

In Shumen is located the largest mosque in Bulgaria and the second largest in the Balkans, the Sherif Halil Pasha Mosque, more commonly known as the Tombul (or Tumbul) Mosque, built between 1740 and 1744.

Twin towns – sister cities

Shumen is twinned with: