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120-539: The Serbo-Bulgarian War or the Serbian–Bulgarian War ( Bulgarian : Сръбско-българска война , Srăbsko-bălgarska voyna , Serbian : Српско-бугарски рат , Srpsko-bugarski rat ) was a war between the Kingdom of Serbia and Principality of Bulgaria that erupted on 14 November [ O.S. 2 November] 1885 and lasted until 28 November [ O.S. 16 November] 1885. Despite Bulgaria being

240-584: A vassal state of the Ottoman Empire , the Ottomans did not intervene in the war. Serbia initiated the war but was decisively defeated. Austria-Hungary demanded for Bulgaria to stop its invasion, and a truce resulted. The final peace was signed on 3 March [ O.S. 19 February] 1886 in Bucharest. The old boundaries were not changed. As a result of the war, European powers acknowledged

360-599: A complete collapse. Slivnitsa was the decisive battle of the war. The Serbians fought only limited rearguard actions as they retreated and by 24 November they were back in Serbia. The Timok Division in the north continued the Siege of Vidin until 29 November. The main Bulgarian army crossed the border in two strong divisions (Guchev and Nikolaev), supported by flanking columns, and converged on Pirot. The Serbian army dug in on

480-532: A consonant and are feminine, as well as nouns that end in –а/–я (most of which are feminine, too) use –та. Nouns that end in –е/–о use –то. The plural definite article is –те for all nouns except for those whose plural form ends in –а/–я; these get –та instead. When postfixed to adjectives the definite articles are –ят/–я for masculine gender (again, with the longer form being reserved for grammatical subjects), –та for feminine gender, –то for neuter gender, and –те for plural. Both groups agree in gender and number with

600-528: A dialect continuum, and there is no well-defined boundary where one language ends and the other begins. Within the limits of the Republic of North Macedonia a strong separate Macedonian identity has emerged since the Second World War, even though there still are a small number of citizens who identify their language as Bulgarian. Beyond the borders of North Macedonia, the situation is more fluid, and

720-502: A middle ground between the macrodialects. It allows palatalizaton only before central and back vowels and only partial reduction of / a / and / ɔ / . Reduction of / ɛ / , consonant palatalisation before front vowels and depalatalization of palatalized consonants before central and back vowels is strongly discouraged and labelled as provincial. Bulgarian has six vowel phonemes, but at least eight distinct phones can be distinguished when reduced allophones are taken into consideration. There

840-446: A mile or more, wasting precious ammunition for negligible results. Furthermore, the quantity of ammunition purchased was based on the consumption of bullets by the previous, much older and slower-firing rifles. The situation was made worse still by the contemporary Serbian tactics, which emphasized firepower and downplayed hand-to-hand fighting, which contributed to heavy casualties in the fight for Neškov Vis in defense of Pirot. Bulgaria

960-446: A much smaller group of irregular nouns with zero ending which define tangible objects or concepts ( кръв /krɤf/ 'blood', кост /kɔst/ 'bone', вечер /ˈvɛtʃɛr/ 'evening', нощ /nɔʃt/ 'night'). There are also some commonly used words that end in a vowel and yet are masculine: баща 'father', дядо 'grandfather', чичо / вуйчо 'uncle', and others. The plural forms of the nouns do not express their gender as clearly as

1080-490: A number of phraseological units and sayings. The major exception are vocative forms, which are still in use for masculine (with the endings -е, -о and -ю) and feminine nouns (-[ь/й]о and -е) in the singular. In modern Bulgarian, definiteness is expressed by a definite article which is postfixed to the noun, much like in the Scandinavian languages or Romanian (indefinite: човек , 'person'; definite: човек ът , "

1200-531: A special count form in –а/–я , which stems from the Proto-Slavonic dual : два/три стола ('two/three chairs') versus тези столове ('these chairs'); cf. feminine две/три/тези книги ('two/three/these books') and neuter две/три/тези легла ('two/three/these beds'). However, a recently developed language norm requires that count forms should only be used with masculine nouns that do not denote persons. Thus, двама/трима ученици ('two/three students')

1320-635: Is " Ye lena Yankovich" ( Йелена Янкович ). Until the period immediately following the Second World War , all Bulgarian and the majority of foreign linguists referred to the South Slavic dialect continuum spanning the area of modern Bulgaria, North Macedonia and parts of Northern Greece as a group of Bulgarian dialects. In contrast, Serbian sources tended to label them "south Serbian" dialects. Some local naming conventions included bolgárski , bugárski and so forth. The codifiers of

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1440-647: Is also a significant Bulgarian diaspora abroad. One of the main historically established communities are the Bessarabian Bulgarians , whose settlement in the Bessarabia region of nowadays Moldova and Ukraine dates mostly to the early 19th century. There were 134,000 Bulgarian speakers in Ukraine at the 2001 census, 41,800 in Moldova as of the 2014 census (of which 15,300 were habitual users of

1560-838: Is an Eastern South Slavic language spoken in Southeast Europe , primarily in Bulgaria . It is the language of the Bulgarians . Along with the closely related Macedonian language (collectively forming the East South Slavic languages ), it is a member of the Balkan sprachbund and South Slavic dialect continuum of the Indo-European language family . The two languages have several characteristics that set them apart from all other Slavic languages , including

1680-496: Is based on a general consensus reached by all major Bulgarian linguists in the 1930s and 1940s. In turn, the 39-consonant model was launched in the beginning of the 1950s under the influence of the ideas of Russian linguist Nikolai Trubetzkoy . Despite frequent objections, the support of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences has ensured Trubetzkoy's model virtual monopoly in state-issued phonologies and grammars since

1800-433: Is common in all modern Slavic languages (e.g. Czech medv ě d /ˈmɛdvjɛt/ "bear", Polish p ię ć /pʲɛ̃tɕ/ "five", Serbo-Croatian je len /jělen/ "deer", Ukrainian нема є /nemájɛ/ "there is not   ...", Macedonian пишува ње /piʃuvaɲʲɛ/ "writing", etc.), as well as some Western Bulgarian dialectal forms – e.g. ора̀н’е /oˈraɲʲɛ/ (standard Bulgarian: оране /oˈranɛ/ , "ploughing"), however it

1920-405: Is currently no consensus on the number of Bulgarian consonants, with one school of thought advocating for the existence of only 22 consonant phonemes and another one claiming that there are not fewer than 39 consonant phonemes. The main bone of contention is how to treat palatalized consonants : as separate phonemes or as allophones of their respective plain counterparts. The 22-consonant model

2040-572: Is evidence that hajduks of the region participated. Many locals from the region fled northwards with Patriarch Arsenije IV . The first known literary monument, influenced by Torlakian dialects is the Manuscript from Temska Monastery from 1762, in which its author, the Monk Kiril Zhivkovich from Pirot, considered his language as "simple Bulgarian". In 1768, the town is described as half in ruins. From 1761 to 1878, Pirot

2160-817: Is mainly split into two broad dialect areas, based on the different reflexes of the Proto-Slavic yat vowel (Ѣ). This split, which occurred at some point during the Middle Ages, led to the development of Bulgaria's: The literary language norm, which is generally based on the Eastern dialects, also has the Eastern alternating reflex of yat . However, it has not incorporated the general Eastern umlaut of all synchronic or even historic "ya" sounds into "e" before front vowels – e.g. поляна ( polyana ) vs. полени ( poleni ) "meadow – meadows" or even жаба ( zhaba ) vs. жеби ( zhebi ) "frog – frogs", even though it co-occurs with

2280-479: Is not represented in standard Bulgarian speech or writing. Even where /jɛ/ occurs in other Slavic words, in Standard Bulgarian it is usually transcribed and pronounced as pure /ɛ/ – e.g. Boris Yeltsin is "Eltsin" ( Борис Елцин ), Yekaterinburg is "Ekaterinburg" ( Екатеринбург ) and Sarajevo is "Saraevo" ( Сараево ), although – because of the stress and the beginning of the word – Jelena Janković

2400-478: Is one more to describe a general category of unwitnessed events – the inferential (преизказно /prɛˈiskɐzno/ ) mood. However, most contemporary Bulgarian linguists usually exclude the subjunctive mood and the inferential mood from the list of Bulgarian moods (thus placing the number of Bulgarian moods at a total of 3: indicative, imperative and conditional) and do not consider them to be moods but view them as verbial morphosyntactic constructs or separate gramemes of

2520-401: Is perceived as more correct than двама/трима ученика , while the distinction is retained in cases such as два/три молива ('two/three pencils') versus тези моливи ('these pencils'). Cases exist only in the personal and some other pronouns (as they do in many other modern Indo-European languages ), with nominative , accusative , dative and vocative forms. Vestiges are present in

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2640-418: Is that mutable parts of speech vary grammatically, whereas the immutable ones do not change, regardless of their use. The five classes of mutables are: nouns , adjectives , numerals , pronouns and verbs . Syntactically, the first four of these form the group of the noun or the nominal group. The immutables are: adverbs , prepositions , conjunctions , particles and interjections . Verbs and adverbs form

2760-652: Is the Service of Saint Cyril from Skopje (Скопски миней), a 13th-century Middle Bulgarian manuscript from northern Macedonia according to which St. Cyril preached with "Bulgarian" books among the Moravian Slavs. The first mention of the language as the "Bulgarian language" instead of the "Slavonic language" comes in the work of the Greek clergy of the Archbishopric of Ohrid in the 11th century, for example in

2880-399: Is used, and the choice between them is partly determined by their ending in singular and partly influenced by gender; in addition, irregular declension and alternative plural forms are common. Words ending in –а/–я (which are usually feminine) generally have the plural ending –и , upon dropping of the singular ending. Of nouns ending in a consonant, the feminine ones also use –и , whereas

3000-488: The Balkan language area (mostly grammatically) and later also by Turkish , which was the official language of the Ottoman Empire , in the form of the Ottoman Turkish language , mostly lexically. The damaskin texts mark the transition from Middle Bulgarian to New Bulgarian, which was standardized in the 19th century. As a national revival occurred toward the end of the period of Ottoman rule (mostly during

3120-714: The Berlin Congress seven years earlier. The unification took place against the will of the Great Powers , including Russia . Austria-Hungary had been expanding its influence in the Balkans and was particularly opposed to the unification. Bulgaria's western neighbour, Serbia, also feared it would diminish its position in the Balkans. In addition, Serbia's ruler, Milan I (1868–1889), was annoyed that pro-Russian opposition leaders like Nikola Pašić , who had stirred up

3240-714: The Bulgarian Empire introduced the Glagolitic alphabet which was devised by the Saints Cyril and Methodius in the 850s. The Glagolitic alphabet was gradually superseded in later centuries by the Cyrillic script , developed around the Preslav Literary School , Bulgaria in the late 9th century. Several Cyrillic alphabets with 28 to 44 letters were used in the beginning and the middle of

3360-575: The Greek hagiography of Clement of Ohrid by Theophylact of Ohrid (late 11th century). During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system , but preserving the rich verb system (while the development was exactly the opposite in other Slavic languages) and developing a definite article. It was influenced by its non-Slavic neighbors in

3480-549: The Nišava , Jerma , Rasnička Reka, Temštica, and Visočica. Pirot also has four lakes: Lake Zavoj, Lake Berovacko, Lake Krupac, and Lake Sukov. Pirot has a Temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen climate classification : Cfb ) with warm summers and cold winters. During the rule of Roman Emperor Tiberius (14–37), Ponišavlje was part of Moesia , and during Vespasian (69–79) it was, as the rest of Serbia, organized into Upper Moesia (as opposed to most of Bulgaria, Lower Moesia ). At

3600-647: The Timok Rebellion , had found asylum in Bulgaria after the suppression of the rebellion by the Serbian Army. After the declaration of unification, massive protests broke out in Greece for fear of the creation of a Greater Bulgarian state in the Balkans. They called upon the Greek government to declare war on Bulgaria. Serbia proposed to Greece a joint military action against Bulgaria, but Greece rejected

3720-803: The accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union , following the Latin and Greek scripts . Bulgarian possesses a phonology similar to that of the rest of the South Slavic languages, notably lacking Serbo-Croatian's phonemic vowel length and tones and alveo-palatal affricates. There is a general dichotomy between Eastern and Western dialects, with Eastern ones featuring consonant palatalization before front vowels ( / ɛ / and / i / ) and substantial vowel reduction of

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3840-445: The person") or to the first nominal constituent of definite noun phrases (indefinite: добър човек , 'a good person'; definite: добри ят човек , " the good person"). There are four singular definite articles. Again, the choice between them is largely determined by the noun's ending in the singular. Nouns that end in a consonant and are masculine use –ът/–ят, when they are grammatical subjects , and –а/–я elsewhere. Nouns that end in

3960-649: The " Big Excursion " of 1989. The language is also represented among the diaspora in Western Europe and North America, which has been steadily growing since the 1990s. Countries with significant numbers of speakers include Germany , Spain , Italy , the United Kingdom (38,500 speakers in England and Wales as of 2011), France , the United States , and Canada (19,100 in 2011). The language

4080-568: The 1370s the region of Pirot was included in the Serbian state. Pirot was part of Prince Lazar 's state , in which it was an important strategical point. The city was captured by the Ottomans in 1386. The name of the city, Pirot, dates to the 14th century and is derived from Greek pirgos ("tower"). At the beginning of the 15th century, the region of Pirot was one of the centres of the Uprising of Konstantin and Fruzhin . A significant blow to

4200-568: The 1960s. However, its reception abroad has been lukewarm, with a number of authors either calling the model into question or outright rejecting it. Thus, the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association only lists 22 consonants in Bulgarian's consonant inventory . The parts of speech in Bulgarian are divided in ten types, which are categorized in two broad classes: mutable and immutable. The difference

4320-464: The 19th century during the efforts on the codification of Modern Bulgarian until an alphabet with 32 letters, proposed by Marin Drinov , gained prominence in the 1870s. The alphabet of Marin Drinov was used until the orthographic reform of 1945, when the letters yat (uppercase Ѣ, lowercase ѣ) and yus (uppercase Ѫ, lowercase ѫ) were removed from its alphabet, reducing the number of letters to 30. With

4440-461: The 19th century), a modern Bulgarian literary language gradually emerged that drew heavily on Church Slavonic/Old Bulgarian (and to some extent on literary Russian , which had preserved many lexical items from Church Slavonic) and later reduced the number of Turkish and other Balkan loans. Today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in

4560-464: The Balkan countries should cooperate, as had occurred during the rule of Prince Mihailo Obrenović . Novaković criticised Milan's actions as authoritarian, pretentious and not founded on facts. The Serbian population was generally unenthusiastic and did not support the war, and did not understand the reasons behind it. According to the academic Slobodan Jovanović , the Serbian population generally viewed

4680-638: The Balkans. By the mid-6th century Slavs had settled the area. In 679 the Bulgars crossed the Danube into Lower Moesia, and eventually expand to the west and south. Since the beginning of the 9th century the region of Pirot is part of the First Bulgarian State . The Byzantine emperor Basil II (r. 960–1025) reconquered the Balkans from the Bulgars. In 1153, Arab geographer Burizi crossed

4800-579: The Bulgarian government had expected an attack from the Ottoman Empire, the main forces of the Bulgarian Army were along the southeastern border. Their redeployment across Bulgaria would take at least five to six days. Bulgaria's main advantages were its strong patriotic spirit and high morale and its men feeling that they were fighting for a just cause. The same could not be said about the Serbia, whose king had misled them in his manifesto to

4920-420: The Bulgarian military strength and fearing mutinies for conducting such an unpopular war (and having indeed experienced the Timok Rebellion two years before), he ordered the mobilisation of only the first class of infantry (recruits younger than 30 years), which meant mobilising only about half of the available Serbian manpower. In doing so, he deprived the Serbian army of its veterans of the previous wars against

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5040-490: The Ottoman Empire. The modern rifles, despite being among the best in Europe at the time, still had issues of their own: they were introduced only two years before the outbreak of the war, and as such many of the soldiers were not well-trained in their use. More importantly, the theoretical capabilities of the rifle often misled the Serbian officers, who still lacked experience with it, into ordering volleys from distances of half

5160-519: The Ottomans did not intervene, and the Serbian army's advance was stopped after the Battle of Slivnitsa . The main body of the Bulgarian army traveled from the Ottoman border in the southeast to the Serbian border in the northwest to defend the capital Sofia . After the defensive battles at Slivnitsa and Vidin (the latter's defence was organized by Atanas Uzunov ), Bulgaria began an offensive which took

5280-425: The Serbian troops by force. Bulgarian sources on the other hand, outline several Serbian intrusions into Bulgarian territory as the start of hostilities. Bulgarian troops were positioned away from the border in order to not give Serbia cause for attack by defending the border by force. After several incursions fire was finally exchanged on the 13th of November [ O.S. 1 November] 1885. As it happened,

5400-560: The Serbian-Ottoman war in 1878 the population of Pirot changed via emigration process of Muslim population. In 1884. Pirot had 77,922 inhabitants, 76,545 being Serbs and 36 Turks. On 16 December 1877, during the Serbian-Ottoman War (1876–1877) , the Serbian army entered Pirot. This raised a conflict between the Serbian authorities and the local Bulgarian citizens led by Evstatiy of Pelagonia  [ bg ] ,

5520-663: The Serbians concentrated two divisions for an attack on the Bulgarian left near Karnul (today Delyan, Sofia Province ) in an attempt to join up with the Morava division. However, three battalions of Bulgarian troops led by Captain Popov from Sofia had held the Morava division in the Visker Hills and the flanking move failed. Alexander now ordered a counterattack which pushed the Serbians back on both flanks although nightfall prevented

5640-533: The Serbs but had artillery that was greatly superior by featuring modern steel, Krupp -designed breech-loading cannons. There were two views on the Bulgarian strategy: the first, supported by Prince Alexander of Battenberg , saw the general battle on the Ihtiman heights. The drawback of this plan was that in that case, the capital Sofia had to be surrendered without battle. This could very well cause Serbia to stop

5760-574: The Viennese ambassador to Belgrade , Count Rudolf of Khevenhüller-Metsch , visited the headquarters of the Bulgarian Army and demanded the cessation of military actions, threatening that otherwise the Bulgarian forces would face Austro-Hungarian troops. The ceasefire was signed on 28 November, but that did not stop the Serbians from continuing unsuccessful attempts to conquer Vidin with the idea to use it in negotiations later, even after military activities had stopped on demand of their ally. On 3 March 1886

5880-833: The Visočica; and four lakes, the Zavoj Lake, Berovacko Lake, Krupac Lake and Sukovo Lake. It also has a rich culture, with notable Orthodox church buildings, including the Church of St. Petka , and the monastery of St. Georges and St. John the Theologian from the late 14th century, both of which display an example of medieval architecture. Pirot is known for its traditional woven carpet, the Pirot carpet ( Pirot ćilim ). The municipality of Pirot covers an area of 1,235 km (476.84 sq mi), with over seventy settlements, including

6000-404: The act of Unification of Bulgaria which happened on 18 September [ O.S. 6 September] 1885. On 18 September [ O.S. 6 September] 1885, Bulgaria and the semi-autonomous Ottoman province of Eastern Rumelia declared their unification in the city of Plovdiv . Eastern Rumelia, whose population was predominantly ethnic Bulgarian, had been an artificial creation of

6120-538: The archaeological investigations, the town back then, surrounded by forts and fortified walls, also included an early Christian basilica, thermae (public baths), a necropolis , and other facilities. Beside the military fortress, a civil settlement ( vicus ) existed on the site called Majilka . By the late 6th century and early 7th century, successive barbarian invasions had broken through the Byzantine Danube frontier, and Slavs settled in large numbers across

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6240-500: The army by telling the Serbian soldiers that they were being sent to help the Bulgarians in their war against the Ottomans, and the Serbian soldiers were initially surprised to find that they were fighting Bulgarians instead. Presumably, lying to his army was King Milan's only means to mobilize and command his troops without experiencing disobedience and unrest. Furthermore, the Bulgarians had small arms that were inferior to those of

6360-491: The army were carried out (which later, in part, contributed to the end of the Obrenović dynasty ). King Milan's poor judgment and leadership are generally considered as the main reasons behind Serbia's defeat in the conflict. Milan believed the conflict would entail "taking a walk to Sofia" and thus mustered only one-third of the Serbian army's manpower, as he was in constant fear of possible plots against him and wished to keep

6480-418: The better small arms and the highly educated commanders and soldiers, who had gained a great deal of experience from the last two wars against the Ottoman Empire. However, internal Serbian problems supplemented by King Milan's conduct of the war, nullified most of these advantages: In order to claim all the glory for the victory he considered imminent, King Milan did not call upon the most famous commanders of

6600-499: The bishop of the Bulgarian Exarchate 's Nishava eparchy. Pirot and its region were part of liberated Bulgaria according to Treaty of San Stefano . The Treaty of Berlin (1878) saw Pirot and Vranje ceded to Serbia. A part of the local Bulgarians left the town and settled in Bulgaria . The 1879 Serbian regional population census registered that Pirot had a population of 76,892 people, and 11,005 households. It

6720-539: The border towards Pirot (in Ottoman hands). After the Serbian Revolution , some of the population in the area migrated to avoid Ottoman retribution. It was estimated in 1836 that there were 6–8,000 inhabitants. Carpetry was the main occupation, there were many shops and cafés in the centre, the population was mixed, and it was the domain of the sister of the Sultan. On 24 May 1836 a rebellion broke out in

6840-486: The city of Pirot . Austria-Hungary then stepped in and threatened to join the war on Serbia's side if the Bulgarian troops did not pull back. No territorial changes were made to either country, but the unification was recognised by the great powers. However, the relationship of trust and friendship between Serbia and Bulgaria, which had been built during their long common fight against Ottoman rule, suffered irreparable damage. The Serbian army's infantry weaponry stood up to

6960-510: The city of Pirot. According to the 2002 census report, in the municipality of Pirot lived 63791 residents. Around 45,000 people live in the city itself and about 22,000 people live in the villages around the city. The river Nišava divides the Pirot into two districts: Tijabara and Pazar. Pirot has several mountains in the vicinity, including Stara Planina , Vlaška planina , Belava , and Suva Planina . The following rivers flow through Pirot:

7080-420: The city territory covers over 70 settlements: According to the 2011 census results, the city of Pirot has a population of 57,928 inhabitants. The ethnic composition of the municipality: Notable brands of Pirot include the Pirot carpet , Pirot opanak , Pirot cheese , and ironed sausage . On the territory of the city of Pirot operates tire manufacturer Tigar Tyres which is one of top Serbian exporters in

7200-412: The completion of the action of the verb and form past perfective (aorist) forms; imperfective ones are neutral with regard to it and form past imperfective forms. Most Bulgarian verbs can be grouped in perfective-imperfective pairs (imperfective/perfective: идвам/дойда "come", пристигам/пристигна "arrive"). Perfective verbs can be usually formed from imperfective ones by suffixation or prefixation, but

7320-546: The conflict as Milan's "cabinet war". Politician Milan Piroćanac believed that Milan did not start the war for patriotic reasons, but that he instead wished to secure funds from abroad in order to repay his numerous debts to the Austro-Hungarians. A number of Serb officers and civil servants were against the war, describing the Bulgarians as the Serbs' "neighbours" and "Orthodox brothers". The academic Milan Đ. Milićević recounted that many Belgraders protested against

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7440-530: The country, and recorded the place of Atrubi at the site of old Turres, describing it as situated by a small river which arrives from the Serbian mountains and was a tributary of the Morava. In 1182–83 the Serbian army led by Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja conquered Byzantine territories from Niš to Sofia. The Serbians were expelled by the Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelus in 1190. Pirot and Bela Palanka (Remesiana) were not mentioned as they were in ruin since

7560-566: The cursed Turkish rule in their city would end, and even less, because they always felt that they are Bulgarians, that they would belong to the Principality of Serbia". . During the Exodus of Muslims from Serbia in 1862 , some Turkish families moved from Belgrade to Pirot. In 1877. The urban population of Pirot consisted of 29,741 Christian and 5,772 Muslim males, with total number of 3,000 Serbian houses and 400 Muslim houses. However, after

7680-430: The eastern dialects prevailed, and in 1899 the Bulgarian Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography. Bulgarian is the official language of Bulgaria , where it is used in all spheres of public life. As of 2011, it is spoken as a first language by about 6   million people in the country, or about four out of every five Bulgarian citizens. There

7800-418: The efforts of the Bulgarian princes for the restoration of the Bulgarian state was imposed by the Ottoman ruler Sulejman, who conquered the Bulgarian fortress of Temsko, near today's village of Temska , to the north of Pirot. Its Turkish name, Şehirköy (meaning "city, town village" ), is first mentioned in 1443. It was organized into the Sanjak of Niš . In 1469, the body of Serbian king Stefan Milutin

7920-439: The elimination of case declension , the development of a suffixed definite article , and the lack of a verb infinitive . They retain and have further developed the Proto-Slavic verb system (albeit analytically). One such major development is the innovation of evidential verb forms to encode for the source of information: witnessed, inferred, or reported. It is the official language of Bulgaria , and since 2007 has been among

8040-435: The empire. Besides, travellers could sleep here overnight, as well as get refreshments and new horses or vehicles. In time, the settlement advanced because of the important road passing through. It was also disturbed very persistently by invasions of the Gothic tribes throughout the 4th century, as well as the Huns in the 5th century. According to the written accounts On Buildings by Procopius of Caesarea , writing during

8160-425: The end of the 4th century the basin of the Nišava was organized into the province of Dacia Mediterranea . The Roman settlement of Turres (Latin for "towers"), which was a military residence, is mentioned in the first half of the 3rd century. Later, the Byzantine town of Quimedava is mentioned here, with remains that have survived. The town was set to enable control and defence of the main road in this part of

8280-487: The group of the verb or the verbal group. Nouns and adjectives have the categories grammatical gender , number , case (only vocative ) and definiteness in Bulgarian. Adjectives and adjectival pronouns agree with nouns in number and gender. Pronouns have gender and number and retain (as in nearly all Indo-European languages ) a more significant part of the case system. There are three grammatical genders in Bulgarian: masculine , feminine and neuter . The gender of

8400-408: The heights on the right and forced the Danube division back to the road. At daybreak on 18 November the Serbians attacked the weaker left flank of the Bulgarian line. Just in time two battalions of the Preslav Regiment arrived to shore up the position. Further attacks in the centre were repulsed with heavy Serbian casualties and Benderev captured two further positions in the mountains. On 19 November

8520-415: The heights west of the town. On 27 November the Bulgarian Army flanked the right of the Serbian position with Prince Alexander personally leading the final attack. The Serbians abandoned Pirot, retreated towards Niš and called a general mobilization of their military reservists, but they did not arrive at the front before the cease-fire. The Serbian defeat made Austria-Hungary take action. On 28 November,

8640-489: The historical yat vowel or at least root vowels displaying the ya – e alternation. The letter was used in each occurrence of such a root, regardless of the actual pronunciation of the vowel: thus, both ml ya ko and ml e kar were spelled with (Ѣ). Among other things, this was seen as a way to "reconcile" the Western and the Eastern dialects and maintain language unity at a time when much of Bulgaria's Western dialect area

8760-725: The language), and presumably a significant proportion of the 13,200 ethnic Bulgarians residing in neighbouring Transnistria in 2016. Another community abroad are the Banat Bulgarians , who migrated in the 17th century to the Banat region now split between Romania, Serbia and Hungary. They speak the Banat Bulgarian dialect , which has had its own written standard and a historically important literary tradition. There are Bulgarian speakers in neighbouring countries as well. The regional dialects of Bulgarian and Macedonian form

8880-576: The language, but its pronunciation is in many respects a compromise between East and West Bulgarian (see especially the phonetic sections below). Following the efforts of some figures of the National awakening of Bulgaria (most notably Neofit Rilski and Ivan Bogorov ), there had been many attempts to codify a standard Bulgarian language; however, there was much argument surrounding the choice of norms. Between 1835 and 1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and "linguistic chaos" ensued. Eventually

9000-409: The latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот (turnover, rev), непонятен (incomprehensible), ядро (nucleus) and others. Many other loans from French, English and the classical languages have subsequently entered the language as well. Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of

9120-481: The literary norm regarding the yat vowel, many people living in Western Bulgaria, including the capital Sofia , will fail to observe its rules. While the norm requires the realizations vidyal vs. videli (he has seen; they have seen), some natives of Western Bulgaria will preserve their local dialect pronunciation with "e" for all instances of "yat" (e.g. videl , videli ). Others, attempting to adhere to

9240-475: The low vowels / ɛ / , / ɔ / and / a / in unstressed position, sometimes leading to neutralisation between / ɛ / and / i / , / ɔ / and / u / , and / a / and / ɤ / . Both patterns have partial parallels in Russian, leading to partially similar sounds. In turn, the Western dialects generally do not have any allophonic palatalization and exhibit minor, if any, vowel reduction. Standard Bulgarian keeps

9360-464: The main road on a ridge in front of Slivnitsa city. To the right was steep mountainous terrain whilst the left wing had the easier Visker Hills towards Breznik . The three Serbian centre divisions also arrived on 16 November and halted to recover after the fierce Bulgarian delaying action in the Dragoman Pass. The Morava division was at some distance from its objective, Breznik, which lay to

9480-399: The masculine ones usually have –и for polysyllables and –ове for monosyllables (however, exceptions are especially common in this group). Nouns ending in –о/–е (most of which are neuter) mostly use the suffixes –а, –я (both of which require the dropping of the singular endings) and –та . With cardinal numbers and related words such as няколко ('several'), masculine nouns use

9600-487: The military operation was about 60,000. King Milan I divided his force into two armies, the Nishava and Timok armies. The first undertook the main objective, i.e., to overcome the Bulgarian defences along the west border, to conquer Sofia and advance towards the Ihtiman heights. It was there that the army was supposed to encounter and crush the Bulgarian forces coming from the southeast. Serbia's main advantages on paper were

9720-535: The monastery and terrorized the surrounding population, as inscribed by a priest on the church walls. That year, many locals fled northwards with Patriarch Arsenije III . During the Austro-Turkish War (1737–39) the Austrian army took Pirot on 23 July 1737. In 1739, upon Ottoman return, the town was burnt down and its churches destroyed (one transformed into a mosque). 140 houses were burnt down which

9840-519: The most modern standards of the time ( Mauser-Milovanović single fire rifles with excellent ballistic characteristics). However, the artillery was ill-equipped, still using muzzle-loading cannons of the La Hitte system . Breech-loading cannons of the De Bange system had been ordered and paid for, but did not arrive in Serbia until 1886. The total number of Serbian armed forces expected to take part in

9960-477: The most significant exception from the above are the relatively numerous nouns that end in a consonant and yet are feminine: these comprise, firstly, a large group of nouns with zero ending expressing quality, degree or an abstraction, including all nouns ending on –ост/–ест -{ost/est} ( мъдрост /ˈmɤdrost/ 'wisdom', низост /ˈnizost/ 'vileness', прелест /ˈprɛlɛst/ 'loveliness', болест /ˈbɔlɛst/ 'sickness', любов /ljuˈbɔf/ 'love'), and secondly,

10080-572: The newspaper Makedoniya : "Such an artificial assembly of written language is something impossible, unattainable and never heard of." After 1944 the People's Republic of Bulgaria and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia began a policy of making Macedonia into the connecting link for the establishment of a new Balkan Federative Republic and stimulating here a development of distinct Macedonian consciousness. With

10200-447: The norm, will actually use the "ya" sound even in cases where the standard language has "e" (e.g. vidyal , vidyali ). The latter hypercorrection is called свръхякане ( svrah-yakane ≈"over- ya -ing"). Bulgarian is the only Slavic language whose literary standard does not naturally contain the iotated e /jɛ/ (or its variant, e after a palatalized consonant /ʲɛ/ , except in non-Slavic foreign-loaned words). This sound combination

10320-659: The noun can largely be inferred from its ending: nouns ending in a consonant ("zero ending") are generally masculine (for example, град /ɡrat/ 'city', син /sin/ 'son', мъж /mɤʃ/ 'man'; those ending in –а/–я (-a/-ya) ( жена /ʒɛˈna/ 'woman', дъщеря /dɐʃtɛrˈja/ 'daughter', улица /ˈulitsɐ/ 'street') are normally feminine; and nouns ending in –е, –о are almost always neuter ( дете /dɛˈtɛ/ 'child', езеро /ˈɛzɛro/ 'lake'), as are those rare words (usually loanwords) that end in –и, –у, and –ю ( цунами /tsuˈnami/ ' tsunami ', табу /tɐˈbu/ 'taboo', меню /mɛˈnju/ 'menu'). Perhaps

10440-994: The noun they are appended to. They may also take the definite article as explained above. Pronouns may vary in gender, number, and definiteness, and are the only parts of speech that have retained case inflections. Three cases are exhibited by some groups of pronouns – nominative, accusative and dative. The distinguishable types of pronouns include the following: personal, relative, reflexive, interrogative, negative, indefinitive, summative and possessive. A Bulgarian verb has many distinct forms, as it varies in person, number, voice, aspect, mood, tense and in some cases gender. Finite verbal forms are simple or compound and agree with subjects in person (first, second and third) and number (singular, plural). In addition to that, past compound forms using participles vary in gender (masculine, feminine, neuter) and voice (active and passive) as well as aspect (perfective/aorist and imperfective). Bulgarian verbs express lexical aspect : perfective verbs signify

10560-473: The official languages of the European Union . It is also spoken by the Bulgarian historical communities in North Macedonia , Ukraine , Moldova , Serbia , Romania , Hungary , Albania and Greece . One can divide the development of the Bulgarian language into several periods. Bulgarian was the first Slavic language attested in writing. As Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity,

10680-470: The oldest manuscripts initially referred to this language as ѧзꙑкъ словѣньскъ, "the Slavic language". In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was gradually replaced by the name ѧзꙑкъ блъгарьскъ, the "Bulgarian language". In some cases, this name was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. A most notable example of anachronism

10800-429: The past pluperfect subjunctive. Perfect constructions use a single auxiliary "be". The traditional interpretation is that in addition to the four moods (наклонения /nəkloˈnɛnijɐ/ ) shared by most other European languages – indicative (изявително, /izʲəˈvitɛɫno/ ) imperative (повелително /poveˈlitelno/ ), subjunctive ( подчинително /pottʃiˈnitɛɫno/ ) and conditional (условно, /oˈsɫɔvno/ ) – in Bulgarian there

10920-610: The peace treaty was signed in Bucharest . According to its terms, no changes were to be made along the Bulgarian-Serbian border. The war was an important step in the strengthening of Bulgaria's international position. To a large extent, the victory preserved the Bulgarian unification . The defeat left a lasting scar on the Serbian military, previously considered by the Serbian people to be undefeated. Ambitious reforms of

11040-604: The pockets of speakers of the related regional dialects in Albania and in Greece variously identify their language as Macedonian or as Bulgarian. In Serbia , there were 13,300 speakers as of 2011, mainly concentrated in the so-called Western Outlands along the border with Bulgaria. Bulgarian is also spoken in Turkey: natively by Pomaks , and as a second language by many Bulgarian Turks who emigrated from Bulgaria, mostly during

11160-460: The previous wars (Gen. Jovan Belimarković , Gen. Đura Horvatović and Gen. Milojko Lešjanin ) to command the army. Instead, he took the position of army commander himself and gave most of the divisional commands to officers chosen primarily for their loyalty and not war records like Petar Topalović of the Morava division who had previously commanded the troops suppressing the militarily poorly organized Timok Rebellion. Furthermore, underestimating

11280-704: The proclamation of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia as part of the Yugoslav federation, the new authorities also started measures that would overcome the pro-Bulgarian feeling among parts of its population and in 1945 a separate Macedonian language was codified. After 1958, when the pressure from Moscow decreased, Sofia reverted to the view that the Macedonian language did not exist as a separate language. Nowadays, Bulgarian and Greek linguists, as well as some linguists from other countries, still consider

11400-477: The proposal. Lured by Austria-Hungary's promises of support and territorial gains from Bulgaria (in return for concessions in the Western Balkans), Milan I declared war on Bulgaria on 14 November [ O.S. 2 November] 1885. The military strategy relied largely on surprise, as Bulgaria expected an attack from the Ottoman Empire and had moved its troops to the area near the Ottoman border, to

11520-460: The rebellions in the 940s. Since the end of the 12th century the region of Pirot was part of the restored Bulgarian state . The region was for some time in the domains of Bulgarian noble sevastokrator Kaloyan . In 1331-1332 Church of St. Petka in Staničenje was built - at the time of Bulgarian Emperor Joan Asen (Ivan Alexander) and Vidin master Belaur . Some authors suggest that during

11640-531: The reign of the emperor Justinian I (527 – 565), the emperor ordered the reconstruction of thirty fortresses in the area from Niš to Sofia , including the towers of Pirot. He also gave the detailed description of those construction works. In times when the Slavs and Avars were invading the Balkans, the settlement was named Quimedava, and was situated on the southern slope of the Sarlah Hill. Corresponding to

11760-471: The rest of the military within Serbia's borders. Milan decided to declare war on his own personal whim and based on his own interpretation of the terms of the Congress of Berlin. Prominent Serbian statesman and politician Stojan Novaković and other Serbian political leaders did not share the king's enthusiasm for the war. Novaković advocated reaching a peaceful settlement with the Bulgarians and believed that

11880-466: The resultant verb often deviates in meaning from the original. In the pair examples above, aspect is stem-specific and therefore there is no difference in meaning. In Bulgarian, there is also grammatical aspect . Three grammatical aspects are distinguishable: neutral, perfect and pluperfect. The neutral aspect comprises the three simple tenses and the future tense. The pluperfect is manifest in tenses that use double or triple auxiliary "be" participles like

12000-525: The singular ones, but may also provide some clues to it: the ending –и (-i) is more likely to be used with a masculine or feminine noun ( факти /ˈfakti/ 'facts', болести /ˈbɔlɛsti/ 'sicknesses'), while one in –а/–я belongs more often to a neuter noun ( езера /ɛzɛˈra/ 'lakes'). Also, the plural ending –ове /ovɛ/ occurs only in masculine nouns. Two numbers are distinguished in Bulgarian– singular and plural . A variety of plural suffixes

12120-661: The south. The northern advance was bogged down along the Danube . The morning of 17 November came with rain and mist but not the expected Serbian attack. By 10 in the morning, Alexander ordered three battalions to advance on the right. They surprised the Danube division, who eventually rallied and pushed them back. The main Serbian attack began on the centre largely unsupported by artillery which had insufficient range. The weight of Bulgarian fire forced them back with some 1,200 casualties. A relief column led by Captain Benderev recaptured

12240-496: The southeast. The Serbian pretext was a minor border dispute, known as the Bregovo Dispute. The Timok river, which formed part of the border between the two countries, had slightly changed its course over the years. As a result, a Serbian border guardhouse near the village of Bregovo had found itself on the Bulgarian bank of the river. After some denied requests from Bulgaria to evacuate the guardhouse, Bulgaria expelled

12360-428: The standard Bulgarian language, however, did not wish to make any allowances for a pluricentric "Bulgaro-Macedonian" compromise. In 1870 Marin Drinov , who played a decisive role in the standardization of the Bulgarian language, rejected the proposal of Parteniy Zografski and Kuzman Shapkarev for a mixed eastern and western Bulgarian/Macedonian foundation of the standard Bulgarian language, stating in his article in

12480-519: The town and described it as " Schiarchici , a town called by the Orthodox as Pirot, but is not surrounded by walls and inhabited by Turks and Rascians " (Rasciani according to the author were even the citizens of Sofia , Ihtiman etc.). In 1664, Austrian deputy Leslie and English nobleman John Burberry visited the town, the latter noting that there were three churches, one of which was earlier Dominican . In 1688 Ottoman renegade Yegen Pasha resided in

12600-555: The town, which was suppressed by early June, and then another one broke out in August, also unsuccessful. The rebels corresponded with Prince Miloš Obrenović. The Niš Uprising (1841) , which included the Pirot area, was also suppressed by the Ottomans. In 1846–1864 Pirot was administratively part of the Niš Eyalet . During this period, in 1863, first branch of Ziraat Bank , largest bank of modern Turkey specializing in agricultural banking,

12720-558: The town. During the Great Turkish War , after taking Niš on 25 September 1689, Austrian general Piccolomini with his army of Serb volunteers and some Germans chased Turks towards Sofia. Arriving at Pirot, the town was empty of Turks, and he reported that the town was in flames and some parts in ash. In August 1690 a large Ottoman army took Pirot, defended only by 100 Germans, and then besieged Niš, taking it after three weeks. Hungarian detachments retreating via Temska ravaged

12840-484: The various Macedonian dialects as part of the broader Bulgarian pluricentric dialectal continuum . Outside Bulgaria and Greece, Macedonian is generally considered an autonomous language within the South Slavic dialect continuum. Sociolinguists agree that the question whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis, because dialect continua do not allow for either/or judgements. In 886 AD,

12960-535: The verb class. The possible existence of a few other moods has been discussed in the literature. Most Bulgarian school grammars teach the traditional view of 4 Bulgarian moods (as described above, but excluding the subjunctive and including the inferential). There are three grammatically distinctive positions in time – present, past and future – which combine with aspect and mood to produce a number of formations. Normally, in grammar books these formations are viewed as separate tenses – i. e. "past imperfect" would mean that

13080-440: The verb is in past tense, in the imperfective aspect, and in the indicative mood (since no other mood is shown). There are more than 40 different tenses across Bulgarian's two aspects and five moods. Pirot The city has rich geographical features, including the mountains of Stara Planina , Vlaška Planina , Belava , Suva Planina ; rivers which flow through the town, including Nišava , Jerma , Rasnička Reka, Temštica and

13200-677: The war and call in the arbitrage of the Great Powers. For this reason, the strategic plan that was finally selected by the Bulgarian command expected the main clash to be in the area of Slivnitsa . Captain Olimpi Panov had an important role in this final decision. Prince Alexander I arrived on the evening of 16 November to find a well prepared defensive position manned by 9 battalions, plus some 2000 volunteers and 32 guns, commanded by Major Guchev. The position consisted of nearly 4 km of trenches and artillery redoubts on either side of

13320-429: The war and commented that Serbs and Bulgarians "are almost the same people". Milan's consort Natalie was also opposed to the war. On the other hand, part of the Serbian military establishment fully supported the war effort, citing Bulgarian atrocities against Serb civilians, including murder, theft and rape, in southern Serbia and what the Serbian leadership called Old Serbia , which was still under Ottoman control. After

13440-550: The war, Milan turned his attention to modern-day North Macedonia , where Serbian and Bulgarian interests were conflicted. The Serbian army and political elite drew numerous lessons from the war, and proceeded to modernise and adapt the military and its tactics to the demands of modern warfare. Bulgarian language Rup Moesian Bulgarian ( / b ʌ l ˈ ɡ ɛər i ə n / , / b ʊ l ˈ -/ bu(u)l- GAIR -ee-ən ; български език , bŭlgarski ezik , pronounced [ˈbɤɫɡɐrski] )

13560-461: The yat alternation in almost all Eastern dialects that have it (except a few dialects along the yat border, e.g. in the Pleven region). More examples of the yat umlaut in the literary language are: Until 1945, Bulgarian orthography did not reveal this alternation and used the original Old Slavic Cyrillic letter yat (Ѣ), which was commonly called двойно е ( dvoyno e ) at the time, to express

13680-430: Was controlled by Serbia and Greece , but there were still hopes and occasional attempts to recover it. With the 1945 orthographic reform, this letter was abolished and the present spelling was introduced, reflecting the alternation in pronunciation. This had implications for some grammatical constructions: Sometimes, with the changes, words began to be spelled as other words with different meanings, e.g.: In spite of

13800-471: Was forced to meet the Serbian threat with two serious disadvantages. When the unification had been declared, Russia had withdrawn its military officers, who had until that moment commanded all larger units of Bulgaria's young army. The remaining Bulgarian officers had lower ranks and no experience in commanding units larger than platoons (causing the conflict to be dubbed "The War of the Captains"). Also, since

13920-626: Was opened in Pirot. With the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870 Pirot was the part of the Nishava eparchy  [ bg ] . Jérôme-Adolphe Blanqui , traveling across Bulgaria in 1841, describes the population of the Sanjak of Niš as Bulgarians. In the 19th century Johann Georg von Hahn stated that the Christian population of Pirot is Bulgarian. Philipp Kanitz claimed that some inhabitants "Did not imagine that six years later

14040-541: Was part of the Morava Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia . During World War II Bulgaria occupied the so-called Western Outlands , as well as Pirot and Vranje . After the Second World War , these regions were returned to Yugoslavia. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia , these areas remained within the Serbian state. Pirot was granted city status in February 2016. Aside from the city of Pirot itself,

14160-743: Was temporarily occupied by the Bulgarian army after the Serbo-Bulgarian War , between 15 November and 15 December 1885 [O.S.]. During World War I , the Bulgarian army entered Pirot on 14 October 1915 and occupied the city as well as the whole Pomoravlje region. In the Interwar period , the Internal Western Outland Revolutionary Organization engaged in repeated attacks against the Yugoslav police and army . From 1929 to 1941, Pirot

14280-642: Was the seat of the Metropolitan of Nišava. In 1806, during the First Serbian Uprising (1804–13), Hajduk-Veljko attacked Bela Palanka . Ibrahim Pasha , unable to enter Serbia cross Aleksinac and Deligrad , planned to attack from Pirot and Lom with the intent to clash with the Serbian army before Niš; the Serbian army went to stop this and defeated him in the mountains between Pirot, Knjaževac and Chiprovtsi . Rebel leaders from Pirot included Mita and Marinko, who were tasked to defend

14400-471: Was transferred via Pirot. In 1561, hieromonk Isaija from Pirot visited Hilandar where he contributed a book. Hilandar had dependencies in Pirot up until the 19th century. Travel writer Stephen Gerlach (fl. 1578) recorded that Pirot Christians claimed that the town was the earlier estate of Miloš Obilić , the slayer of Sultan Murad at Kosovo. He also noted that Pirot was a significant place in Bulgaria . In 1659, Austrian deputy August von Mayern visited

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