Kosovo in 1389. Meanwhile the Turks occupied Nikopolis on the Danube in
1388 and destroyed the Bulgarian capital Tirnovo in 1393, exiling the
Patriarch Euthymus to Macedonia. Thus the state of Bulgaria passed into
the hands of the Turks, and its church into those of the Greeks. Many
Bulgars adopted Islam, and their descendants are the Pomaks or Bulgarian
Mohammedans of the present day. With the subjection of Rumania in 1394 and
the defeat of an improvised anti-Turkish crusade from western Europe under
Sigismund, King of Hungary, at Nikopolis in 1396 the Turkish conquest was
complete, though the battle of Varna was not fought till 1444, nor
Constantinople entered till 1453.



10

_The Turkish Dominion and the Emancipation,_ 1393-1878


From 1393 until 1877 Bulgaria may truthfully be said to have had no
history, but nevertheless it could scarcely have been called happy.
National life was completely paralysed, and what stood in those days for
national consciousness was obliterated. It is common knowledge, and most
people are now reasonable enough to admit, that the Turks have many
excellent qualities, religious fervour and military ardour amongst others;
it is also undeniable that from an aesthetic point of view too much cannot
be said in praise of Mohammedan civilization. Who does not prefer the
minarets of Stambul and Edirne[1] to the architecture of Budapest,
notoriously the ideal of Christian south-eastern Europe? On the other
hand, it cannot be contended that the Pax Ottomana brought prosperity or
happiness to those on whom it was imposed (unless indeed they submerged