БЪЛГАРСКИЯТ ДЕСЕТИ ВЕК И УРБАНИСТИЧНИТЕ ПРОЦЕСИ ВЪВ ВЕЛИКИ ПРЕСЛАВ
THE BULGARIAN TENTH CENTURY AND URBANISTIC PROCESSES IN VELIKI PRESLAV

Summary/Abstract: The present paper makes an attempt to follow the dynamics of the main urban processes in formation of the new capital center of Veliki Preslav. The ambition of the Bulgarian ruler, tsar Simeon (893-927) was to turn Veliki Preslav into a real royal town, into a Tsar’s residence, a second Constantinopole, a political, cultural and religious center in the Balkans. As a result of the socio-cultural programme that the tsar suggested in Xth century, for a few decades the town turned into a decent capital of the Bulgarian early medieval state. There was no other town similar to Veliki Preslav in medieval Europe which was built for such a short period of time. In ІХ-Хth c. the building and construction processes expanded to a great extent in the center of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, and most probably in the rest of the country. Numerous archeological complexes were found out in the capital city, some of which were much bigger in size than the biggest constructions in the period of the Bulgarian Revival, such as Rila and Zograph monasteries. In Х c. Veliki Preslav spread over 3.5 square meters with a number of monastery complexes, stone agricultural and stock farms sweeping over hundreds of decares of building constructions. With respect to its security, the town was protected by two concentric fortification walls, further developed with court and military-administrative buildings, churches and monasteries, street system, with court-yards and squares, water-supplied and with good sewage system (the whole town was built of stone and wood… according to John Exarch) and all this was built for a few decades. The extensive building work in the last decade of IXth and the first decade of Xth century established prerequisites for the formation of the phenomenon of Golden Age of the Bulgarian state. As a result of that intensive urbanistic policy Veliki Preslav turns into one wonderful and great town, the town from the dreams and ambitions of one of the most educated Bulgarian rules of his time – Tsar Simeon the Great.

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