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Belene ( ) is a town in Pleven Province, Northern Bulgaria. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Belene Municipality. The town is situated on the right bank of the Danube river, close to the town of Svishtov.
Belene Municipality is located in the northern central part of the Danube Plain, on the northern state border of Bulgaria with Romania . The territory of the municipality is 285,046 decares (285 km²), of which 12,110 decares are the “settlements” fund. For its area it is one of the small municipalities in Bulgaria. It consists of six settlements - the municipal center of Belene and five villages - Dekov Bulgaria, Tatari village, Petokladentsi, Kulina voda and Byala voda. The number of inhabitants in the Municipality accounts to 9891.
It was the site of the Roman castrum and customs station, Dimum, from the 1st century ADRoman military castle "Dimum" http://visit.guide-bulgaria.com/a/757/roman_military_castle_dimum.htm in the Roman province of Moesia. In the time of the first Roman Emperor Augustus the fortress was the most north-eastern point of Moesia on the frontier with the Thracian kingdom. From the beginning of the 2nd to end of 3rd century a cavalry regiment was stationed there and which probably rebuilt the fort. The site has been partially excavated and more than 60 m of the walls with the western gate.
The available data determine its origin in 1086, when part of the Paulicianism population after the suppression of the Thracian uprising left the surroundings of Plovdiv and settled near the destroyed and depopulated ancient Roman fortress Dimum (Dum).
In the Middle Ages the settlement was called Dunavgrad (Tunaburgos). Traces of a Slavic settlement and an earth fortification have been found in the vicinity of Belene. There is no summary information about the settlement for the period from the 5th to the 15th century.
The village is mentioned in Ottoman archives from 1479/80, at that time it was a Paulicianism village with 49 households. Later, the Paulicians from the village converted to Catholic Church. About 18 names of the settlement are known from the history and legends. The most popular are: Dimum, Pavlikjansko Belene, Beljansko, Beleni. The Paulicians who settled in it profess one of the varieties of the Bogomilism. On the one hand, they opposed Christianity, and on the other, they did not want to accept Islam. In order to save and mitigate the Turkish atrocities from 1605 to 1620, the Paulicians were converted to the Catholic faith by the Bosnian Catholic missionary Bishop Petar Solinat. Despite its admission into the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, the population retains its language and nationality. The adoption of the Catholic faith has a beneficial effect on the development of Belene.
According to Lyubomir Miletich after the pogrom of the Chiprovtsi uprising in 1688, about 2,000 people from Belene moved to Wallachia to escape the Turkish atrocities. After a while, some of them returned, but some had already adopted the Romanian language and customs. After the Russo-Turkish War of Liberation from 1877-1878, the Turks emigrated and Bulgarians from the Gabrovo, Elena, Tryavna and Veliko Tarnovo regions settled, leaving Belene with a purely Bulgarian population.
On 7 September 1964 Belene was proclaimed a city. Here was located the biggest labour camp in Bulgaria (Belene labour camp) after the BCP gained power in 1944. It was constructed on the island of Persin (also known as Belene Island) in the Danube in Spring of 1949.
Belene is the birthplace of Blessed Bishop Eugene Bossilkov (1900–1952), a martyr for the faith and beatified on 15 March 1998 in St. Peter's Basilica by Pope John Paul II In the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Sanctuary with a piece of the relics of Monsignor Bosilkov - a place of worship for believing Christians.
Belene was proclaimed a town in 1964, Bulgarian National Statistical Institute - Belene in 1964 which is celebrated every year in the first week of September with a market and cultural events.
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