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Svilengrad (; ; ) is a town in Haskovo Province, south-central Bulgaria, situated at the tripoint of Bulgaria, Turkey, and Greece. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Svilengrad Municipality.
The favorable natural conditions in the Svilengrad region and its strategic geographical location are the reason why it has been inhabited since ancient times. According to Anastas Razboynikov, the oldest traces of human life date back to the end of the Neolithic and Stone Age. During the Bronze Age and the lands around today's Svilengrad were inhabited by the Thracians tribe Odrysians. Traces of settlements, tombs, sanctuaries, dolmens and others have remained from the time of the Thracians. In the old neighborhood of Kanaklia there was a place Mogilata, named after a large mound, in the vicinity of which were found the remains of chariots. Anastas Razboynikov's observations were confirmed in 2003-2004 during the rescue excavations along the route of the Trakia Motorway on the hill above the Kanaklia neighborhood, where a pit sanctuary from the Iron Age was discovered.
This region is associated with one of the greatest battles in medieval Bulgarian history. In 1205, Kaloyan's troops inflicted the first major defeat on the hitherto invincible army of the Latin Empire, led by Emperor Baldwin. It is believed that the site of the battle was north of Adrianople, at the foot of Bukelon Fortress.
In 1371, on the opposite right bank of the Maritsa near Ormenio, the Battle of Chernomen took place between the troops of Sultan Murad I and the Christian forces under the command of King Vukašin and Despot Uglješa, which ended in catastrophic defeat for the Christians and subsequent Ottoman Empire occupation.
In 1433, the Burgundians pilgrim Bertrand de la Broquierre passed through here, then the first armor bearer of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who traveled to the Holy Sepulcher and back to explore the possibilities of a new crusade. Brokier describes how on the first day of the journey from Edirne up the Maritsa River he and his comrades, numbering 10 horses, were transported in such a raft on March 12, 1433. Among the passengers was the Milan ambassador to the Turkish sultan in Adrianople.
In 1529 a bridge was built on the Maritsa River, representing a significant facility for its time. The bridge now connects the two parts of Svilengrad. A new settlement appeared around the bridge - Jesir Mustafa Pasha, which became a town in the second half of the 16th century.
On the way to Constantinople, famous Bulgarian revolutionaries, educators and revivalists - Georgi Rakovski, Petko Slaveykov, Hristo G. Danov, Dragan Tsankov, Konstantin Velichkov - passed and stayed here. Vasil Levski also came to the city. Here, in 1871, he founded a secret revolutionary committee. On January 8, 1878, Russian troops, commanded by General Alexander Strukov, entered Svilengrad following the retreat of the Turks. A year later, after the Berlin Treaty, the city was left under Turkish rule.
34 years later, during the First Balkan War, Svilengrad was occupied by Bulgarian forces on 5 October 1912, after the Bulgarian army captured Sheinovets peak in the Rhodopes ending over five centuries of Turkish rule. During the Balkan Wars, the first military airport near Svilengrad was equipped.
During the Second Balkan War, in the summer of 1913, the city was ruined and burned house by house when the Ottomans entered the war against Bulgaria. The city was finally returned to Bulgaria at the end of September 1913, after the Treaty of Constantinople. Its returned inhabitants revived the city from the ashes and rebuilt it.
During World War II, in 1940, one of the escape routes of Polish people from occupied Poland led through Svilengrad to the territory of Polish-allied France, where the Polish Army was reconstituted to continue the fight against Germany (see also Bulgaria–Poland relations).
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