The systematic research of Sofia’s as well as Bulgaria’s history of urbanism starts
in the 1970s. Previous works are a rarity or just a part of overriding topics. The
need of knowledge about the establishment and development of the urbanism
in Bulgaria provokes the first relevant publications by Petar Tashev in 1972 and
Ivan Avramov in 1987^1. The works are an attempt for a chronologic overview
and offer information about background circumstances, relevant institutions,
experts and topics. A research of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage
Preservation^2 in the 1970s is the first trial to reconstruct and to compare the
historic cadastral and regulation plans of Sofia. Studies of Grigor Doytchinov and
Hristo Ganchev in the 1980s^3 serve as starting points for a publication about the
formation of Sofia’s historic parts in 1989.^4 The topic goes into deepness after
1989, when the new political constellation allows an approach not burdened
with ideological ballast. A publication of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
offers for this approach new facts and findings too.^5 Additional researches of
Doytchinov and Ganchev complete the information pool, correct some initial
formulations and clear away inaccuracies.^6 The very soon published work of
Hristo Genchev on the pre-modern history of Sofia’s urban pattern opens a new
page to this topic and fills in a gap of knowledge.^7
The topic demands a review on the pre-modern period of Sofia’s urban shape
formation. Bulgaria falls under the rule of the Ottoman Empire in the end of the
fourteenth century, which causes a deep break in the continuous development
of the local society. The incorporation in the Ottoman system paralyzes every
creative initiative in the sense of local cultural traditions. A spiritual levelling is
carried out as a result of the physical extermination of the Bulgarian aristocracy
and of its main stream culture. The Bulgarian religious and folklore elements
are pushed aside in the rural areas for centuries.^8 The “ottomanizing” of the
urban settlements is an important instrument in the systematic process of
the Christian population’s subjection. The settlements are integrated in the