History
Koprivshtitsa was first settled at the end of the 14th century by Bulgarians of various social stations fleeing the Turkish invasion of Veliko Târnovo. Sheep, cattle and goat herding developed the local economy, and a wealthy merchant class arose. Sacked by brigands in 1793, 1804 and 1809, Koprivshtitsa was rebuilt during the mid-19th century. The population subsequently reached about 12, 000 – thus becoming almost as big as Sofia was at the time.
Koprivshtitsa is most famous in Bulgarian history, however, as the place where Todor Kableshkov (or Georgi Tihanek, according to some sources) proclaimed the national uprising against the Turks on 20 April 1876, from the tiny bridge now known as the Kalachev Bridge (also called Kableshkov Bridge), itself dating from 1813. This noble, if somewhat foolhardy, event has lent its name to the village’s main square, dominated by the 1876 April Uprising Mausoleum.
After 1878 and independence from the Turks, many of Koprivshtitsa’s merchants and intellectuals left their mountain redoubts for the cities, leaving the village essentially unchanged to this day. In 1952, the communist Bulgarian government declared the village a town-museum, and later, in 1971, a ‘historical reserve’.
Koprivshtitsa
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