Topolovgrad ( , ; ) is a town in south-central

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

, part of Haskovo Province, situated at the northern foot of the Sakar Mountain. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Topolovgrad Municipality.

Etymology

Until 1934 the town was known as Kavakli, a name deriving from the Turkish word ''kavak'', "poplar", under this name it was also known by its Greek inhabitants.

History

Topolovgrad and the surrounding area have been inhabited since ancient times, as evidenced by the

dolmen A dolmen, () or portal tomb, is a type of single-chamber Megalith#Tombs, megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the Late Neolithic period (4000 ...

s found at Hlyabovo and the Paleokastro fortress that may have been built by the

Thracians The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European languages, Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared betwee ...

. Until the early 20th century, the town was predominantly inhabited by Greeks (96 percent) and hosted Greek schools and churches. Although a Greek majority town, after 1906 the Bulgarian government appointed the first Bulgarian mayor.Theodora Dragostinova
Between two motherlands : nationality and emigration among the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1949; 2011
/ref> From 1906 to 1925, about 22,000

Greeks Greeks or Hellenes (; , ) are an ethnic group and nation native to Greece, Greek Cypriots, Cyprus, Greeks in Albania, southern Albania, Greeks in Turkey#History, Anatolia, parts of Greeks in Italy, Italy and Egyptian Greeks, Egypt, and to a l ...

left the town and its surroundings and settled in Greek Macedonia. They were replaced by groups of Bulgarian refugees from Western Thrace,

Eastern Thrace East Thrace or Eastern Thrace, also known as Turkish Thrace or European Turkey, is the part of Turkey that is geographically in Southeast Europe. Turkish Thrace accounts for 3.03% of Turkey's land area and 15% of its population. The largest c ...

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

and Macedonia. The Greek dialect of Topolovgrad is still spoken by some descendants in several villages of Greek Macedonia (see th
video documentation
from Koufalia village by Thede Kahl and Sotirios Rousiakis).

People

* Nako Baev - artist * Evelin Banev "Brendo" - self-made businessman, wrestler * Delko Karadelkov - chairman, Bulgarian Journalists' Union, 1976 * Krum Krumov - writer and philologist

Gallery

Image:Topolovgrad3.JPG , Holy Theotokos

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

Church Image:Topolovgrad2.jpg, Monastery Heights, close to the town Image:Topolovgrad7.JPG , Town center, Osvobozhdenie Square Image:Topolovgrad6.JPG , Town center, Bulgaria street Image:Topolovgrad8.JPG ,

Saints Cyril and Methodius Cyril (; born Constantine, 826–869) and Methodius (; born Michael, 815–885) were brothers, Byzantine Christian theologians and missionaries. For their work evangelizing the Slavs, they are known as the "Apostles to the Slavs". They are ...

community center in Topolovgrad

References

Towns in Bulgaria Populated places in Haskovo Province {{Haskovo-geo-stub