History
The area around the modern town has been inhabited since the Neolithic. Part of Justinian I's defensive system in the 6th century, the region gained importance as part of the First Bulgarian Empire due to the proximity to the capitals Pliska and Preslav and the passes of Stara Planina.
The first written evidence of the modern town date from the 17th century, when it was mentioned as the kaza centre Osman Pazarı in Ottoman tax registers. The settlement was a centre of craftsmanship and trade. Osman Pazarı was liberated from Ottoman rule on 27 January 1878 by Russian troops under Johann Casimir Ehrnrooth during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Most of the Turkish inhabitants of the town left to be replaced by Bulgarians from around Tran and Kyustendil. Omurtag acquired its present name in 1934, named after Bulgarian khan Omurtag.
Read more about this topic: Omurtag (town)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)