Teteven
Encyclopedia
Vit
The Vit also Vid is a river in central northern Bulgaria with a length of 18 km. It is a tributary of Danube. The source of the Vit is in Stara Planina, below Vezhen Peak at an altitude of 2,030 m, and it empties into the Danube close to Somovit...
, at the foot of Stara Planina mountain in north central Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Teteven Municipality
Teteven Municipality
Teteven Municipality is a municipality in Lovech Province, Central-North Bulgaria, located from the northern slopes of the central Stara planina mountain to the area of the Fore-Balkan...
which is a part of Lovech Province
Lovech Province
Lovech Province is one of the 28 provinces of Bulgaria, lying at the northern centre of the country. It is named after its main city - Lovech. As of December 2009, the population of the area is 151,153.-Municipalities:...
. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 10,613 inhabitants.
The town was first mentioned in a written document in 1421. It is thought that the town's name comes from the family of a certain Tetyo (Tetyov rod), who settled in the area and founded the town. Older variants of the town's name found in documents are Tetyuven and Tetyuvene.
A thriving city in the 16th and 17th century, Teteven was raided by organized Turkish brigand groups in 1801, burnt down and almost completely destroyed, with only 4 houses surviving out of a total of 3,000. The town later revived and was active in the armed struggle for Bulgarian independence in the 19th century, sheltering a revolutionary committee from Vasil Levski
Vasil Levski
Vasil Levski, born Vasil Ivanov Kunchev, , is a Bulgarian revolutionary and a national hero of Bulgaria. Dubbed the Apostle of Freedom, Levski ideologised and strategised a revolutionary movement to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman rule...
's organized rebel network
Internal Revolutionary Organisation
The Internal Revolutionary Organisation or IRO was a Bulgarian revolutionary organisation founded and built up by Bulgarian revolutionary Vasil Levski in the period between 1869 and 1871. The organisation represented a network of regional revolutionary committees which were governed by a Central...
.
Each summer a large chess tournament, one of the biggest events in Bulgaria's chess calendar, is held in Teteven.
Honour
Teteven GlacierTeteven Glacier
Teteven Glacier is a glacier on Greenwich Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica draining the north slopes of Dryanovo Heights into the Drake Passage in Haskovo Cove and Skaptopara Cove between Miletich Point and the ice-free area at Agüedo Point...
on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...
, Antarctica is named after Teteven.