Vidin Vidin Tokugawa Iemitsu Category="Towns in Bulgaria"Vidin is a town on the south bank of the river Danube, in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia & Montenegro, and Romania, and is also the main town of the Vidin municipality and county. The city has a population of 54,000, over 90% of whom declare themselves Bulgarian. The remaining small percentage comprises Gypsies, Turks, Vlasi (Romanians), and a Macedonian and Serbian diaspora.

Historical Notes

In 1356, the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Alexander isolated Vidin from the Bulgarian monarchy and appointed his son Ivan Sratsimir (1356-1396) as absolute ruler of Vidin's new city state. In 1365 the Despotate of Vidin was occupied by the Hungarian crusaders. Under Hungarian rule, the city became known as Bodony, but the occupation was short lived. Just four years later, a united Slavic Bulgarian empire drove out the Hungarian military but in 1393, the independent Bulgarian state, along with the rest of the surrounding region, fell to the Ottomans. This brought an end to Bulgaria's medieval state empire. Vidin was now the only region controlled by the indigenous Slavic population and not the invading Ottomans.

The Ottomans went on to conquer the despotates of Dobrudja, Prilep and Velbazhd as well. Vidin's independence did not last long. In 1396, Stratsimir contributed soldiers to help the Slavic nations of the vicinity to overturn the Ottoman Empire. Following defeat at the hands of the Ottomans outside the city of Nikopolis, Vidin finally fell under the sphere of the Ottomans, led by Bayezid I, as a punishment for their role in the hostilities.