TRNOVO, or TIRNOVO  , an episcopal city and the capital of a department of Bulgaria; 124 M . E.N.E. of Sofia, on the river Yantra, and on the Sofia-Varna railway, at the junction of the branch line from Rustchuk . Pop . (1906), '2,171 . The city consists of two divisions.—the Christian quarter, situated chiefly on a high rocky plateau, and the so-called Turkish quarter, on the lower ground; but many of the Turkish inhabitants emigrated after 1878 . On the Tsarevetz Hill above the city are the remains of the ancient citadel . The Husarjaini mosque is used as a military powder and dynamite factory . In the Christian quarter there are some interesting churches of the middle ages, notably that of the Forty Martyrs, in which the Bulgarian tsars were crowned . Numerous antiquarian remains have also been discovered . There are a gymnasium and a high-class girls' school . The city possesses large dye-works, and important manufactures of copper utensils . Trnovo was the ancient capital of Bulgaria, and from 1186 until its capture by the Turks, '7th of July 1394, the residence of the Bulgarian tsars .

From the beginning of the'3th

century it was also the seat of the patriarchate of Bulgaria, until the suppression of the patriarchate in 1767 . In 1897 it was taken from Turkey by the Russians, and in 1879 Prince Alexander of Battenberg was here elected prince of Bulgaria . On the 5th of October 1908 the independence of Bulgaria was proclaimed here by King Ferdinand, in the church of the Forty Martyrs .