Svrljig

The old fortress of Svrljig stood above the Svrljiški Timok River, guarding a route through the hills of the eastern Balkans. Its position brought it into the struggles of Serbia, Bulgaria and Byzantium, and its name survives in a Gospel manuscript copied there in 1279. The fortress and its neighboring settlement passed between rival powers before the Ottoman advance reached the wider region.

In 1413 the Ottoman prince Musa Çelebi captured and plundered Svrljig, but the town was later returned to the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarević. Sultan Mehmed II conquered it in 1454, bringing it into the Ottoman district of Vidin. The settlement, known to the Ottomans as Isferlik, was plundered and burned by Hungarian forces in 1597 and rebuilt in the 18th century.