As they celebrate the 30th anniversary since the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the communist regimes, Bulgaria and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe also mark with remembrance events the 575th year since the Battle of Varna in 1444, in which the united forces of Christian Europeans aiming to liberate the Balkans were soundly defeated by the early Ottoman Empire.
The 1444 Battle of Varna, near today’s Black Sea city of Varna in Bulgaria, saw the Christian European force led by Vladislav (Wladyslaw) III Jagello, also known as Varnenchik (Warnenczyk), King of Poland and Hungary, and made up of Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Wallachians, Bosnians, Croatians, Bulgarians, Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Germans, and Teutonic Knights pitted against the Ottoman Turks and their Janissaries (warriors forcefully converted to Islam when they were seized from their Christian families).
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