Battenberg Mausoleum Sofia

Mausoleum of Bulgaria's first prince in Sofia – Alexander I of Battenberg, built 1897, near the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral.

The Battenberg Mausoleum in Sofia is the final resting place of Prince Alexander I of Bulgaria (1857–1893), the first head of state of the modern Bulgarian principality established after the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Alexander, a prince of the House of Battenberg and nephew of the Russian Tsar, led Bulgaria through a brief, turbulent reign: he initiated the unification with Eastern Rumelia in 1885 but was forced to abdicate in 1886 following a Russian-backed coup. The mausoleum was built in 1897 on the grounds of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral – a quiet, rarely visited site embodying a significant chapter of European national history.