Castelul Tighina al Cetății Bender: Geografia, istoria, arheologia, arhitectura și studierea controversată a complexului fortificat
Authors: Nesterov Tamara , Musteață Sergiu , Gherțen Andrei 
Published: December 2022

The controversial and in many ways mysterious history of the Bender Fortress – one of the largest fortified complexes in the Black Sea region – has long attracted the attention of specialists in various fields of historical sciences. However, due to the fact that the fortress continued to be used according to its original destination (part of the territory is still occupied by a military garrison, in 2008 the complex was partially opened for visits), full field research began only in last years. The Tigina-Bender fortification was gradually formed and developed throughout the medieval and modern periods. The site occupies a vast territory, fortified with earth and stone bastions, adjacent to the bank of the Dniester a rectangular stone citadel. Its origin is uncertain, but the development stages could be recognized by the architectural elements. Authors of this paper based on the available sources, they try to re-evaluate the dating, architecture and history of the fortification system at Tigina-Bender. Only a few written sources have proven to be the cornerstone of the official history of Tigina Castle and Bender Fortress. These are the memoirs of the Turkish traveler Evliya Celebi, who visited Bender in 1655, naming Mimar Sinan, who accompanied the sultan in his campaign to punish the Moldavian ruler Petru Rareș, the city’s architect, in 1538. Construction of the complex. The construction of the Bender fortress by the Turkish architect should be called into question due to the numerous historical information, in which there are no reports of the construction of a castle in Tigina after 1538, espe cially considering the mentions of the locality long before this year. The history of Tigina Castle, built on the banks of the Dniester and known from the writings of contemporaries in the period before the sixteenth century, when according to other historical accounts received the new name, in the twentieth century was replaced by scientific opinion with that of the fortress. Bender. This „change of origins” has been accepted by most historians, due to the method of study: the exclusive use of documentary information and selective and total trust in the content of texts, neglecting the research of documents with other information, to which is added the scarcity of published documents regarding Tigina and Bender. In the case of the use of the fortress after the original destination and insistence of the historians who supported the Turkish origin of the Bender fortress, claiming material evidence of the fortress’s antiquity for a long time was not possible. The interdisciplinary research of the fortified complex Tigina-Bender, at the intersection between architecture, archeology, history and geography would allow the creation of the correct evaluation of the cultural heritage monument. Of great importance, for solving complex problems in the history of architecture are archaeological research, analysis of old maps and plans, which, as a whole, are invaluable sources on the history, geography and toponymy of the Northwest Black Sea region, studied so far in fragments. The complex analysis of the architecture of the Bender fortress, whose complete study has not yet been completed, confirms the hypotheses identified during the preliminary historical, cartographic and archaeological research regarding the presence at Tigina of the fortification prior to the conquest by the Ottoman Porte.