In the story of Sofia’s nineteenth century, the earthquakes of 1818 and 1858 have traditionally been studied in a narrative of their own, outside the broader dimensions of the Ottoman context and the overall history of the period. Even though the destruction inflicted on Ottoman Sofia’s built fabric is part of this narrative, the earthquakes have predominantly been interpreted as a psychological trauma for the Bulgarian community, resulting from a breach in the harmonious relationship between the human and natural worlds. The idiosyncrasies of this approach of marginalizing the Ottoman sphere partially stem from the perception of the nineteenth century as a frontier, a period during which Sofia was becoming less Ottoman and more Bulgarian. Another explanation for the deficiency of the interpretive framework lies in the source base used – texts produced exclusively by Bulgarian authors, either as concise marginal notes on the pages of church books, or as lengthy contributions, especially in the case of the 1858 earthquake, to the burgeoning Bulgarian periodical press centered in the imperial capital, or as extensive correspondence exchanged between intellectuals otherwise involved in the movements for national emancipation of the Bulgarian Orthodox church and the advancement of Bulgarian education in the national language. In this narrative of nineteenth-century Sofians’ traumatic experience, the Ottoman sphere is notable for its passivity and degradation, physical and moral. This paper addresses nature as an agent in urban transformation, a powerful force that had a significant impact on the appearance of Sofia’s urban fabric at the end of Ottoman rule and the beginning of Bulgarian self-government. Problematizing the one-sided narrative elaborated by Bulgarian historiography, the paper introduces Ottoman sources for the first time in the study of nineteenth-century Sofia’s seismic history. The texts, produced in 1858, demonstrate how concern for urban renovation in the nineteenth century and a heightened sensitivity toward the state of the military forces led to the involvement of various local and central institutions in an effort to alleviate the consequences of natural disaster.