Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria
Encyclopedia
Ivan Alexander also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

) of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on February 17, 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. Ivan Alexander began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and Serbia
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...

, as well as leading his empire into a period of economic recovery and cultural and religious renaissance.

However, the emperor was later unable to cope with the mounting incursions of Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces, Hungarian invasions from the northwest and the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

. In an ill-fated attempt to combat these problems, he divided the country between his two sons, thus forcing it to face the imminent Ottoman conquest weakened and divided.

Early rule

Ivan Alexander was the son of the despotēs
Despotes
Despot , was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent...

Sracimir of Krǎn
Kran, Bulgaria
Kran is a town in central Bulgaria. It is located just south of the Balkan Mountains and is administratively part of Kazanlak Municipality, Stara Zagora Province. Kran was an important castle of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th–14th century...

 by Petrica
Keratsa Petritsa
Keratsa Petritsa was a Bulgarian noblewoman , sister of tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria. Her eldest son Ivan Alexander rose to the Bulgarian throne after vicissitudes of politics....

, a sister of Michael Asen III of Bulgaria
Michael Shishman of Bulgaria
Michael Asen III ), ruled as emperor of Bulgaria from 1323 to 1330. The exact year of his birth is unknown but it was between 1280 and 1292. He was the founder of the last ruling dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Shishman dynasty...

. Therefore, Ivan Alexander was a nephew of Michael Asen III. Paternally, Ivan Alexander descended from the Asen dynasty
Asen dynasty
The Asen dynasty ruled a medieval Bulgarian state, called in modern historiography the Second Bulgarian Empire, between 1187 and 1280.The Asen dynasty and the Second Bulgarian Empire rose as the leaders of a rebellion against the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the year 1185/1186 caused by the...

. By 1330 Ivan Alexander was himself a despotēs and governed the city of Loveč
Lovech
Lovech is a town in north-central Bulgaria with a population of 36,296 as of February 2011. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality. The town is located about 150 km northeast from the capital city of Sofia...

. Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab
Basarab I of Wallachia
Basarab I the Founder was voivode or prince of Wallachia . His rise seems to have taken place in the context of the war between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Orthodox states in the north of the Balkan Peninsula...

 of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, Ivan Alexander fought in the Battle of Velbǎžd against the Serbs at modern-day Kjustendil
Kyustendil
Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...

 in 1330, in which Bulgaria suffered defeat. The defeat, combined with the worsening relations with the Byzantine Empire, precipitated an internal crisis, which was exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines. A coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 drove Ivan Stefan
Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria
Ivan Stefan ruled as emperor of Bulgaria for eight months from 1330 to 1331. He was the eldest son of emperor Michael III Shishman and Anna Neda of Serbia, a daughter of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia. Ivan Stephen was descendent to the Terter dynasty, the Asen dynasty and the Shishman...

 out of the capital Tǎrnovo
Veliko Tarnovo
Veliko Tarnovo is a city in north central Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Veliko Tarnovo Province. Often referred to as the "City of the Tsars", Veliko Tarnovo is located on the Yantra River and is famous as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, attracting many tourists...

 in 1331, and the conspirators placed Ivan Alexander on the throne.

The new ruler set about consolidating his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire. In 1331 Ivan Alexander campaigned around Adrianople
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

 and reconquered northeastern Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

. Meanwhile, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia
Stephen Uroš IV Dušan the Mighty , was the King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks until his death on 20 December 1355. Dušan managed to conquer a large part of Southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs in his time...

 deposed his father Stefan Uroš III Dečanski
Stefan Uroš III Decanski of Serbia
Stephen Uroš III of Dečani was King of Serbia from January 6, 1322 to 8 September 1331. He defeated and killed several of his family members who wanted to take the throne from him. He took his epithet Dečanski from the great monastery he built at Dečani.-Early:He was the son of King Stefan Uroš II...

 and became Serbian king in 1331. This helped normalize the previously tense relations between the two countries. Ivan Alexander and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan concluded an alliance, which was cemented by the marriage of the Serbian king to Helena of Bulgaria
Helena of Bulgaria
Jelena or Helena of Bulgaria was the daughter of Sratsimir of Kran and Keratsa Petritsa and the sister of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

, a sister of Ivan Alexander, on Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 1332.

At about the same time, Belaur, a brother of Michael Asen III, rebelled in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...

, probably in support of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan's claim to the throne. The advance of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos, Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341, after being rival emperor since 1321. Andronikos III was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia...

 against Bulgaria in the summer of 1332 protracted military operations against the rebels. The Byzantines overran Bulgarian-controlled northeastern Thrace, but Ivan Alexander rushed southward with a small army and swiftly caught up with Andronikos III at Rusokastro.
After giving the impression that he wished to negotiate, Ivan Alexander, reinforced by Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

 cavalry, overwhelmed the smaller but better organized Byzantine army in the Battle of Rusokastro
Battle of Rusokastro
The Battle of Rusokastro occurred on July 18, 1332 near the village of Rusokastro, Bulgaria between the armies of the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires. The result was a Bulgarian victory.-Origins of the conflict:...

. The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander, while Andronikos III sought refuge within the walls of Rusokastro. The war ended with Ivan Alexander meeting Andronikos and agreeing a peace based on the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirene), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339. The Bulgarian emperor was now free to turn his attentions to Belaur, but it was not until 1336 or 1337 that the rebellion in the northwest was put down.

In about 1332 Ivan Alexander had crowned his eldest son Michael Asen IV co-emperor, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family. He followed up this traditional association with the coronation of his younger sons Ivan Sracimir
Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed...

 and Ivan Asen IV in 1337. Ivan Alexander may have intended the creation of two younger co-emperors to establish immediate control over important cities and regions, as Ivan Sracimir was eventually based in Vidin, and Ivan Asen IV perhaps in Preslav
Preslav
Preslav was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and one of the most important cities of medieval Southeastern Europe. The ruins of the city are situated in modern northeastern Bulgaria, some 20 kilometres southwest of the regional capital of Shumen, and are currently a...

. Nevertheless, this was a marked departure from Byzantine practice, in which younger sons of the sovereign were made despotēs, whether they were charged with a territorial administration or not.

Relations with the Byzantine Empire

In the early 1340s relations with the Byzantine Empire temporarily deteriorated. Ivan Alexander demanded the extradition of his cousin Šišman, one of the sons of Michael Asen III, threatening the Byzantine government with war. Ivan Alexander's show of force backfired, as the Byzantines managed to see through his intentions and sent against him the fleet of their ally, the Turkish emir of Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 Umur Beg. Landing in the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...

, the Turks of Umur Beg pillaged the countryside and attacked nearby Bulgarian cities. Forced to restrain his demands, Ivan Alexander invaded the Byzantine Empire again at the end of 1341, claiming that he was summoned by the people of Adrianople. However, Ivan Alexander's troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines near the city.

In 1341–1347 the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a protracted civil war
Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347
The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 was a conflict between supporters of designated regent John VI Kantakouzenos and guardians acting for John V Palaiologos, Emperor Andronikos III's nine-year-old son, in the persons of the Empress-dowager Anna of Savoy, the Patriarch of Constantinople John XIV...

 between the regency for Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 under Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna, was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second wife of Andronikos III Palaiologos.-Family:She was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and his second wife Maria of Brabant. Her maternal grandparents were John I, Duke of Brabant and Margaret of Flanders...

 and his intended guardian John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzenus was the Byzantine emperor from 1347 to 1354.-Early life:Born in Constantinople, John Kantakouzenos was the son of a Michael Kantakouzenos, governor of the Morea. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was a descendant of the reigning house of...

. The neighbours of the Byzantines took advantage of the civil war, and while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI Kantakouzenos, Ivan Alexander backed John V Palaiologos and his regency. Although the two Balkan rulers picked opposite sides in the Byzantine civil war, they maintained their alliance with each other. As the price for Ivan Alexander's support, the regency for John V Palaiologos ceded him the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

) and nine important fortresses in the Rhodope Mountains
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

 in 1344. This peaceful turnover constituted the last major success of Ivan Alexander's foreign policy.

Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat

During the same period, the Serbian king took advantage of the Byzantine civil war to take possession of what is now Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, and of most of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 and northern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. In 1345 he began to call himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks", and in 1346 he was crowned as such by the newly created Patriarch of Serbia
Patriarch of Serbia
This is a list of the Archbishops and Patriarchs of Peć and the Serbs from the creation of the church as an archdiocese in 1219 to today's Patriarchate. The list includes all the Archbishops and Patriarchs that led the Serbian Orthodox community under Patriarchate of Peć...

. These actions, which the Byzantines received with indignation, appear to have been supported by Bulgaria, as the Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon had participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan.

By the second half of the 1340s, little remained of Ivan Alexander's initial successes. John VI Kantakouzenos' Turkish allies pillaged parts of Bulgarian Thrace in 1346, 1347, 1349, 1352 and 1354, to which were added the ravages of the Black Death. The Bulgarians' attempts to repel the invaders met with repeated failure, and Ivan Alexander's third son and co-emperor, Ivan Asen IV, was killed in battle against the Turks in 1349, as was his older brother Michael Asen IV in 1355 or a little earlier.

By 1351 the Byzantine civil war was over, and John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the threat posed by the Ottomans to the Balkan Peninsula
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

. He appealed to the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria for a united effort against the Turks and asked Ivan Alexander for money to construct warships, but his appeals fell on deaf ears as his neighbours distrusted his intentions. A new attempt for cooperation between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire followed in 1355, after John VI Kantakouzenos had been forced to abdicate and John V Palaiologos had been established as supreme emperor. To cement the treaty, Ivan Alexander's daughter Keraca Marija
Keratsa of Bulgaria
Keratsa-Maria of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora.-Marriage:On 17 August 1355 Keratsa was betrothed to the future Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...

 was married off to the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor from 1376 to 1379.-Life:...

, but the alliance failed to produce concrete results.

Further stability problems and external conflicts

At home Ivan Alexander compromised the internal stability of his realm by divorcing his first wife Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia was the daughter of Basarab I of Wallachia and Lady Margareta. She married Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria as his first wife. This marriage produced four children — Michael Asen, Ivan Sratsimir, Ivan Asen and Vasilisa. In 1345 Tsar Ivan Alexander divorced Tsaritsa Theodora and...

 (in about 1349) and marrying a converted Jew, also named Theodora. The new marriage produced new sons, whom Ivan Alexander proceeded to crown co-emperors, Ivan Šišman in about 1356 and Ivan Asen V by 1359. Ivan Alexander's last surviving son from his first marriage, the co-emperor Ivan Sracimir, became effectively independent around 1356; and Ivan Alexander's control over other powerful vassals, such as the rulers of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

 and Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...

, who pursued their own foreign policies, was hardly stronger.

From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...

 king Louis I of Hungary, who annexed Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 in 1352 and established a vassal principality there, before conquering Vidin
Hungarian occupation of Vidin
The Hungarian occupation of Vidin was a period in the history of the city and region of Vidin, today in northwestern Bulgaria, when it was under the rule of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1365 to 1369....

 in 1365, and taking Ivan Sratsimir and his family into captivity.

In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364. In 1366, when Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 was returning from his trip to the west, the Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria. This stance backfired, as another Byzantine ally, Count Amadeus VI of Savoy
Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy
Amadeus VI , nicknamed the Green Count was Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383. He was the eldest son of Aimone, Count of Savoy and Yolande of Montferrat....

, leading the Savoyard crusade
Savoyard crusade
The Savoyard crusade was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade. It was the brainchild of Pope Urban V and was led by Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, against the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe...

, captured several Bulgarian maritime cities in retaliation, including Ankhialos (Pomorie
Pomorie
Pomorie is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, located on a narrow rocky peninsula in Burgas Bay on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is situated in Burgas Province, 20 km away from the city of Burgas and 18 km from the Sunny Beach resort. The ultrasaline lagoon...

) and Mesembria (Nesebǎr
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...

), though he failed to take Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...

. Outmanoeuvred, Ivan Alexander was forced to make peace.

The captured cities were turned over to the Byzantine Empire, while Emperor John V Palaiologos paid the sum of 180,000 florins
Italian coin florin
The Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of nominally pure gold worth approximately 200 modern US Dollars...

 to Ivan Alexander. The Bulgarian emperor used this sum and territorial concessions to induce his at least de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....

vassals Dobrotica
Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386....

 of Dobruja and Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of the Basarab dynasty, also known as Vlaicu-Vodă, was a ruler of the principality of Wallachia . He was a vassal of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander. In 1369 Vladislav I subdued Vidin and recognised Louis I of Hungary as his overlord in return for Severin, Amlaş, and Făgăraş...

 to reconquer Vidin from the Hungarians. The war was successful, and Ivan Sracimir was reinstalled in Vidin in 1369, although the Hungarian king forced him to acknowledge his overlordship.

The relatively successful resolution of the crisis in the northwest did nothing to help recover the losses in the southeast. To make matters worse, in 1369 (the date is disputed), the Ottoman Turks under Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 conquered Adrianople (in 1363) and made it the effective capital of their expanding state. At the same time, they also captured the Bulgarian cities of Philippopolis and Boruj (Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...

). As Bulgaria and the Serbian princes in Macedonia prepared for united action against the Turks, Ivan Alexander died on February 17, 1371. He was succeeded by his sons Ivan Sracimir in Vidin and Ivan Šišman in Tǎrnovo, while the rulers of Dobruja and Wallachia achieved further independence.

Culture and religion

During Ivan Alexander's rule, the Second Bulgarian Empire entered a period of cultural renaissance, which is sometimes referred to as the "Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture", the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe...

. A large number of Bulgarian monasteries and churches were constructed or renovated on the order of Ivan Alexander. Mural portraits of him as a donor
Donor portrait
A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family...

 can be seen in the Bachkovo Monastery
Bachkovo Monastery
The Bachkovo Monastery , archaically the Petritsoni Monastery or Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bulgaria is an important monument of Christian architecture and one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe...

's ossuary and in the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m...

. Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander prove that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during that period, as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik
Pernik
Pernik is a city in western Bulgaria with a population of 81,052 . It is the main city of Pernik Province and lies on both banks of the Struma River in the Pernik Valley between the Viskyar, Vitosha and Golo Bardo mountains.Originally the site of a Thracian fortress founded in the 4th century BC,...

, according to a Hilandar
Hilandar
Hilandar Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in 1198 by the first Serbian Archbishop Saint Sava and his father, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of the medieval Serbian principality of Raška...

 monastery deed. In addition, the tsar also initiated the construction of the Dragalevci
Dragalevtsi
Dragalevtsi is a quarter of Sofia, part of Vitosha municipality and situated in the southwestern part of the city, at the foot of the mountain of Vitosha...

 and Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo is a small town in central northern Bulgaria, administratively part of Veliko Tarnovo municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province. Previously a village, it was proclaimed a town in 1973....

 monasteries.

Literary activity also flourished during the reign of Ivan Alexander. Several important literary works were created in the period, such as the Middle Bulgarian
History of the Bulgarian language
The History of the Bulgarian language can be divided into four major periods:* prehistoric period ;...

 translation of the Manasses Chronicle
Constantine Manasses
Constantine Manasses was a Byzantine chronicler who flourished in the 12th century during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos . He was the author of a chronicle or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates , sponsored by Irene...

 (1344–1345), currently preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives
Vatican Secret Archives
The Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, having primal incumbency until death, owns the archives until the next appointed Papal successor...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, the richly illustrated Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356), now exhibited in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, the Tomić Psalter
Tomic Psalter
The Tomić Psalter is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. Produced around 1360, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, it is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Tarnovo literary and art school of the time...

 (1360), today in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and the Sofia Psalter
Sofia Psalter
The Sofia Psalter , also known as Ivan Alexander's Psalter or the Kuklen Psalter, is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. It was produced in 1337 and belonged to the royal family of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

 (1337).

Ivan Alexander's rule was also marked by efforts to strengthen the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Bulgarian Orthodox Church
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

 by pursuing heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 and Jews. He organized two anti-heretical church councils, in 1350 and 1359–1360, that condemned various sects such as the Bogomils
Bogomilism
Bogomilism was a Gnostic religiopolitical sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Petar I in the 10th century...

, the Adamites
Adamites
The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian sect that flourished in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, but knew later revivals.-Ancient Adamites:...

 and the Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...

.

The spiritual practice of hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...

, a form of incantatory prayer, deeply influenced certain areas of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 world of the 14th century. A notable Bulgarian representative of the movement during Ivan Alexander's reign was Theodosius of Tǎrnovo
Theodosius of Tarnovo
The Holy Venerable Theodosius of Tarnovo was a high-ranking 14th-century Bulgarian cleric and hermit and the person credited with establishing hesychasm in the Second Bulgarian Empire...

.

During this time, the Bulgarian Empire had trade relations with the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 maritime powers Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

, Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

 and Ragusa
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...

. In 1353, Ivan Alexander issued a charter allowing Venetian merchants to buy and sell goods throughout Bulgaria after Doge
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...

 Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo was elected the 54th doge of Venice in 1343, replacing Bartolomeo Gradenigo who died in late 1342....

 assured him they would observe the prior treaties between the two countries.

In modern times, the rule of Ivan Alexander inspired Bulgarian national writer Ivan Vazov
Ivan Vazov
Ivan Minchov Vazov was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria ....

 to write the novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 Ivan-Aleksandǎr and the drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Kǎm propast (Towards an Abyss), in both of which the tsar is the main character.

A piece of a garment signed by Ivan Alexander and interwoven with gold was discovered in a noble's grave near Pirot
Pirot
Pirot is a town and municipality located in south-eastern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a total population of 38,432, while the population of the municipality is 57,911...

 in the 1970s; today it is preserved in the National Museum of Serbia
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. It is the first find of its kind, demonstrating a medieval tradition attested in writing according to which Orthodox rulers would present their most eminent dignitaries with a piece of a garment they had worn.

Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point is the low rocky point on the southeast coast of Nelson Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, situated 7.34 km east of Ross Point, 8.64 km west-southwest of Duthoit Point, 4.17 km west-southwest of Slavotin Point and 1.73 km north-northeast of...

 on Nelson Island
Nelson Island (South Shetland Islands)
Nelson Island is an island long and wide, lying southwest of King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Nelson Island is located at...

 in the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria.

Family

By his first wife Theodora of Wallachia (nun Teofana), a daughter of Basarab of Wallachia, Ivan Alexander had several children, including Ivan Sracimir, who ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin 1356–1397, associated emperors Michael Asen IV (co-ruled c. 1332–1354/5) and Ivan Asen IV (co-ruled 1337–1349), and a daughter called Thamar (Kera Tamara), who was married first to the despotēs Constantine (Konstantin), and then to Sultan Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 of the Ottoman Empire.

By his second wife Sarah-Theodora, Ivan Alexander had several other children, which included Keraca Marija, who married the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Ivan Šišman, who succeeded as emperor of Bulgaria in Tǎrnovo 1371–1396, Ivan Asen V, associated as emperor of Bulgaria by 1359–1388?, as well as two daughters named Desislava and Vasilisa.

ruled 1371–1395)
| colspan=2 style="border-left:solid black 1px; border-right; solid black 1px"| Ivan Asen V
| colspan=2 style="border-left:solid black 1px"| Vasilisa
|-
| colspan=2 style="border-right:solid black 1px"|
| colspan=2 style="border-left: solid black 1px; border-right:solid black 1px"|
| colspan=2 style="border-left:solid black 1px; border-right; solid black 1px"|
| colspan=2 style="border-left:solid black 1px; border-right; solid black 1px"|
| colspan=2 style="border-left:solid black 1px"|
|- style="vertical-align:top"
|
| colspan=2| Ivan Asen IV
Ivan Asen IV of Bulgaria
Ivan Asen , also known as Ivan Asen IV was a Bulgarian Prince, third son of Emperor Ivan Alexander from his first wife Theodora of Wallachia. He was born c. 1326....


| colspan=2| Ivan Sracimir
Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed...


(b. c. 1324, d. c. 1397,
ruled 1356–1397)

| colspan=2| Keraca Marija
Keratsa of Bulgaria
Keratsa-Maria of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora.-Marriage:On 17 August 1355 Keratsa was betrothed to the future Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...


(b. 1348, d. 1390)
| colspan=2| Desislava
Desislava of Bulgaria
Desislava of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife Theodora, a converted Jewess. Desislava was the sister of tsar Ivan Shishman and tsar Ivan Sratsimir. Her sister Keratsa-Maria was the wife of the Byzantine emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...


|
|-
|}

Timeline

Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

) of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on February 17, 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. Ivan Alexander began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and Serbia
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...

, as well as leading his empire into a period of economic recovery and cultural and religious renaissance.

However, the emperor was later unable to cope with the mounting incursions of Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces, Hungarian invasions from the northwest and the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

. In an ill-fated attempt to combat these problems, he divided the country between his two sons, thus forcing it to face the imminent Ottoman conquest weakened and divided.

Early rule

Ivan Alexander was the son of the despotēs
Despotes
Despot , was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent...

Sracimir of Krǎn
Kran, Bulgaria
Kran is a town in central Bulgaria. It is located just south of the Balkan Mountains and is administratively part of Kazanlak Municipality, Stara Zagora Province. Kran was an important castle of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th–14th century...

 by Petrica
Keratsa Petritsa
Keratsa Petritsa was a Bulgarian noblewoman , sister of tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria. Her eldest son Ivan Alexander rose to the Bulgarian throne after vicissitudes of politics....

, a sister of Michael Asen III of Bulgaria
Michael Shishman of Bulgaria
Michael Asen III ), ruled as emperor of Bulgaria from 1323 to 1330. The exact year of his birth is unknown but it was between 1280 and 1292. He was the founder of the last ruling dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Shishman dynasty...

. Therefore, Ivan Alexander was a nephew of Michael Asen III. Paternally, Ivan Alexander descended from the Asen dynasty
Asen dynasty
The Asen dynasty ruled a medieval Bulgarian state, called in modern historiography the Second Bulgarian Empire, between 1187 and 1280.The Asen dynasty and the Second Bulgarian Empire rose as the leaders of a rebellion against the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the year 1185/1186 caused by the...

. By 1330 Ivan Alexander was himself a despotēs and governed the city of Loveč
Lovech
Lovech is a town in north-central Bulgaria with a population of 36,296 as of February 2011. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality. The town is located about 150 km northeast from the capital city of Sofia...

. Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab
Basarab I of Wallachia
Basarab I the Founder was voivode or prince of Wallachia . His rise seems to have taken place in the context of the war between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Orthodox states in the north of the Balkan Peninsula...

 of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, Ivan Alexander fought in the Battle of Velbǎžd against the Serbs at modern-day Kjustendil
Kyustendil
Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...

 in 1330, in which Bulgaria suffered defeat. The defeat, combined with the worsening relations with the Byzantine Empire, precipitated an internal crisis, which was exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines. A coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 drove Ivan Stefan
Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria
Ivan Stefan ruled as emperor of Bulgaria for eight months from 1330 to 1331. He was the eldest son of emperor Michael III Shishman and Anna Neda of Serbia, a daughter of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia. Ivan Stephen was descendent to the Terter dynasty, the Asen dynasty and the Shishman...

 out of the capital Tǎrnovo
Veliko Tarnovo
Veliko Tarnovo is a city in north central Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Veliko Tarnovo Province. Often referred to as the "City of the Tsars", Veliko Tarnovo is located on the Yantra River and is famous as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, attracting many tourists...

 in 1331, and the conspirators placed Ivan Alexander on the throne.

The new ruler set about consolidating his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire. In 1331 Ivan Alexander campaigned around Adrianople
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

 and reconquered northeastern Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

. Meanwhile, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia
Stephen Uroš IV Dušan the Mighty , was the King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks until his death on 20 December 1355. Dušan managed to conquer a large part of Southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs in his time...

 deposed his father Stefan Uroš III Dečanski
Stefan Uroš III Decanski of Serbia
Stephen Uroš III of Dečani was King of Serbia from January 6, 1322 to 8 September 1331. He defeated and killed several of his family members who wanted to take the throne from him. He took his epithet Dečanski from the great monastery he built at Dečani.-Early:He was the son of King Stefan Uroš II...

 and became Serbian king in 1331. This helped normalize the previously tense relations between the two countries. Ivan Alexander and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan concluded an alliance, which was cemented by the marriage of the Serbian king to Helena of Bulgaria
Helena of Bulgaria
Jelena or Helena of Bulgaria was the daughter of Sratsimir of Kran and Keratsa Petritsa and the sister of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

, a sister of Ivan Alexander, on Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 1332.

At about the same time, Belaur, a brother of Michael Asen III, rebelled in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...

, probably in support of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan's claim to the throne. The advance of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos, Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341, after being rival emperor since 1321. Andronikos III was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia...

 against Bulgaria in the summer of 1332 protracted military operations against the rebels. The Byzantines overran Bulgarian-controlled northeastern Thrace, but Ivan Alexander rushed southward with a small army and swiftly caught up with Andronikos III at Rusokastro.
After giving the impression that he wished to negotiate, Ivan Alexander, reinforced by Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

 cavalry, overwhelmed the smaller but better organized Byzantine army in the Battle of Rusokastro
Battle of Rusokastro
The Battle of Rusokastro occurred on July 18, 1332 near the village of Rusokastro, Bulgaria between the armies of the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires. The result was a Bulgarian victory.-Origins of the conflict:...

. The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander, while Andronikos III sought refuge within the walls of Rusokastro. The war ended with Ivan Alexander meeting Andronikos and agreeing a peace based on the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirene), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339. The Bulgarian emperor was now free to turn his attentions to Belaur, but it was not until 1336 or 1337 that the rebellion in the northwest was put down.

In about 1332 Ivan Alexander had crowned his eldest son Michael Asen IV co-emperor, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family. He followed up this traditional association with the coronation of his younger sons Ivan Sracimir
Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed...

 and Ivan Asen IV in 1337. Ivan Alexander may have intended the creation of two younger co-emperors to establish immediate control over important cities and regions, as Ivan Sracimir was eventually based in Vidin, and Ivan Asen IV perhaps in Preslav
Preslav
Preslav was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and one of the most important cities of medieval Southeastern Europe. The ruins of the city are situated in modern northeastern Bulgaria, some 20 kilometres southwest of the regional capital of Shumen, and are currently a...

. Nevertheless, this was a marked departure from Byzantine practice, in which younger sons of the sovereign were made despotēs, whether they were charged with a territorial administration or not.

Relations with the Byzantine Empire

In the early 1340s relations with the Byzantine Empire temporarily deteriorated. Ivan Alexander demanded the extradition of his cousin Šišman, one of the sons of Michael Asen III, threatening the Byzantine government with war. Ivan Alexander's show of force backfired, as the Byzantines managed to see through his intentions and sent against him the fleet of their ally, the Turkish emir of Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 Umur Beg. Landing in the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...

, the Turks of Umur Beg pillaged the countryside and attacked nearby Bulgarian cities. Forced to restrain his demands, Ivan Alexander invaded the Byzantine Empire again at the end of 1341, claiming that he was summoned by the people of Adrianople. However, Ivan Alexander's troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines near the city.

In 1341–1347 the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a protracted civil war
Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347
The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 was a conflict between supporters of designated regent John VI Kantakouzenos and guardians acting for John V Palaiologos, Emperor Andronikos III's nine-year-old son, in the persons of the Empress-dowager Anna of Savoy, the Patriarch of Constantinople John XIV...

 between the regency for Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 under Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna, was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second wife of Andronikos III Palaiologos.-Family:She was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and his second wife Maria of Brabant. Her maternal grandparents were John I, Duke of Brabant and Margaret of Flanders...

 and his intended guardian John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzenus was the Byzantine emperor from 1347 to 1354.-Early life:Born in Constantinople, John Kantakouzenos was the son of a Michael Kantakouzenos, governor of the Morea. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was a descendant of the reigning house of...

. The neighbours of the Byzantines took advantage of the civil war, and while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI Kantakouzenos, Ivan Alexander backed John V Palaiologos and his regency. Although the two Balkan rulers picked opposite sides in the Byzantine civil war, they maintained their alliance with each other. As the price for Ivan Alexander's support, the regency for John V Palaiologos ceded him the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

) and nine important fortresses in the Rhodope Mountains
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

 in 1344. This peaceful turnover constituted the last major success of Ivan Alexander's foreign policy.

Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat

During the same period, the Serbian king took advantage of the Byzantine civil war to take possession of what is now Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, and of most of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 and northern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. In 1345 he began to call himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks", and in 1346 he was crowned as such by the newly created Patriarch of Serbia
Patriarch of Serbia
This is a list of the Archbishops and Patriarchs of Peć and the Serbs from the creation of the church as an archdiocese in 1219 to today's Patriarchate. The list includes all the Archbishops and Patriarchs that led the Serbian Orthodox community under Patriarchate of Peć...

. These actions, which the Byzantines received with indignation, appear to have been supported by Bulgaria, as the Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon had participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan.

By the second half of the 1340s, little remained of Ivan Alexander's initial successes. John VI Kantakouzenos' Turkish allies pillaged parts of Bulgarian Thrace in 1346, 1347, 1349, 1352 and 1354, to which were added the ravages of the Black Death. The Bulgarians' attempts to repel the invaders met with repeated failure, and Ivan Alexander's third son and co-emperor, Ivan Asen IV, was killed in battle against the Turks in 1349, as was his older brother Michael Asen IV in 1355 or a little earlier.

By 1351 the Byzantine civil war was over, and John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the threat posed by the Ottomans to the Balkan Peninsula
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

. He appealed to the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria for a united effort against the Turks and asked Ivan Alexander for money to construct warships, but his appeals fell on deaf ears as his neighbours distrusted his intentions. A new attempt for cooperation between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire followed in 1355, after John VI Kantakouzenos had been forced to abdicate and John V Palaiologos had been established as supreme emperor. To cement the treaty, Ivan Alexander's daughter Keraca Marija
Keratsa of Bulgaria
Keratsa-Maria of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora.-Marriage:On 17 August 1355 Keratsa was betrothed to the future Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...

 was married off to the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor from 1376 to 1379.-Life:...

, but the alliance failed to produce concrete results.

Further stability problems and external conflicts

At home Ivan Alexander compromised the internal stability of his realm by divorcing his first wife Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia was the daughter of Basarab I of Wallachia and Lady Margareta. She married Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria as his first wife. This marriage produced four children — Michael Asen, Ivan Sratsimir, Ivan Asen and Vasilisa. In 1345 Tsar Ivan Alexander divorced Tsaritsa Theodora and...

 (in about 1349) and marrying a converted Jew, also named Theodora. The new marriage produced new sons, whom Ivan Alexander proceeded to crown co-emperors, Ivan Šišman in about 1356 and Ivan Asen V by 1359. Ivan Alexander's last surviving son from his first marriage, the co-emperor Ivan Sracimir, became effectively independent around 1356; and Ivan Alexander's control over other powerful vassals, such as the rulers of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

 and Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...

, who pursued their own foreign policies, was hardly stronger.

From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...

 king Louis I of Hungary, who annexed Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 in 1352 and established a vassal principality there, before conquering Vidin
Hungarian occupation of Vidin
The Hungarian occupation of Vidin was a period in the history of the city and region of Vidin, today in northwestern Bulgaria, when it was under the rule of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1365 to 1369....

 in 1365, and taking Ivan Sratsimir and his family into captivity.

In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364. In 1366, when Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 was returning from his trip to the west, the Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria. This stance backfired, as another Byzantine ally, Count Amadeus VI of Savoy
Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy
Amadeus VI , nicknamed the Green Count was Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383. He was the eldest son of Aimone, Count of Savoy and Yolande of Montferrat....

, leading the Savoyard crusade
Savoyard crusade
The Savoyard crusade was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade. It was the brainchild of Pope Urban V and was led by Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, against the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe...

, captured several Bulgarian maritime cities in retaliation, including Ankhialos (Pomorie
Pomorie
Pomorie is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, located on a narrow rocky peninsula in Burgas Bay on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is situated in Burgas Province, 20 km away from the city of Burgas and 18 km from the Sunny Beach resort. The ultrasaline lagoon...

) and Mesembria (Nesebǎr
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...

), though he failed to take Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...

. Outmanoeuvred, Ivan Alexander was forced to make peace.

The captured cities were turned over to the Byzantine Empire, while Emperor John V Palaiologos paid the sum of 180,000 florins
Italian coin florin
The Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of nominally pure gold worth approximately 200 modern US Dollars...

 to Ivan Alexander. The Bulgarian emperor used this sum and territorial concessions to induce his at least de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....

vassals Dobrotica
Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386....

 of Dobruja and Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of the Basarab dynasty, also known as Vlaicu-Vodă, was a ruler of the principality of Wallachia . He was a vassal of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander. In 1369 Vladislav I subdued Vidin and recognised Louis I of Hungary as his overlord in return for Severin, Amlaş, and Făgăraş...

 to reconquer Vidin from the Hungarians. The war was successful, and Ivan Sracimir was reinstalled in Vidin in 1369, although the Hungarian king forced him to acknowledge his overlordship.

The relatively successful resolution of the crisis in the northwest did nothing to help recover the losses in the southeast. To make matters worse, in 1369 (the date is disputed), the Ottoman Turks under Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 conquered Adrianople (in 1363) and made it the effective capital of their expanding state. At the same time, they also captured the Bulgarian cities of Philippopolis and Boruj (Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...

). As Bulgaria and the Serbian princes in Macedonia prepared for united action against the Turks, Ivan Alexander died on February 17, 1371. He was succeeded by his sons Ivan Sracimir in Vidin and Ivan Šišman in Tǎrnovo, while the rulers of Dobruja and Wallachia achieved further independence.

Culture and religion

During Ivan Alexander's rule, the Second Bulgarian Empire entered a period of cultural renaissance, which is sometimes referred to as the "Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture", the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe...

. A large number of Bulgarian monasteries and churches were constructed or renovated on the order of Ivan Alexander. Mural portraits of him as a donor
Donor portrait
A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family...

 can be seen in the Bachkovo Monastery
Bachkovo Monastery
The Bachkovo Monastery , archaically the Petritsoni Monastery or Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bulgaria is an important monument of Christian architecture and one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe...

's ossuary and in the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m...

. Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander prove that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during that period, as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik
Pernik
Pernik is a city in western Bulgaria with a population of 81,052 . It is the main city of Pernik Province and lies on both banks of the Struma River in the Pernik Valley between the Viskyar, Vitosha and Golo Bardo mountains.Originally the site of a Thracian fortress founded in the 4th century BC,...

, according to a Hilandar
Hilandar
Hilandar Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in 1198 by the first Serbian Archbishop Saint Sava and his father, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of the medieval Serbian principality of Raška...

 monastery deed. In addition, the tsar also initiated the construction of the Dragalevci
Dragalevtsi
Dragalevtsi is a quarter of Sofia, part of Vitosha municipality and situated in the southwestern part of the city, at the foot of the mountain of Vitosha...

 and Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo is a small town in central northern Bulgaria, administratively part of Veliko Tarnovo municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province. Previously a village, it was proclaimed a town in 1973....

 monasteries.

Literary activity also flourished during the reign of Ivan Alexander. Several important literary works were created in the period, such as the Middle Bulgarian
History of the Bulgarian language
The History of the Bulgarian language can be divided into four major periods:* prehistoric period ;...

 translation of the Manasses Chronicle
Constantine Manasses
Constantine Manasses was a Byzantine chronicler who flourished in the 12th century during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos . He was the author of a chronicle or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates , sponsored by Irene...

 (1344–1345), currently preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives
Vatican Secret Archives
The Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, having primal incumbency until death, owns the archives until the next appointed Papal successor...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, the richly illustrated Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356), now exhibited in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, the Tomić Psalter
Tomic Psalter
The Tomić Psalter is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. Produced around 1360, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, it is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Tarnovo literary and art school of the time...

 (1360), today in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and the Sofia Psalter
Sofia Psalter
The Sofia Psalter , also known as Ivan Alexander's Psalter or the Kuklen Psalter, is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. It was produced in 1337 and belonged to the royal family of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

 (1337).

Ivan Alexander's rule was also marked by efforts to strengthen the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Bulgarian Orthodox Church
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

 by pursuing heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 and Jews. He organized two anti-heretical church councils, in 1350 and 1359–1360, that condemned various sects such as the Bogomils
Bogomilism
Bogomilism was a Gnostic religiopolitical sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Petar I in the 10th century...

, the Adamites
Adamites
The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian sect that flourished in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, but knew later revivals.-Ancient Adamites:...

 and the Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...

.

The spiritual practice of hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...

, a form of incantatory prayer, deeply influenced certain areas of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 world of the 14th century. A notable Bulgarian representative of the movement during Ivan Alexander's reign was Theodosius of Tǎrnovo
Theodosius of Tarnovo
The Holy Venerable Theodosius of Tarnovo was a high-ranking 14th-century Bulgarian cleric and hermit and the person credited with establishing hesychasm in the Second Bulgarian Empire...

.

During this time, the Bulgarian Empire had trade relations with the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 maritime powers Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

, Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

 and Ragusa
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...

. In 1353, Ivan Alexander issued a charter allowing Venetian merchants to buy and sell goods throughout Bulgaria after Doge
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...

 Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo was elected the 54th doge of Venice in 1343, replacing Bartolomeo Gradenigo who died in late 1342....

 assured him they would observe the prior treaties between the two countries.

In modern times, the rule of Ivan Alexander inspired Bulgarian national writer Ivan Vazov
Ivan Vazov
Ivan Minchov Vazov was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria ....

 to write the novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 Ivan-Aleksandǎr and the drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Kǎm propast (Towards an Abyss), in both of which the tsar is the main character.

A piece of a garment signed by Ivan Alexander and interwoven with gold was discovered in a noble's grave near Pirot
Pirot
Pirot is a town and municipality located in south-eastern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a total population of 38,432, while the population of the municipality is 57,911...

 in the 1970s; today it is preserved in the National Museum of Serbia
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. It is the first find of its kind, demonstrating a medieval tradition attested in writing according to which Orthodox rulers would present their most eminent dignitaries with a piece of a garment they had worn.

Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point is the low rocky point on the southeast coast of Nelson Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, situated 7.34 km east of Ross Point, 8.64 km west-southwest of Duthoit Point, 4.17 km west-southwest of Slavotin Point and 1.73 km north-northeast of...

 on Nelson Island
Nelson Island (South Shetland Islands)
Nelson Island is an island long and wide, lying southwest of King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Nelson Island is located at...

 in the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria.

Family

By his first wife Theodora of Wallachia (nun Teofana), a daughter of Basarab of Wallachia, Ivan Alexander had several children, including Ivan Sracimir, who ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin 1356–1397, associated emperors Michael Asen IV (co-ruled c. 1332–1354/5) and Ivan Asen IV (co-ruled 1337–1349), and a daughter called Thamar (Kera Tamara), who was married first to the despotēs Constantine (Konstantin), and then to Sultan Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 of the Ottoman Empire.

By his second wife Sarah-Theodora, Ivan Alexander had several other children, which included Keraca Marija, who married the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Ivan Šišman, who succeeded as emperor of Bulgaria in Tǎrnovo 1371–1396, Ivan Asen V, associated as emperor of Bulgaria by 1359–1388?, as well as two daughters named Desislava and Vasilisa.

Timeline

Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

) of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on February 17, 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. Ivan Alexander began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and Serbia
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...

, as well as leading his empire into a period of economic recovery and cultural and religious renaissance.

However, the emperor was later unable to cope with the mounting incursions of Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces, Hungarian invasions from the northwest and the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

. In an ill-fated attempt to combat these problems, he divided the country between his two sons, thus forcing it to face the imminent Ottoman conquest weakened and divided.

Early rule

Ivan Alexander was the son of the despotēs
Despotes
Despot , was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent...

Sracimir of Krǎn
Kran, Bulgaria
Kran is a town in central Bulgaria. It is located just south of the Balkan Mountains and is administratively part of Kazanlak Municipality, Stara Zagora Province. Kran was an important castle of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th–14th century...

 by Petrica
Keratsa Petritsa
Keratsa Petritsa was a Bulgarian noblewoman , sister of tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria. Her eldest son Ivan Alexander rose to the Bulgarian throne after vicissitudes of politics....

, a sister of Michael Asen III of Bulgaria
Michael Shishman of Bulgaria
Michael Asen III ), ruled as emperor of Bulgaria from 1323 to 1330. The exact year of his birth is unknown but it was between 1280 and 1292. He was the founder of the last ruling dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Shishman dynasty...

. Therefore, Ivan Alexander was a nephew of Michael Asen III. Paternally, Ivan Alexander descended from the Asen dynasty
Asen dynasty
The Asen dynasty ruled a medieval Bulgarian state, called in modern historiography the Second Bulgarian Empire, between 1187 and 1280.The Asen dynasty and the Second Bulgarian Empire rose as the leaders of a rebellion against the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the year 1185/1186 caused by the...

. By 1330 Ivan Alexander was himself a despotēs and governed the city of Loveč
Lovech
Lovech is a town in north-central Bulgaria with a population of 36,296 as of February 2011. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality. The town is located about 150 km northeast from the capital city of Sofia...

. Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab
Basarab I of Wallachia
Basarab I the Founder was voivode or prince of Wallachia . His rise seems to have taken place in the context of the war between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Orthodox states in the north of the Balkan Peninsula...

 of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, Ivan Alexander fought in the Battle of Velbǎžd against the Serbs at modern-day Kjustendil
Kyustendil
Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...

 in 1330, in which Bulgaria suffered defeat. The defeat, combined with the worsening relations with the Byzantine Empire, precipitated an internal crisis, which was exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines. A coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 drove Ivan Stefan
Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria
Ivan Stefan ruled as emperor of Bulgaria for eight months from 1330 to 1331. He was the eldest son of emperor Michael III Shishman and Anna Neda of Serbia, a daughter of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia. Ivan Stephen was descendent to the Terter dynasty, the Asen dynasty and the Shishman...

 out of the capital Tǎrnovo
Veliko Tarnovo
Veliko Tarnovo is a city in north central Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Veliko Tarnovo Province. Often referred to as the "City of the Tsars", Veliko Tarnovo is located on the Yantra River and is famous as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, attracting many tourists...

 in 1331, and the conspirators placed Ivan Alexander on the throne.

The new ruler set about consolidating his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire. In 1331 Ivan Alexander campaigned around Adrianople
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

 and reconquered northeastern Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

. Meanwhile, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia
Stephen Uroš IV Dušan the Mighty , was the King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks until his death on 20 December 1355. Dušan managed to conquer a large part of Southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs in his time...

 deposed his father Stefan Uroš III Dečanski
Stefan Uroš III Decanski of Serbia
Stephen Uroš III of Dečani was King of Serbia from January 6, 1322 to 8 September 1331. He defeated and killed several of his family members who wanted to take the throne from him. He took his epithet Dečanski from the great monastery he built at Dečani.-Early:He was the son of King Stefan Uroš II...

 and became Serbian king in 1331. This helped normalize the previously tense relations between the two countries. Ivan Alexander and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan concluded an alliance, which was cemented by the marriage of the Serbian king to Helena of Bulgaria
Helena of Bulgaria
Jelena or Helena of Bulgaria was the daughter of Sratsimir of Kran and Keratsa Petritsa and the sister of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

, a sister of Ivan Alexander, on Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 1332.

At about the same time, Belaur, a brother of Michael Asen III, rebelled in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...

, probably in support of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan's claim to the throne. The advance of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos, Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341, after being rival emperor since 1321. Andronikos III was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia...

 against Bulgaria in the summer of 1332 protracted military operations against the rebels. The Byzantines overran Bulgarian-controlled northeastern Thrace, but Ivan Alexander rushed southward with a small army and swiftly caught up with Andronikos III at Rusokastro.
After giving the impression that he wished to negotiate, Ivan Alexander, reinforced by Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

 cavalry, overwhelmed the smaller but better organized Byzantine army in the Battle of Rusokastro
Battle of Rusokastro
The Battle of Rusokastro occurred on July 18, 1332 near the village of Rusokastro, Bulgaria between the armies of the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires. The result was a Bulgarian victory.-Origins of the conflict:...

. The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander, while Andronikos III sought refuge within the walls of Rusokastro. The war ended with Ivan Alexander meeting Andronikos and agreeing a peace based on the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirene), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339. The Bulgarian emperor was now free to turn his attentions to Belaur, but it was not until 1336 or 1337 that the rebellion in the northwest was put down.

In about 1332 Ivan Alexander had crowned his eldest son Michael Asen IV co-emperor, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family. He followed up this traditional association with the coronation of his younger sons Ivan Sracimir
Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed...

 and Ivan Asen IV in 1337. Ivan Alexander may have intended the creation of two younger co-emperors to establish immediate control over important cities and regions, as Ivan Sracimir was eventually based in Vidin, and Ivan Asen IV perhaps in Preslav
Preslav
Preslav was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and one of the most important cities of medieval Southeastern Europe. The ruins of the city are situated in modern northeastern Bulgaria, some 20 kilometres southwest of the regional capital of Shumen, and are currently a...

. Nevertheless, this was a marked departure from Byzantine practice, in which younger sons of the sovereign were made despotēs, whether they were charged with a territorial administration or not.

Relations with the Byzantine Empire

In the early 1340s relations with the Byzantine Empire temporarily deteriorated. Ivan Alexander demanded the extradition of his cousin Šišman, one of the sons of Michael Asen III, threatening the Byzantine government with war. Ivan Alexander's show of force backfired, as the Byzantines managed to see through his intentions and sent against him the fleet of their ally, the Turkish emir of Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 Umur Beg. Landing in the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...

, the Turks of Umur Beg pillaged the countryside and attacked nearby Bulgarian cities. Forced to restrain his demands, Ivan Alexander invaded the Byzantine Empire again at the end of 1341, claiming that he was summoned by the people of Adrianople. However, Ivan Alexander's troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines near the city.

In 1341–1347 the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a protracted civil war
Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347
The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 was a conflict between supporters of designated regent John VI Kantakouzenos and guardians acting for John V Palaiologos, Emperor Andronikos III's nine-year-old son, in the persons of the Empress-dowager Anna of Savoy, the Patriarch of Constantinople John XIV...

 between the regency for Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 under Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna, was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second wife of Andronikos III Palaiologos.-Family:She was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and his second wife Maria of Brabant. Her maternal grandparents were John I, Duke of Brabant and Margaret of Flanders...

 and his intended guardian John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzenus was the Byzantine emperor from 1347 to 1354.-Early life:Born in Constantinople, John Kantakouzenos was the son of a Michael Kantakouzenos, governor of the Morea. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was a descendant of the reigning house of...

. The neighbours of the Byzantines took advantage of the civil war, and while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI Kantakouzenos, Ivan Alexander backed John V Palaiologos and his regency. Although the two Balkan rulers picked opposite sides in the Byzantine civil war, they maintained their alliance with each other. As the price for Ivan Alexander's support, the regency for John V Palaiologos ceded him the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

) and nine important fortresses in the Rhodope Mountains
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

 in 1344. This peaceful turnover constituted the last major success of Ivan Alexander's foreign policy.

Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat

During the same period, the Serbian king took advantage of the Byzantine civil war to take possession of what is now Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, and of most of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 and northern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. In 1345 he began to call himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks", and in 1346 he was crowned as such by the newly created Patriarch of Serbia
Patriarch of Serbia
This is a list of the Archbishops and Patriarchs of Peć and the Serbs from the creation of the church as an archdiocese in 1219 to today's Patriarchate. The list includes all the Archbishops and Patriarchs that led the Serbian Orthodox community under Patriarchate of Peć...

. These actions, which the Byzantines received with indignation, appear to have been supported by Bulgaria, as the Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon had participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan.

By the second half of the 1340s, little remained of Ivan Alexander's initial successes. John VI Kantakouzenos' Turkish allies pillaged parts of Bulgarian Thrace in 1346, 1347, 1349, 1352 and 1354, to which were added the ravages of the Black Death. The Bulgarians' attempts to repel the invaders met with repeated failure, and Ivan Alexander's third son and co-emperor, Ivan Asen IV, was killed in battle against the Turks in 1349, as was his older brother Michael Asen IV in 1355 or a little earlier.

By 1351 the Byzantine civil war was over, and John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the threat posed by the Ottomans to the Balkan Peninsula
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

. He appealed to the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria for a united effort against the Turks and asked Ivan Alexander for money to construct warships, but his appeals fell on deaf ears as his neighbours distrusted his intentions. A new attempt for cooperation between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire followed in 1355, after John VI Kantakouzenos had been forced to abdicate and John V Palaiologos had been established as supreme emperor. To cement the treaty, Ivan Alexander's daughter Keraca Marija
Keratsa of Bulgaria
Keratsa-Maria of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora.-Marriage:On 17 August 1355 Keratsa was betrothed to the future Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...

 was married off to the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor from 1376 to 1379.-Life:...

, but the alliance failed to produce concrete results.

Further stability problems and external conflicts

At home Ivan Alexander compromised the internal stability of his realm by divorcing his first wife Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia was the daughter of Basarab I of Wallachia and Lady Margareta. She married Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria as his first wife. This marriage produced four children — Michael Asen, Ivan Sratsimir, Ivan Asen and Vasilisa. In 1345 Tsar Ivan Alexander divorced Tsaritsa Theodora and...

 (in about 1349) and marrying a converted Jew, also named Theodora. The new marriage produced new sons, whom Ivan Alexander proceeded to crown co-emperors, Ivan Šišman in about 1356 and Ivan Asen V by 1359. Ivan Alexander's last surviving son from his first marriage, the co-emperor Ivan Sracimir, became effectively independent around 1356; and Ivan Alexander's control over other powerful vassals, such as the rulers of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

 and Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...

, who pursued their own foreign policies, was hardly stronger.

From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...

 king Louis I of Hungary, who annexed Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 in 1352 and established a vassal principality there, before conquering Vidin
Hungarian occupation of Vidin
The Hungarian occupation of Vidin was a period in the history of the city and region of Vidin, today in northwestern Bulgaria, when it was under the rule of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1365 to 1369....

 in 1365, and taking Ivan Sratsimir and his family into captivity.

In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364. In 1366, when Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 was returning from his trip to the west, the Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria. This stance backfired, as another Byzantine ally, Count Amadeus VI of Savoy
Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy
Amadeus VI , nicknamed the Green Count was Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383. He was the eldest son of Aimone, Count of Savoy and Yolande of Montferrat....

, leading the Savoyard crusade
Savoyard crusade
The Savoyard crusade was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade. It was the brainchild of Pope Urban V and was led by Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, against the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe...

, captured several Bulgarian maritime cities in retaliation, including Ankhialos (Pomorie
Pomorie
Pomorie is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, located on a narrow rocky peninsula in Burgas Bay on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is situated in Burgas Province, 20 km away from the city of Burgas and 18 km from the Sunny Beach resort. The ultrasaline lagoon...

) and Mesembria (Nesebǎr
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...

), though he failed to take Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...

. Outmanoeuvred, Ivan Alexander was forced to make peace.

The captured cities were turned over to the Byzantine Empire, while Emperor John V Palaiologos paid the sum of 180,000 florins
Italian coin florin
The Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of nominally pure gold worth approximately 200 modern US Dollars...

 to Ivan Alexander. The Bulgarian emperor used this sum and territorial concessions to induce his at least de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....

vassals Dobrotica
Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386....

 of Dobruja and Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of the Basarab dynasty, also known as Vlaicu-Vodă, was a ruler of the principality of Wallachia . He was a vassal of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander. In 1369 Vladislav I subdued Vidin and recognised Louis I of Hungary as his overlord in return for Severin, Amlaş, and Făgăraş...

 to reconquer Vidin from the Hungarians. The war was successful, and Ivan Sracimir was reinstalled in Vidin in 1369, although the Hungarian king forced him to acknowledge his overlordship.

The relatively successful resolution of the crisis in the northwest did nothing to help recover the losses in the southeast. To make matters worse, in 1369 (the date is disputed), the Ottoman Turks under Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 conquered Adrianople (in 1363) and made it the effective capital of their expanding state. At the same time, they also captured the Bulgarian cities of Philippopolis and Boruj (Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...

). As Bulgaria and the Serbian princes in Macedonia prepared for united action against the Turks, Ivan Alexander died on February 17, 1371. He was succeeded by his sons Ivan Sracimir in Vidin and Ivan Šišman in Tǎrnovo, while the rulers of Dobruja and Wallachia achieved further independence.

Culture and religion

During Ivan Alexander's rule, the Second Bulgarian Empire entered a period of cultural renaissance, which is sometimes referred to as the "Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture", the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe...

. A large number of Bulgarian monasteries and churches were constructed or renovated on the order of Ivan Alexander. Mural portraits of him as a donor
Donor portrait
A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family...

 can be seen in the Bachkovo Monastery
Bachkovo Monastery
The Bachkovo Monastery , archaically the Petritsoni Monastery or Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bulgaria is an important monument of Christian architecture and one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe...

's ossuary and in the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m...

. Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander prove that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during that period, as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik
Pernik
Pernik is a city in western Bulgaria with a population of 81,052 . It is the main city of Pernik Province and lies on both banks of the Struma River in the Pernik Valley between the Viskyar, Vitosha and Golo Bardo mountains.Originally the site of a Thracian fortress founded in the 4th century BC,...

, according to a Hilandar
Hilandar
Hilandar Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in 1198 by the first Serbian Archbishop Saint Sava and his father, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of the medieval Serbian principality of Raška...

 monastery deed. In addition, the tsar also initiated the construction of the Dragalevci
Dragalevtsi
Dragalevtsi is a quarter of Sofia, part of Vitosha municipality and situated in the southwestern part of the city, at the foot of the mountain of Vitosha...

 and Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo is a small town in central northern Bulgaria, administratively part of Veliko Tarnovo municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province. Previously a village, it was proclaimed a town in 1973....

 monasteries.

Literary activity also flourished during the reign of Ivan Alexander. Several important literary works were created in the period, such as the Middle Bulgarian
History of the Bulgarian language
The History of the Bulgarian language can be divided into four major periods:* prehistoric period ;...

 translation of the Manasses Chronicle
Constantine Manasses
Constantine Manasses was a Byzantine chronicler who flourished in the 12th century during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos . He was the author of a chronicle or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates , sponsored by Irene...

 (1344–1345), currently preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives
Vatican Secret Archives
The Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, having primal incumbency until death, owns the archives until the next appointed Papal successor...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, the richly illustrated Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356), now exhibited in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, the Tomić Psalter
Tomic Psalter
The Tomić Psalter is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. Produced around 1360, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, it is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Tarnovo literary and art school of the time...

 (1360), today in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and the Sofia Psalter
Sofia Psalter
The Sofia Psalter , also known as Ivan Alexander's Psalter or the Kuklen Psalter, is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. It was produced in 1337 and belonged to the royal family of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

 (1337).

Ivan Alexander's rule was also marked by efforts to strengthen the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Bulgarian Orthodox Church
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

 by pursuing heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 and Jews. He organized two anti-heretical church councils, in 1350 and 1359–1360, that condemned various sects such as the Bogomils
Bogomilism
Bogomilism was a Gnostic religiopolitical sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Petar I in the 10th century...

, the Adamites
Adamites
The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian sect that flourished in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, but knew later revivals.-Ancient Adamites:...

 and the Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...

.

The spiritual practice of hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...

, a form of incantatory prayer, deeply influenced certain areas of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 world of the 14th century. A notable Bulgarian representative of the movement during Ivan Alexander's reign was Theodosius of Tǎrnovo
Theodosius of Tarnovo
The Holy Venerable Theodosius of Tarnovo was a high-ranking 14th-century Bulgarian cleric and hermit and the person credited with establishing hesychasm in the Second Bulgarian Empire...

.

During this time, the Bulgarian Empire had trade relations with the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 maritime powers Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

, Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

 and Ragusa
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...

. In 1353, Ivan Alexander issued a charter allowing Venetian merchants to buy and sell goods throughout Bulgaria after Doge
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...

 Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo was elected the 54th doge of Venice in 1343, replacing Bartolomeo Gradenigo who died in late 1342....

 assured him they would observe the prior treaties between the two countries.

In modern times, the rule of Ivan Alexander inspired Bulgarian national writer Ivan Vazov
Ivan Vazov
Ivan Minchov Vazov was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria ....

 to write the novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 Ivan-Aleksandǎr and the drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Kǎm propast (Towards an Abyss), in both of which the tsar is the main character.

A piece of a garment signed by Ivan Alexander and interwoven with gold was discovered in a noble's grave near Pirot
Pirot
Pirot is a town and municipality located in south-eastern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a total population of 38,432, while the population of the municipality is 57,911...

 in the 1970s; today it is preserved in the National Museum of Serbia
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. It is the first find of its kind, demonstrating a medieval tradition attested in writing according to which Orthodox rulers would present their most eminent dignitaries with a piece of a garment they had worn.

Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point is the low rocky point on the southeast coast of Nelson Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, situated 7.34 km east of Ross Point, 8.64 km west-southwest of Duthoit Point, 4.17 km west-southwest of Slavotin Point and 1.73 km north-northeast of...

 on Nelson Island
Nelson Island (South Shetland Islands)
Nelson Island is an island long and wide, lying southwest of King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Nelson Island is located at...

 in the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria.

Family

By his first wife Theodora of Wallachia (nun Teofana), a daughter of Basarab of Wallachia, Ivan Alexander had several children, including Ivan Sracimir, who ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin 1356–1397, associated emperors Michael Asen IV (co-ruled c. 1332–1354/5) and Ivan Asen IV (co-ruled 1337–1349), and a daughter called Thamar (Kera Tamara), who was married first to the despotēs Constantine (Konstantin), and then to Sultan Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 of the Ottoman Empire.

By his second wife Sarah-Theodora, Ivan Alexander had several other children, which included Keraca Marija, who married the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Ivan Šišman, who succeeded as emperor of Bulgaria in Tǎrnovo 1371–1396, Ivan Asen V, associated as emperor of Bulgaria by 1359–1388?, as well as two daughters named Desislava and Vasilisa.

Timeline

Timeline

Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

) of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on February 17, 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. Ivan Alexander began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and Serbia
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...

, as well as leading his empire into a period of economic recovery and cultural and religious renaissance.

However, the emperor was later unable to cope with the mounting incursions of Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces, Hungarian invasions from the northwest and the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

. In an ill-fated attempt to combat these problems, he divided the country between his two sons, thus forcing it to face the imminent Ottoman conquest weakened and divided.

Early rule

Ivan Alexander was the son of the despotēs
Despotes
Despot , was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent...

Sracimir of Krǎn
Kran, Bulgaria
Kran is a town in central Bulgaria. It is located just south of the Balkan Mountains and is administratively part of Kazanlak Municipality, Stara Zagora Province. Kran was an important castle of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th–14th century...

 by Petrica
Keratsa Petritsa
Keratsa Petritsa was a Bulgarian noblewoman , sister of tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria. Her eldest son Ivan Alexander rose to the Bulgarian throne after vicissitudes of politics....

, a sister of Michael Asen III of Bulgaria
Michael Shishman of Bulgaria
Michael Asen III ), ruled as emperor of Bulgaria from 1323 to 1330. The exact year of his birth is unknown but it was between 1280 and 1292. He was the founder of the last ruling dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Shishman dynasty...

. Therefore, Ivan Alexander was a nephew of Michael Asen III. Paternally, Ivan Alexander descended from the Asen dynasty
Asen dynasty
The Asen dynasty ruled a medieval Bulgarian state, called in modern historiography the Second Bulgarian Empire, between 1187 and 1280.The Asen dynasty and the Second Bulgarian Empire rose as the leaders of a rebellion against the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the year 1185/1186 caused by the...

. By 1330 Ivan Alexander was himself a despotēs and governed the city of Loveč
Lovech
Lovech is a town in north-central Bulgaria with a population of 36,296 as of February 2011. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality. The town is located about 150 km northeast from the capital city of Sofia...

. Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab
Basarab I of Wallachia
Basarab I the Founder was voivode or prince of Wallachia . His rise seems to have taken place in the context of the war between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Orthodox states in the north of the Balkan Peninsula...

 of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, Ivan Alexander fought in the Battle of Velbǎžd against the Serbs at modern-day Kjustendil
Kyustendil
Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...

 in 1330, in which Bulgaria suffered defeat. The defeat, combined with the worsening relations with the Byzantine Empire, precipitated an internal crisis, which was exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines. A coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 drove Ivan Stefan
Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria
Ivan Stefan ruled as emperor of Bulgaria for eight months from 1330 to 1331. He was the eldest son of emperor Michael III Shishman and Anna Neda of Serbia, a daughter of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia. Ivan Stephen was descendent to the Terter dynasty, the Asen dynasty and the Shishman...

 out of the capital Tǎrnovo
Veliko Tarnovo
Veliko Tarnovo is a city in north central Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Veliko Tarnovo Province. Often referred to as the "City of the Tsars", Veliko Tarnovo is located on the Yantra River and is famous as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, attracting many tourists...

 in 1331, and the conspirators placed Ivan Alexander on the throne.

The new ruler set about consolidating his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire. In 1331 Ivan Alexander campaigned around Adrianople
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

 and reconquered northeastern Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

. Meanwhile, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia
Stephen Uroš IV Dušan the Mighty , was the King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks until his death on 20 December 1355. Dušan managed to conquer a large part of Southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs in his time...

 deposed his father Stefan Uroš III Dečanski
Stefan Uroš III Decanski of Serbia
Stephen Uroš III of Dečani was King of Serbia from January 6, 1322 to 8 September 1331. He defeated and killed several of his family members who wanted to take the throne from him. He took his epithet Dečanski from the great monastery he built at Dečani.-Early:He was the son of King Stefan Uroš II...

 and became Serbian king in 1331. This helped normalize the previously tense relations between the two countries. Ivan Alexander and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan concluded an alliance, which was cemented by the marriage of the Serbian king to Helena of Bulgaria
Helena of Bulgaria
Jelena or Helena of Bulgaria was the daughter of Sratsimir of Kran and Keratsa Petritsa and the sister of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

, a sister of Ivan Alexander, on Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 1332.

At about the same time, Belaur, a brother of Michael Asen III, rebelled in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...

, probably in support of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan's claim to the throne. The advance of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos, Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341, after being rival emperor since 1321. Andronikos III was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia...

 against Bulgaria in the summer of 1332 protracted military operations against the rebels. The Byzantines overran Bulgarian-controlled northeastern Thrace, but Ivan Alexander rushed southward with a small army and swiftly caught up with Andronikos III at Rusokastro.
After giving the impression that he wished to negotiate, Ivan Alexander, reinforced by Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

 cavalry, overwhelmed the smaller but better organized Byzantine army in the Battle of Rusokastro
Battle of Rusokastro
The Battle of Rusokastro occurred on July 18, 1332 near the village of Rusokastro, Bulgaria between the armies of the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires. The result was a Bulgarian victory.-Origins of the conflict:...

. The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander, while Andronikos III sought refuge within the walls of Rusokastro. The war ended with Ivan Alexander meeting Andronikos and agreeing a peace based on the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirene), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339. The Bulgarian emperor was now free to turn his attentions to Belaur, but it was not until 1336 or 1337 that the rebellion in the northwest was put down.

In about 1332 Ivan Alexander had crowned his eldest son Michael Asen IV co-emperor, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family. He followed up this traditional association with the coronation of his younger sons Ivan Sracimir
Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed...

 and Ivan Asen IV in 1337. Ivan Alexander may have intended the creation of two younger co-emperors to establish immediate control over important cities and regions, as Ivan Sracimir was eventually based in Vidin, and Ivan Asen IV perhaps in Preslav
Preslav
Preslav was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and one of the most important cities of medieval Southeastern Europe. The ruins of the city are situated in modern northeastern Bulgaria, some 20 kilometres southwest of the regional capital of Shumen, and are currently a...

. Nevertheless, this was a marked departure from Byzantine practice, in which younger sons of the sovereign were made despotēs, whether they were charged with a territorial administration or not.

Relations with the Byzantine Empire

In the early 1340s relations with the Byzantine Empire temporarily deteriorated. Ivan Alexander demanded the extradition of his cousin Šišman, one of the sons of Michael Asen III, threatening the Byzantine government with war. Ivan Alexander's show of force backfired, as the Byzantines managed to see through his intentions and sent against him the fleet of their ally, the Turkish emir of Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 Umur Beg. Landing in the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...

, the Turks of Umur Beg pillaged the countryside and attacked nearby Bulgarian cities. Forced to restrain his demands, Ivan Alexander invaded the Byzantine Empire again at the end of 1341, claiming that he was summoned by the people of Adrianople. However, Ivan Alexander's troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines near the city.

In 1341–1347 the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a protracted civil war
Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347
The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 was a conflict between supporters of designated regent John VI Kantakouzenos and guardians acting for John V Palaiologos, Emperor Andronikos III's nine-year-old son, in the persons of the Empress-dowager Anna of Savoy, the Patriarch of Constantinople John XIV...

 between the regency for Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 under Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna, was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second wife of Andronikos III Palaiologos.-Family:She was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and his second wife Maria of Brabant. Her maternal grandparents were John I, Duke of Brabant and Margaret of Flanders...

 and his intended guardian John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzenus was the Byzantine emperor from 1347 to 1354.-Early life:Born in Constantinople, John Kantakouzenos was the son of a Michael Kantakouzenos, governor of the Morea. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was a descendant of the reigning house of...

. The neighbours of the Byzantines took advantage of the civil war, and while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI Kantakouzenos, Ivan Alexander backed John V Palaiologos and his regency. Although the two Balkan rulers picked opposite sides in the Byzantine civil war, they maintained their alliance with each other. As the price for Ivan Alexander's support, the regency for John V Palaiologos ceded him the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

) and nine important fortresses in the Rhodope Mountains
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

 in 1344. This peaceful turnover constituted the last major success of Ivan Alexander's foreign policy.

Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat

During the same period, the Serbian king took advantage of the Byzantine civil war to take possession of what is now Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, and of most of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 and northern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. In 1345 he began to call himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks", and in 1346 he was crowned as such by the newly created Patriarch of Serbia
Patriarch of Serbia
This is a list of the Archbishops and Patriarchs of Peć and the Serbs from the creation of the church as an archdiocese in 1219 to today's Patriarchate. The list includes all the Archbishops and Patriarchs that led the Serbian Orthodox community under Patriarchate of Peć...

. These actions, which the Byzantines received with indignation, appear to have been supported by Bulgaria, as the Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon had participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan.

By the second half of the 1340s, little remained of Ivan Alexander's initial successes. John VI Kantakouzenos' Turkish allies pillaged parts of Bulgarian Thrace in 1346, 1347, 1349, 1352 and 1354, to which were added the ravages of the Black Death. The Bulgarians' attempts to repel the invaders met with repeated failure, and Ivan Alexander's third son and co-emperor, Ivan Asen IV, was killed in battle against the Turks in 1349, as was his older brother Michael Asen IV in 1355 or a little earlier.

By 1351 the Byzantine civil war was over, and John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the threat posed by the Ottomans to the Balkan Peninsula
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

. He appealed to the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria for a united effort against the Turks and asked Ivan Alexander for money to construct warships, but his appeals fell on deaf ears as his neighbours distrusted his intentions. A new attempt for cooperation between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire followed in 1355, after John VI Kantakouzenos had been forced to abdicate and John V Palaiologos had been established as supreme emperor. To cement the treaty, Ivan Alexander's daughter Keraca Marija
Keratsa of Bulgaria
Keratsa-Maria of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora.-Marriage:On 17 August 1355 Keratsa was betrothed to the future Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...

 was married off to the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor from 1376 to 1379.-Life:...

, but the alliance failed to produce concrete results.

Further stability problems and external conflicts

At home Ivan Alexander compromised the internal stability of his realm by divorcing his first wife Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia was the daughter of Basarab I of Wallachia and Lady Margareta. She married Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria as his first wife. This marriage produced four children — Michael Asen, Ivan Sratsimir, Ivan Asen and Vasilisa. In 1345 Tsar Ivan Alexander divorced Tsaritsa Theodora and...

 (in about 1349) and marrying a converted Jew, also named Theodora. The new marriage produced new sons, whom Ivan Alexander proceeded to crown co-emperors, Ivan Šišman in about 1356 and Ivan Asen V by 1359. Ivan Alexander's last surviving son from his first marriage, the co-emperor Ivan Sracimir, became effectively independent around 1356; and Ivan Alexander's control over other powerful vassals, such as the rulers of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

 and Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...

, who pursued their own foreign policies, was hardly stronger.

From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...

 king Louis I of Hungary, who annexed Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 in 1352 and established a vassal principality there, before conquering Vidin
Hungarian occupation of Vidin
The Hungarian occupation of Vidin was a period in the history of the city and region of Vidin, today in northwestern Bulgaria, when it was under the rule of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1365 to 1369....

 in 1365, and taking Ivan Sratsimir and his family into captivity.

In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364. In 1366, when Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 was returning from his trip to the west, the Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria. This stance backfired, as another Byzantine ally, Count Amadeus VI of Savoy
Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy
Amadeus VI , nicknamed the Green Count was Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383. He was the eldest son of Aimone, Count of Savoy and Yolande of Montferrat....

, leading the Savoyard crusade
Savoyard crusade
The Savoyard crusade was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade. It was the brainchild of Pope Urban V and was led by Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, against the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe...

, captured several Bulgarian maritime cities in retaliation, including Ankhialos (Pomorie
Pomorie
Pomorie is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, located on a narrow rocky peninsula in Burgas Bay on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is situated in Burgas Province, 20 km away from the city of Burgas and 18 km from the Sunny Beach resort. The ultrasaline lagoon...

) and Mesembria (Nesebǎr
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...

), though he failed to take Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...

. Outmanoeuvred, Ivan Alexander was forced to make peace.

The captured cities were turned over to the Byzantine Empire, while Emperor John V Palaiologos paid the sum of 180,000 florins
Italian coin florin
The Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of nominally pure gold worth approximately 200 modern US Dollars...

 to Ivan Alexander. The Bulgarian emperor used this sum and territorial concessions to induce his at least de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....

vassals Dobrotica
Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386....

 of Dobruja and Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of the Basarab dynasty, also known as Vlaicu-Vodă, was a ruler of the principality of Wallachia . He was a vassal of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander. In 1369 Vladislav I subdued Vidin and recognised Louis I of Hungary as his overlord in return for Severin, Amlaş, and Făgăraş...

 to reconquer Vidin from the Hungarians. The war was successful, and Ivan Sracimir was reinstalled in Vidin in 1369, although the Hungarian king forced him to acknowledge his overlordship.

The relatively successful resolution of the crisis in the northwest did nothing to help recover the losses in the southeast. To make matters worse, in 1369 (the date is disputed), the Ottoman Turks under Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 conquered Adrianople (in 1363) and made it the effective capital of their expanding state. At the same time, they also captured the Bulgarian cities of Philippopolis and Boruj (Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...

). As Bulgaria and the Serbian princes in Macedonia prepared for united action against the Turks, Ivan Alexander died on February 17, 1371. He was succeeded by his sons Ivan Sracimir in Vidin and Ivan Šišman in Tǎrnovo, while the rulers of Dobruja and Wallachia achieved further independence.

Culture and religion

During Ivan Alexander's rule, the Second Bulgarian Empire entered a period of cultural renaissance, which is sometimes referred to as the "Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture", the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe...

. A large number of Bulgarian monasteries and churches were constructed or renovated on the order of Ivan Alexander. Mural portraits of him as a donor
Donor portrait
A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family...

 can be seen in the Bachkovo Monastery
Bachkovo Monastery
The Bachkovo Monastery , archaically the Petritsoni Monastery or Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bulgaria is an important monument of Christian architecture and one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe...

's ossuary and in the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m...

. Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander prove that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during that period, as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik
Pernik
Pernik is a city in western Bulgaria with a population of 81,052 . It is the main city of Pernik Province and lies on both banks of the Struma River in the Pernik Valley between the Viskyar, Vitosha and Golo Bardo mountains.Originally the site of a Thracian fortress founded in the 4th century BC,...

, according to a Hilandar
Hilandar
Hilandar Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in 1198 by the first Serbian Archbishop Saint Sava and his father, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of the medieval Serbian principality of Raška...

 monastery deed. In addition, the tsar also initiated the construction of the Dragalevci
Dragalevtsi
Dragalevtsi is a quarter of Sofia, part of Vitosha municipality and situated in the southwestern part of the city, at the foot of the mountain of Vitosha...

 and Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo is a small town in central northern Bulgaria, administratively part of Veliko Tarnovo municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province. Previously a village, it was proclaimed a town in 1973....

 monasteries.

Literary activity also flourished during the reign of Ivan Alexander. Several important literary works were created in the period, such as the Middle Bulgarian
History of the Bulgarian language
The History of the Bulgarian language can be divided into four major periods:* prehistoric period ;...

 translation of the Manasses Chronicle
Constantine Manasses
Constantine Manasses was a Byzantine chronicler who flourished in the 12th century during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos . He was the author of a chronicle or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates , sponsored by Irene...

 (1344–1345), currently preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives
Vatican Secret Archives
The Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, having primal incumbency until death, owns the archives until the next appointed Papal successor...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, the richly illustrated Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356), now exhibited in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, the Tomić Psalter
Tomic Psalter
The Tomić Psalter is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. Produced around 1360, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, it is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Tarnovo literary and art school of the time...

 (1360), today in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and the Sofia Psalter
Sofia Psalter
The Sofia Psalter , also known as Ivan Alexander's Psalter or the Kuklen Psalter, is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. It was produced in 1337 and belonged to the royal family of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

 (1337).

Ivan Alexander's rule was also marked by efforts to strengthen the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Bulgarian Orthodox Church
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

 by pursuing heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 and Jews. He organized two anti-heretical church councils, in 1350 and 1359–1360, that condemned various sects such as the Bogomils
Bogomilism
Bogomilism was a Gnostic religiopolitical sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Petar I in the 10th century...

, the Adamites
Adamites
The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian sect that flourished in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, but knew later revivals.-Ancient Adamites:...

 and the Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...

.

The spiritual practice of hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...

, a form of incantatory prayer, deeply influenced certain areas of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 world of the 14th century. A notable Bulgarian representative of the movement during Ivan Alexander's reign was Theodosius of Tǎrnovo
Theodosius of Tarnovo
The Holy Venerable Theodosius of Tarnovo was a high-ranking 14th-century Bulgarian cleric and hermit and the person credited with establishing hesychasm in the Second Bulgarian Empire...

.

During this time, the Bulgarian Empire had trade relations with the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 maritime powers Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

, Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

 and Ragusa
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...

. In 1353, Ivan Alexander issued a charter allowing Venetian merchants to buy and sell goods throughout Bulgaria after Doge
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...

 Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo was elected the 54th doge of Venice in 1343, replacing Bartolomeo Gradenigo who died in late 1342....

 assured him they would observe the prior treaties between the two countries.

In modern times, the rule of Ivan Alexander inspired Bulgarian national writer Ivan Vazov
Ivan Vazov
Ivan Minchov Vazov was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria ....

 to write the novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 Ivan-Aleksandǎr and the drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Kǎm propast (Towards an Abyss), in both of which the tsar is the main character.

A piece of a garment signed by Ivan Alexander and interwoven with gold was discovered in a noble's grave near Pirot
Pirot
Pirot is a town and municipality located in south-eastern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a total population of 38,432, while the population of the municipality is 57,911...

 in the 1970s; today it is preserved in the National Museum of Serbia
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. It is the first find of its kind, demonstrating a medieval tradition attested in writing according to which Orthodox rulers would present their most eminent dignitaries with a piece of a garment they had worn.

Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point is the low rocky point on the southeast coast of Nelson Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, situated 7.34 km east of Ross Point, 8.64 km west-southwest of Duthoit Point, 4.17 km west-southwest of Slavotin Point and 1.73 km north-northeast of...

 on Nelson Island
Nelson Island (South Shetland Islands)
Nelson Island is an island long and wide, lying southwest of King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Nelson Island is located at...

 in the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria.

Family

By his first wife Theodora of Wallachia (nun Teofana), a daughter of Basarab of Wallachia, Ivan Alexander had several children, including Ivan Sracimir, who ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin 1356–1397, associated emperors Michael Asen IV (co-ruled c. 1332–1354/5) and Ivan Asen IV (co-ruled 1337–1349), and a daughter called Thamar (Kera Tamara), who was married first to the despotēs Constantine (Konstantin), and then to Sultan Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 of the Ottoman Empire.

By his second wife Sarah-Theodora, Ivan Alexander had several other children, which included Keraca Marija, who married the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Ivan Šišman, who succeeded as emperor of Bulgaria in Tǎrnovo 1371–1396, Ivan Asen V, associated as emperor of Bulgaria by 1359–1388?, as well as two daughters named Desislava and Vasilisa.

Timeline

Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

) of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on February 17, 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. Ivan Alexander began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and Serbia
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...

, as well as leading his empire into a period of economic recovery and cultural and religious renaissance.

However, the emperor was later unable to cope with the mounting incursions of Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces, Hungarian invasions from the northwest and the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

. In an ill-fated attempt to combat these problems, he divided the country between his two sons, thus forcing it to face the imminent Ottoman conquest weakened and divided.

Early rule

Ivan Alexander was the son of the despotēs
Despotes
Despot , was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent...

Sracimir of Krǎn
Kran, Bulgaria
Kran is a town in central Bulgaria. It is located just south of the Balkan Mountains and is administratively part of Kazanlak Municipality, Stara Zagora Province. Kran was an important castle of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th–14th century...

 by Petrica
Keratsa Petritsa
Keratsa Petritsa was a Bulgarian noblewoman , sister of tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria. Her eldest son Ivan Alexander rose to the Bulgarian throne after vicissitudes of politics....

, a sister of Michael Asen III of Bulgaria
Michael Shishman of Bulgaria
Michael Asen III ), ruled as emperor of Bulgaria from 1323 to 1330. The exact year of his birth is unknown but it was between 1280 and 1292. He was the founder of the last ruling dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Shishman dynasty...

. Therefore, Ivan Alexander was a nephew of Michael Asen III. Paternally, Ivan Alexander descended from the Asen dynasty
Asen dynasty
The Asen dynasty ruled a medieval Bulgarian state, called in modern historiography the Second Bulgarian Empire, between 1187 and 1280.The Asen dynasty and the Second Bulgarian Empire rose as the leaders of a rebellion against the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the year 1185/1186 caused by the...

. By 1330 Ivan Alexander was himself a despotēs and governed the city of Loveč
Lovech
Lovech is a town in north-central Bulgaria with a population of 36,296 as of February 2011. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality. The town is located about 150 km northeast from the capital city of Sofia...

. Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab
Basarab I of Wallachia
Basarab I the Founder was voivode or prince of Wallachia . His rise seems to have taken place in the context of the war between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Orthodox states in the north of the Balkan Peninsula...

 of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, Ivan Alexander fought in the Battle of Velbǎžd against the Serbs at modern-day Kjustendil
Kyustendil
Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...

 in 1330, in which Bulgaria suffered defeat. The defeat, combined with the worsening relations with the Byzantine Empire, precipitated an internal crisis, which was exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines. A coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 drove Ivan Stefan
Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria
Ivan Stefan ruled as emperor of Bulgaria for eight months from 1330 to 1331. He was the eldest son of emperor Michael III Shishman and Anna Neda of Serbia, a daughter of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia. Ivan Stephen was descendent to the Terter dynasty, the Asen dynasty and the Shishman...

 out of the capital Tǎrnovo
Veliko Tarnovo
Veliko Tarnovo is a city in north central Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Veliko Tarnovo Province. Often referred to as the "City of the Tsars", Veliko Tarnovo is located on the Yantra River and is famous as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, attracting many tourists...

 in 1331, and the conspirators placed Ivan Alexander on the throne.

The new ruler set about consolidating his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire. In 1331 Ivan Alexander campaigned around Adrianople
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

 and reconquered northeastern Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

. Meanwhile, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia
Stephen Uroš IV Dušan the Mighty , was the King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks until his death on 20 December 1355. Dušan managed to conquer a large part of Southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs in his time...

 deposed his father Stefan Uroš III Dečanski
Stefan Uroš III Decanski of Serbia
Stephen Uroš III of Dečani was King of Serbia from January 6, 1322 to 8 September 1331. He defeated and killed several of his family members who wanted to take the throne from him. He took his epithet Dečanski from the great monastery he built at Dečani.-Early:He was the son of King Stefan Uroš II...

 and became Serbian king in 1331. This helped normalize the previously tense relations between the two countries. Ivan Alexander and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan concluded an alliance, which was cemented by the marriage of the Serbian king to Helena of Bulgaria
Helena of Bulgaria
Jelena or Helena of Bulgaria was the daughter of Sratsimir of Kran and Keratsa Petritsa and the sister of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

, a sister of Ivan Alexander, on Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 1332.

At about the same time, Belaur, a brother of Michael Asen III, rebelled in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...

, probably in support of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan's claim to the throne. The advance of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos, Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341, after being rival emperor since 1321. Andronikos III was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia...

 against Bulgaria in the summer of 1332 protracted military operations against the rebels. The Byzantines overran Bulgarian-controlled northeastern Thrace, but Ivan Alexander rushed southward with a small army and swiftly caught up with Andronikos III at Rusokastro.
After giving the impression that he wished to negotiate, Ivan Alexander, reinforced by Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

 cavalry, overwhelmed the smaller but better organized Byzantine army in the Battle of Rusokastro
Battle of Rusokastro
The Battle of Rusokastro occurred on July 18, 1332 near the village of Rusokastro, Bulgaria between the armies of the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires. The result was a Bulgarian victory.-Origins of the conflict:...

. The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander, while Andronikos III sought refuge within the walls of Rusokastro. The war ended with Ivan Alexander meeting Andronikos and agreeing a peace based on the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirene), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339. The Bulgarian emperor was now free to turn his attentions to Belaur, but it was not until 1336 or 1337 that the rebellion in the northwest was put down.

In about 1332 Ivan Alexander had crowned his eldest son Michael Asen IV co-emperor, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family. He followed up this traditional association with the coronation of his younger sons Ivan Sracimir
Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed...

 and Ivan Asen IV in 1337. Ivan Alexander may have intended the creation of two younger co-emperors to establish immediate control over important cities and regions, as Ivan Sracimir was eventually based in Vidin, and Ivan Asen IV perhaps in Preslav
Preslav
Preslav was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and one of the most important cities of medieval Southeastern Europe. The ruins of the city are situated in modern northeastern Bulgaria, some 20 kilometres southwest of the regional capital of Shumen, and are currently a...

. Nevertheless, this was a marked departure from Byzantine practice, in which younger sons of the sovereign were made despotēs, whether they were charged with a territorial administration or not.

Relations with the Byzantine Empire

In the early 1340s relations with the Byzantine Empire temporarily deteriorated. Ivan Alexander demanded the extradition of his cousin Šišman, one of the sons of Michael Asen III, threatening the Byzantine government with war. Ivan Alexander's show of force backfired, as the Byzantines managed to see through his intentions and sent against him the fleet of their ally, the Turkish emir of Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 Umur Beg. Landing in the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...

, the Turks of Umur Beg pillaged the countryside and attacked nearby Bulgarian cities. Forced to restrain his demands, Ivan Alexander invaded the Byzantine Empire again at the end of 1341, claiming that he was summoned by the people of Adrianople. However, Ivan Alexander's troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines near the city.

In 1341–1347 the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a protracted civil war
Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347
The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 was a conflict between supporters of designated regent John VI Kantakouzenos and guardians acting for John V Palaiologos, Emperor Andronikos III's nine-year-old son, in the persons of the Empress-dowager Anna of Savoy, the Patriarch of Constantinople John XIV...

 between the regency for Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 under Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna, was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second wife of Andronikos III Palaiologos.-Family:She was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and his second wife Maria of Brabant. Her maternal grandparents were John I, Duke of Brabant and Margaret of Flanders...

 and his intended guardian John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzenus was the Byzantine emperor from 1347 to 1354.-Early life:Born in Constantinople, John Kantakouzenos was the son of a Michael Kantakouzenos, governor of the Morea. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was a descendant of the reigning house of...

. The neighbours of the Byzantines took advantage of the civil war, and while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI Kantakouzenos, Ivan Alexander backed John V Palaiologos and his regency. Although the two Balkan rulers picked opposite sides in the Byzantine civil war, they maintained their alliance with each other. As the price for Ivan Alexander's support, the regency for John V Palaiologos ceded him the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

) and nine important fortresses in the Rhodope Mountains
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

 in 1344. This peaceful turnover constituted the last major success of Ivan Alexander's foreign policy.

Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat

During the same period, the Serbian king took advantage of the Byzantine civil war to take possession of what is now Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, and of most of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 and northern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. In 1345 he began to call himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks", and in 1346 he was crowned as such by the newly created Patriarch of Serbia
Patriarch of Serbia
This is a list of the Archbishops and Patriarchs of Peć and the Serbs from the creation of the church as an archdiocese in 1219 to today's Patriarchate. The list includes all the Archbishops and Patriarchs that led the Serbian Orthodox community under Patriarchate of Peć...

. These actions, which the Byzantines received with indignation, appear to have been supported by Bulgaria, as the Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon had participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan.

By the second half of the 1340s, little remained of Ivan Alexander's initial successes. John VI Kantakouzenos' Turkish allies pillaged parts of Bulgarian Thrace in 1346, 1347, 1349, 1352 and 1354, to which were added the ravages of the Black Death. The Bulgarians' attempts to repel the invaders met with repeated failure, and Ivan Alexander's third son and co-emperor, Ivan Asen IV, was killed in battle against the Turks in 1349, as was his older brother Michael Asen IV in 1355 or a little earlier.

By 1351 the Byzantine civil war was over, and John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the threat posed by the Ottomans to the Balkan Peninsula
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

. He appealed to the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria for a united effort against the Turks and asked Ivan Alexander for money to construct warships, but his appeals fell on deaf ears as his neighbours distrusted his intentions. A new attempt for cooperation between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire followed in 1355, after John VI Kantakouzenos had been forced to abdicate and John V Palaiologos had been established as supreme emperor. To cement the treaty, Ivan Alexander's daughter Keraca Marija
Keratsa of Bulgaria
Keratsa-Maria of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora.-Marriage:On 17 August 1355 Keratsa was betrothed to the future Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...

 was married off to the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor from 1376 to 1379.-Life:...

, but the alliance failed to produce concrete results.

Further stability problems and external conflicts

At home Ivan Alexander compromised the internal stability of his realm by divorcing his first wife Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia was the daughter of Basarab I of Wallachia and Lady Margareta. She married Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria as his first wife. This marriage produced four children — Michael Asen, Ivan Sratsimir, Ivan Asen and Vasilisa. In 1345 Tsar Ivan Alexander divorced Tsaritsa Theodora and...

 (in about 1349) and marrying a converted Jew, also named Theodora. The new marriage produced new sons, whom Ivan Alexander proceeded to crown co-emperors, Ivan Šišman in about 1356 and Ivan Asen V by 1359. Ivan Alexander's last surviving son from his first marriage, the co-emperor Ivan Sracimir, became effectively independent around 1356; and Ivan Alexander's control over other powerful vassals, such as the rulers of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

 and Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...

, who pursued their own foreign policies, was hardly stronger.

From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...

 king Louis I of Hungary, who annexed Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 in 1352 and established a vassal principality there, before conquering Vidin
Hungarian occupation of Vidin
The Hungarian occupation of Vidin was a period in the history of the city and region of Vidin, today in northwestern Bulgaria, when it was under the rule of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1365 to 1369....

 in 1365, and taking Ivan Sratsimir and his family into captivity.

In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364. In 1366, when Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 was returning from his trip to the west, the Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria. This stance backfired, as another Byzantine ally, Count Amadeus VI of Savoy
Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy
Amadeus VI , nicknamed the Green Count was Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383. He was the eldest son of Aimone, Count of Savoy and Yolande of Montferrat....

, leading the Savoyard crusade
Savoyard crusade
The Savoyard crusade was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade. It was the brainchild of Pope Urban V and was led by Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, against the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe...

, captured several Bulgarian maritime cities in retaliation, including Ankhialos (Pomorie
Pomorie
Pomorie is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, located on a narrow rocky peninsula in Burgas Bay on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is situated in Burgas Province, 20 km away from the city of Burgas and 18 km from the Sunny Beach resort. The ultrasaline lagoon...

) and Mesembria (Nesebǎr
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...

), though he failed to take Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...

. Outmanoeuvred, Ivan Alexander was forced to make peace.

The captured cities were turned over to the Byzantine Empire, while Emperor John V Palaiologos paid the sum of 180,000 florins
Italian coin florin
The Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of nominally pure gold worth approximately 200 modern US Dollars...

 to Ivan Alexander. The Bulgarian emperor used this sum and territorial concessions to induce his at least de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....

vassals Dobrotica
Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386....

 of Dobruja and Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of the Basarab dynasty, also known as Vlaicu-Vodă, was a ruler of the principality of Wallachia . He was a vassal of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander. In 1369 Vladislav I subdued Vidin and recognised Louis I of Hungary as his overlord in return for Severin, Amlaş, and Făgăraş...

 to reconquer Vidin from the Hungarians. The war was successful, and Ivan Sracimir was reinstalled in Vidin in 1369, although the Hungarian king forced him to acknowledge his overlordship.

The relatively successful resolution of the crisis in the northwest did nothing to help recover the losses in the southeast. To make matters worse, in 1369 (the date is disputed), the Ottoman Turks under Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 conquered Adrianople (in 1363) and made it the effective capital of their expanding state. At the same time, they also captured the Bulgarian cities of Philippopolis and Boruj (Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...

). As Bulgaria and the Serbian princes in Macedonia prepared for united action against the Turks, Ivan Alexander died on February 17, 1371. He was succeeded by his sons Ivan Sracimir in Vidin and Ivan Šišman in Tǎrnovo, while the rulers of Dobruja and Wallachia achieved further independence.

Culture and religion

During Ivan Alexander's rule, the Second Bulgarian Empire entered a period of cultural renaissance, which is sometimes referred to as the "Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture", the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe...

. A large number of Bulgarian monasteries and churches were constructed or renovated on the order of Ivan Alexander. Mural portraits of him as a donor
Donor portrait
A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family...

 can be seen in the Bachkovo Monastery
Bachkovo Monastery
The Bachkovo Monastery , archaically the Petritsoni Monastery or Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bulgaria is an important monument of Christian architecture and one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe...

's ossuary and in the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m...

. Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander prove that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during that period, as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik
Pernik
Pernik is a city in western Bulgaria with a population of 81,052 . It is the main city of Pernik Province and lies on both banks of the Struma River in the Pernik Valley between the Viskyar, Vitosha and Golo Bardo mountains.Originally the site of a Thracian fortress founded in the 4th century BC,...

, according to a Hilandar
Hilandar
Hilandar Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in 1198 by the first Serbian Archbishop Saint Sava and his father, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of the medieval Serbian principality of Raška...

 monastery deed. In addition, the tsar also initiated the construction of the Dragalevci
Dragalevtsi
Dragalevtsi is a quarter of Sofia, part of Vitosha municipality and situated in the southwestern part of the city, at the foot of the mountain of Vitosha...

 and Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo is a small town in central northern Bulgaria, administratively part of Veliko Tarnovo municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province. Previously a village, it was proclaimed a town in 1973....

 monasteries.

Literary activity also flourished during the reign of Ivan Alexander. Several important literary works were created in the period, such as the Middle Bulgarian
History of the Bulgarian language
The History of the Bulgarian language can be divided into four major periods:* prehistoric period ;...

 translation of the Manasses Chronicle
Constantine Manasses
Constantine Manasses was a Byzantine chronicler who flourished in the 12th century during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos . He was the author of a chronicle or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates , sponsored by Irene...

 (1344–1345), currently preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives
Vatican Secret Archives
The Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, having primal incumbency until death, owns the archives until the next appointed Papal successor...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, the richly illustrated Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356), now exhibited in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, the Tomić Psalter
Tomic Psalter
The Tomić Psalter is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. Produced around 1360, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, it is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Tarnovo literary and art school of the time...

 (1360), today in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and the Sofia Psalter
Sofia Psalter
The Sofia Psalter , also known as Ivan Alexander's Psalter or the Kuklen Psalter, is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. It was produced in 1337 and belonged to the royal family of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

 (1337).

Ivan Alexander's rule was also marked by efforts to strengthen the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Bulgarian Orthodox Church
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

 by pursuing heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 and Jews. He organized two anti-heretical church councils, in 1350 and 1359–1360, that condemned various sects such as the Bogomils
Bogomilism
Bogomilism was a Gnostic religiopolitical sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Petar I in the 10th century...

, the Adamites
Adamites
The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian sect that flourished in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, but knew later revivals.-Ancient Adamites:...

 and the Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...

.

The spiritual practice of hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...

, a form of incantatory prayer, deeply influenced certain areas of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 world of the 14th century. A notable Bulgarian representative of the movement during Ivan Alexander's reign was Theodosius of Tǎrnovo
Theodosius of Tarnovo
The Holy Venerable Theodosius of Tarnovo was a high-ranking 14th-century Bulgarian cleric and hermit and the person credited with establishing hesychasm in the Second Bulgarian Empire...

.

During this time, the Bulgarian Empire had trade relations with the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 maritime powers Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

, Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

 and Ragusa
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...

. In 1353, Ivan Alexander issued a charter allowing Venetian merchants to buy and sell goods throughout Bulgaria after Doge
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...

 Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo was elected the 54th doge of Venice in 1343, replacing Bartolomeo Gradenigo who died in late 1342....

 assured him they would observe the prior treaties between the two countries.

In modern times, the rule of Ivan Alexander inspired Bulgarian national writer Ivan Vazov
Ivan Vazov
Ivan Minchov Vazov was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria ....

 to write the novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 Ivan-Aleksandǎr and the drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Kǎm propast (Towards an Abyss), in both of which the tsar is the main character.

A piece of a garment signed by Ivan Alexander and interwoven with gold was discovered in a noble's grave near Pirot
Pirot
Pirot is a town and municipality located in south-eastern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a total population of 38,432, while the population of the municipality is 57,911...

 in the 1970s; today it is preserved in the National Museum of Serbia
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. It is the first find of its kind, demonstrating a medieval tradition attested in writing according to which Orthodox rulers would present their most eminent dignitaries with a piece of a garment they had worn.

Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point is the low rocky point on the southeast coast of Nelson Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, situated 7.34 km east of Ross Point, 8.64 km west-southwest of Duthoit Point, 4.17 km west-southwest of Slavotin Point and 1.73 km north-northeast of...

 on Nelson Island
Nelson Island (South Shetland Islands)
Nelson Island is an island long and wide, lying southwest of King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Nelson Island is located at...

 in the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria.

Family

By his first wife Theodora of Wallachia (nun Teofana), a daughter of Basarab of Wallachia, Ivan Alexander had several children, including Ivan Sracimir, who ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin 1356–1397, associated emperors Michael Asen IV (co-ruled c. 1332–1354/5) and Ivan Asen IV (co-ruled 1337–1349), and a daughter called Thamar (Kera Tamara), who was married first to the despotēs Constantine (Konstantin), and then to Sultan Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 of the Ottoman Empire.

By his second wife Sarah-Theodora, Ivan Alexander had several other children, which included Keraca Marija, who married the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Ivan Šišman, who succeeded as emperor of Bulgaria in Tǎrnovo 1371–1396, Ivan Asen V, associated as emperor of Bulgaria by 1359–1388?, as well as two daughters named Desislava and Vasilisa.

Timeline

Timeline

Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

) of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on February 17, 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. Ivan Alexander began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and Serbia
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...

, as well as leading his empire into a period of economic recovery and cultural and religious renaissance.

However, the emperor was later unable to cope with the mounting incursions of Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces, Hungarian invasions from the northwest and the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

. In an ill-fated attempt to combat these problems, he divided the country between his two sons, thus forcing it to face the imminent Ottoman conquest weakened and divided.

Early rule

Ivan Alexander was the son of the despotēs
Despotes
Despot , was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent...

Sracimir of Krǎn
Kran, Bulgaria
Kran is a town in central Bulgaria. It is located just south of the Balkan Mountains and is administratively part of Kazanlak Municipality, Stara Zagora Province. Kran was an important castle of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th–14th century...

 by Petrica
Keratsa Petritsa
Keratsa Petritsa was a Bulgarian noblewoman , sister of tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria. Her eldest son Ivan Alexander rose to the Bulgarian throne after vicissitudes of politics....

, a sister of Michael Asen III of Bulgaria
Michael Shishman of Bulgaria
Michael Asen III ), ruled as emperor of Bulgaria from 1323 to 1330. The exact year of his birth is unknown but it was between 1280 and 1292. He was the founder of the last ruling dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Shishman dynasty...

. Therefore, Ivan Alexander was a nephew of Michael Asen III. Paternally, Ivan Alexander descended from the Asen dynasty
Asen dynasty
The Asen dynasty ruled a medieval Bulgarian state, called in modern historiography the Second Bulgarian Empire, between 1187 and 1280.The Asen dynasty and the Second Bulgarian Empire rose as the leaders of a rebellion against the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the year 1185/1186 caused by the...

. By 1330 Ivan Alexander was himself a despotēs and governed the city of Loveč
Lovech
Lovech is a town in north-central Bulgaria with a population of 36,296 as of February 2011. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality. The town is located about 150 km northeast from the capital city of Sofia...

. Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab
Basarab I of Wallachia
Basarab I the Founder was voivode or prince of Wallachia . His rise seems to have taken place in the context of the war between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Orthodox states in the north of the Balkan Peninsula...

 of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, Ivan Alexander fought in the Battle of Velbǎžd against the Serbs at modern-day Kjustendil
Kyustendil
Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...

 in 1330, in which Bulgaria suffered defeat. The defeat, combined with the worsening relations with the Byzantine Empire, precipitated an internal crisis, which was exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines. A coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 drove Ivan Stefan
Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria
Ivan Stefan ruled as emperor of Bulgaria for eight months from 1330 to 1331. He was the eldest son of emperor Michael III Shishman and Anna Neda of Serbia, a daughter of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia. Ivan Stephen was descendent to the Terter dynasty, the Asen dynasty and the Shishman...

 out of the capital Tǎrnovo
Veliko Tarnovo
Veliko Tarnovo is a city in north central Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Veliko Tarnovo Province. Often referred to as the "City of the Tsars", Veliko Tarnovo is located on the Yantra River and is famous as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, attracting many tourists...

 in 1331, and the conspirators placed Ivan Alexander on the throne.

The new ruler set about consolidating his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire. In 1331 Ivan Alexander campaigned around Adrianople
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

 and reconquered northeastern Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

. Meanwhile, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia
Stephen Uroš IV Dušan the Mighty , was the King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks until his death on 20 December 1355. Dušan managed to conquer a large part of Southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs in his time...

 deposed his father Stefan Uroš III Dečanski
Stefan Uroš III Decanski of Serbia
Stephen Uroš III of Dečani was King of Serbia from January 6, 1322 to 8 September 1331. He defeated and killed several of his family members who wanted to take the throne from him. He took his epithet Dečanski from the great monastery he built at Dečani.-Early:He was the son of King Stefan Uroš II...

 and became Serbian king in 1331. This helped normalize the previously tense relations between the two countries. Ivan Alexander and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan concluded an alliance, which was cemented by the marriage of the Serbian king to Helena of Bulgaria
Helena of Bulgaria
Jelena or Helena of Bulgaria was the daughter of Sratsimir of Kran and Keratsa Petritsa and the sister of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

, a sister of Ivan Alexander, on Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 1332.

At about the same time, Belaur, a brother of Michael Asen III, rebelled in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...

, probably in support of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan's claim to the throne. The advance of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos, Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341, after being rival emperor since 1321. Andronikos III was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia...

 against Bulgaria in the summer of 1332 protracted military operations against the rebels. The Byzantines overran Bulgarian-controlled northeastern Thrace, but Ivan Alexander rushed southward with a small army and swiftly caught up with Andronikos III at Rusokastro.
After giving the impression that he wished to negotiate, Ivan Alexander, reinforced by Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

 cavalry, overwhelmed the smaller but better organized Byzantine army in the Battle of Rusokastro
Battle of Rusokastro
The Battle of Rusokastro occurred on July 18, 1332 near the village of Rusokastro, Bulgaria between the armies of the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires. The result was a Bulgarian victory.-Origins of the conflict:...

. The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander, while Andronikos III sought refuge within the walls of Rusokastro. The war ended with Ivan Alexander meeting Andronikos and agreeing a peace based on the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirene), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339. The Bulgarian emperor was now free to turn his attentions to Belaur, but it was not until 1336 or 1337 that the rebellion in the northwest was put down.

In about 1332 Ivan Alexander had crowned his eldest son Michael Asen IV co-emperor, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family. He followed up this traditional association with the coronation of his younger sons Ivan Sracimir
Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed...

 and Ivan Asen IV in 1337. Ivan Alexander may have intended the creation of two younger co-emperors to establish immediate control over important cities and regions, as Ivan Sracimir was eventually based in Vidin, and Ivan Asen IV perhaps in Preslav
Preslav
Preslav was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and one of the most important cities of medieval Southeastern Europe. The ruins of the city are situated in modern northeastern Bulgaria, some 20 kilometres southwest of the regional capital of Shumen, and are currently a...

. Nevertheless, this was a marked departure from Byzantine practice, in which younger sons of the sovereign were made despotēs, whether they were charged with a territorial administration or not.

Relations with the Byzantine Empire

In the early 1340s relations with the Byzantine Empire temporarily deteriorated. Ivan Alexander demanded the extradition of his cousin Šišman, one of the sons of Michael Asen III, threatening the Byzantine government with war. Ivan Alexander's show of force backfired, as the Byzantines managed to see through his intentions and sent against him the fleet of their ally, the Turkish emir of Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 Umur Beg. Landing in the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...

, the Turks of Umur Beg pillaged the countryside and attacked nearby Bulgarian cities. Forced to restrain his demands, Ivan Alexander invaded the Byzantine Empire again at the end of 1341, claiming that he was summoned by the people of Adrianople. However, Ivan Alexander's troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines near the city.

In 1341–1347 the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a protracted civil war
Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347
The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 was a conflict between supporters of designated regent John VI Kantakouzenos and guardians acting for John V Palaiologos, Emperor Andronikos III's nine-year-old son, in the persons of the Empress-dowager Anna of Savoy, the Patriarch of Constantinople John XIV...

 between the regency for Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 under Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna, was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second wife of Andronikos III Palaiologos.-Family:She was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and his second wife Maria of Brabant. Her maternal grandparents were John I, Duke of Brabant and Margaret of Flanders...

 and his intended guardian John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzenus was the Byzantine emperor from 1347 to 1354.-Early life:Born in Constantinople, John Kantakouzenos was the son of a Michael Kantakouzenos, governor of the Morea. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was a descendant of the reigning house of...

. The neighbours of the Byzantines took advantage of the civil war, and while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI Kantakouzenos, Ivan Alexander backed John V Palaiologos and his regency. Although the two Balkan rulers picked opposite sides in the Byzantine civil war, they maintained their alliance with each other. As the price for Ivan Alexander's support, the regency for John V Palaiologos ceded him the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

) and nine important fortresses in the Rhodope Mountains
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

 in 1344. This peaceful turnover constituted the last major success of Ivan Alexander's foreign policy.

Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat

During the same period, the Serbian king took advantage of the Byzantine civil war to take possession of what is now Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, and of most of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 and northern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. In 1345 he began to call himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks", and in 1346 he was crowned as such by the newly created Patriarch of Serbia
Patriarch of Serbia
This is a list of the Archbishops and Patriarchs of Peć and the Serbs from the creation of the church as an archdiocese in 1219 to today's Patriarchate. The list includes all the Archbishops and Patriarchs that led the Serbian Orthodox community under Patriarchate of Peć...

. These actions, which the Byzantines received with indignation, appear to have been supported by Bulgaria, as the Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon had participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan.

By the second half of the 1340s, little remained of Ivan Alexander's initial successes. John VI Kantakouzenos' Turkish allies pillaged parts of Bulgarian Thrace in 1346, 1347, 1349, 1352 and 1354, to which were added the ravages of the Black Death. The Bulgarians' attempts to repel the invaders met with repeated failure, and Ivan Alexander's third son and co-emperor, Ivan Asen IV, was killed in battle against the Turks in 1349, as was his older brother Michael Asen IV in 1355 or a little earlier.

By 1351 the Byzantine civil war was over, and John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the threat posed by the Ottomans to the Balkan Peninsula
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

. He appealed to the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria for a united effort against the Turks and asked Ivan Alexander for money to construct warships, but his appeals fell on deaf ears as his neighbours distrusted his intentions. A new attempt for cooperation between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire followed in 1355, after John VI Kantakouzenos had been forced to abdicate and John V Palaiologos had been established as supreme emperor. To cement the treaty, Ivan Alexander's daughter Keraca Marija
Keratsa of Bulgaria
Keratsa-Maria of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora.-Marriage:On 17 August 1355 Keratsa was betrothed to the future Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...

 was married off to the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor from 1376 to 1379.-Life:...

, but the alliance failed to produce concrete results.

Further stability problems and external conflicts

At home Ivan Alexander compromised the internal stability of his realm by divorcing his first wife Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia was the daughter of Basarab I of Wallachia and Lady Margareta. She married Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria as his first wife. This marriage produced four children — Michael Asen, Ivan Sratsimir, Ivan Asen and Vasilisa. In 1345 Tsar Ivan Alexander divorced Tsaritsa Theodora and...

 (in about 1349) and marrying a converted Jew, also named Theodora. The new marriage produced new sons, whom Ivan Alexander proceeded to crown co-emperors, Ivan Šišman in about 1356 and Ivan Asen V by 1359. Ivan Alexander's last surviving son from his first marriage, the co-emperor Ivan Sracimir, became effectively independent around 1356; and Ivan Alexander's control over other powerful vassals, such as the rulers of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

 and Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...

, who pursued their own foreign policies, was hardly stronger.

From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...

 king Louis I of Hungary, who annexed Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 in 1352 and established a vassal principality there, before conquering Vidin
Hungarian occupation of Vidin
The Hungarian occupation of Vidin was a period in the history of the city and region of Vidin, today in northwestern Bulgaria, when it was under the rule of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1365 to 1369....

 in 1365, and taking Ivan Sratsimir and his family into captivity.

In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364. In 1366, when Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 was returning from his trip to the west, the Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria. This stance backfired, as another Byzantine ally, Count Amadeus VI of Savoy
Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy
Amadeus VI , nicknamed the Green Count was Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383. He was the eldest son of Aimone, Count of Savoy and Yolande of Montferrat....

, leading the Savoyard crusade
Savoyard crusade
The Savoyard crusade was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade. It was the brainchild of Pope Urban V and was led by Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, against the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe...

, captured several Bulgarian maritime cities in retaliation, including Ankhialos (Pomorie
Pomorie
Pomorie is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, located on a narrow rocky peninsula in Burgas Bay on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is situated in Burgas Province, 20 km away from the city of Burgas and 18 km from the Sunny Beach resort. The ultrasaline lagoon...

) and Mesembria (Nesebǎr
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...

), though he failed to take Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...

. Outmanoeuvred, Ivan Alexander was forced to make peace.

The captured cities were turned over to the Byzantine Empire, while Emperor John V Palaiologos paid the sum of 180,000 florins
Italian coin florin
The Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of nominally pure gold worth approximately 200 modern US Dollars...

 to Ivan Alexander. The Bulgarian emperor used this sum and territorial concessions to induce his at least de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....

vassals Dobrotica
Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386....

 of Dobruja and Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of the Basarab dynasty, also known as Vlaicu-Vodă, was a ruler of the principality of Wallachia . He was a vassal of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander. In 1369 Vladislav I subdued Vidin and recognised Louis I of Hungary as his overlord in return for Severin, Amlaş, and Făgăraş...

 to reconquer Vidin from the Hungarians. The war was successful, and Ivan Sracimir was reinstalled in Vidin in 1369, although the Hungarian king forced him to acknowledge his overlordship.

The relatively successful resolution of the crisis in the northwest did nothing to help recover the losses in the southeast. To make matters worse, in 1369 (the date is disputed), the Ottoman Turks under Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 conquered Adrianople (in 1363) and made it the effective capital of their expanding state. At the same time, they also captured the Bulgarian cities of Philippopolis and Boruj (Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...

). As Bulgaria and the Serbian princes in Macedonia prepared for united action against the Turks, Ivan Alexander died on February 17, 1371. He was succeeded by his sons Ivan Sracimir in Vidin and Ivan Šišman in Tǎrnovo, while the rulers of Dobruja and Wallachia achieved further independence.

Culture and religion

During Ivan Alexander's rule, the Second Bulgarian Empire entered a period of cultural renaissance, which is sometimes referred to as the "Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture", the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe...

. A large number of Bulgarian monasteries and churches were constructed or renovated on the order of Ivan Alexander. Mural portraits of him as a donor
Donor portrait
A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family...

 can be seen in the Bachkovo Monastery
Bachkovo Monastery
The Bachkovo Monastery , archaically the Petritsoni Monastery or Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bulgaria is an important monument of Christian architecture and one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe...

's ossuary and in the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m...

. Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander prove that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during that period, as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik
Pernik
Pernik is a city in western Bulgaria with a population of 81,052 . It is the main city of Pernik Province and lies on both banks of the Struma River in the Pernik Valley between the Viskyar, Vitosha and Golo Bardo mountains.Originally the site of a Thracian fortress founded in the 4th century BC,...

, according to a Hilandar
Hilandar
Hilandar Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in 1198 by the first Serbian Archbishop Saint Sava and his father, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of the medieval Serbian principality of Raška...

 monastery deed. In addition, the tsar also initiated the construction of the Dragalevci
Dragalevtsi
Dragalevtsi is a quarter of Sofia, part of Vitosha municipality and situated in the southwestern part of the city, at the foot of the mountain of Vitosha...

 and Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo is a small town in central northern Bulgaria, administratively part of Veliko Tarnovo municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province. Previously a village, it was proclaimed a town in 1973....

 monasteries.

Literary activity also flourished during the reign of Ivan Alexander. Several important literary works were created in the period, such as the Middle Bulgarian
History of the Bulgarian language
The History of the Bulgarian language can be divided into four major periods:* prehistoric period ;...

 translation of the Manasses Chronicle
Constantine Manasses
Constantine Manasses was a Byzantine chronicler who flourished in the 12th century during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos . He was the author of a chronicle or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates , sponsored by Irene...

 (1344–1345), currently preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives
Vatican Secret Archives
The Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, having primal incumbency until death, owns the archives until the next appointed Papal successor...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, the richly illustrated Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356), now exhibited in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, the Tomić Psalter
Tomic Psalter
The Tomić Psalter is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. Produced around 1360, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, it is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Tarnovo literary and art school of the time...

 (1360), today in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and the Sofia Psalter
Sofia Psalter
The Sofia Psalter , also known as Ivan Alexander's Psalter or the Kuklen Psalter, is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. It was produced in 1337 and belonged to the royal family of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

 (1337).

Ivan Alexander's rule was also marked by efforts to strengthen the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Bulgarian Orthodox Church
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

 by pursuing heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 and Jews. He organized two anti-heretical church councils, in 1350 and 1359–1360, that condemned various sects such as the Bogomils
Bogomilism
Bogomilism was a Gnostic religiopolitical sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Petar I in the 10th century...

, the Adamites
Adamites
The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian sect that flourished in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, but knew later revivals.-Ancient Adamites:...

 and the Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...

.

The spiritual practice of hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...

, a form of incantatory prayer, deeply influenced certain areas of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 world of the 14th century. A notable Bulgarian representative of the movement during Ivan Alexander's reign was Theodosius of Tǎrnovo
Theodosius of Tarnovo
The Holy Venerable Theodosius of Tarnovo was a high-ranking 14th-century Bulgarian cleric and hermit and the person credited with establishing hesychasm in the Second Bulgarian Empire...

.

During this time, the Bulgarian Empire had trade relations with the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 maritime powers Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

, Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

 and Ragusa
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...

. In 1353, Ivan Alexander issued a charter allowing Venetian merchants to buy and sell goods throughout Bulgaria after Doge
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...

 Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo was elected the 54th doge of Venice in 1343, replacing Bartolomeo Gradenigo who died in late 1342....

 assured him they would observe the prior treaties between the two countries.

In modern times, the rule of Ivan Alexander inspired Bulgarian national writer Ivan Vazov
Ivan Vazov
Ivan Minchov Vazov was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria ....

 to write the novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 Ivan-Aleksandǎr and the drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Kǎm propast (Towards an Abyss), in both of which the tsar is the main character.

A piece of a garment signed by Ivan Alexander and interwoven with gold was discovered in a noble's grave near Pirot
Pirot
Pirot is a town and municipality located in south-eastern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a total population of 38,432, while the population of the municipality is 57,911...

 in the 1970s; today it is preserved in the National Museum of Serbia
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. It is the first find of its kind, demonstrating a medieval tradition attested in writing according to which Orthodox rulers would present their most eminent dignitaries with a piece of a garment they had worn.

Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point is the low rocky point on the southeast coast of Nelson Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, situated 7.34 km east of Ross Point, 8.64 km west-southwest of Duthoit Point, 4.17 km west-southwest of Slavotin Point and 1.73 km north-northeast of...

 on Nelson Island
Nelson Island (South Shetland Islands)
Nelson Island is an island long and wide, lying southwest of King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Nelson Island is located at...

 in the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria.

Family

By his first wife Theodora of Wallachia (nun Teofana), a daughter of Basarab of Wallachia, Ivan Alexander had several children, including Ivan Sracimir, who ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin 1356–1397, associated emperors Michael Asen IV (co-ruled c. 1332–1354/5) and Ivan Asen IV (co-ruled 1337–1349), and a daughter called Thamar (Kera Tamara), who was married first to the despotēs Constantine (Konstantin), and then to Sultan Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 of the Ottoman Empire.

By his second wife Sarah-Theodora, Ivan Alexander had several other children, which included Keraca Marija, who married the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Ivan Šišman, who succeeded as emperor of Bulgaria in Tǎrnovo 1371–1396, Ivan Asen V, associated as emperor of Bulgaria by 1359–1388?, as well as two daughters named Desislava and Vasilisa.

Timeline

Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar
Tsar
Tsar is a title used to designate certain European Slavic monarchs or supreme rulers. As a system of government in the Tsardom of Russia and Russian Empire, it is known as Tsarist autocracy, or Tsarism...

) of Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...

 from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire
Second Bulgarian Empire
The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on February 17, 1371. The long reign of Ivan Alexander is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. Ivan Alexander began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and Serbia
Serbian Empire
The Serbian Empire was a short-lived medieval empire in the Balkans that emerged from the Serbian Kingdom. Stephen Uroš IV Dušan was crowned Emperor of Serbs and Greeks on 16 April, 1346, a title signifying a successorship to the Eastern Roman Empire...

, as well as leading his empire into a period of economic recovery and cultural and religious renaissance.

However, the emperor was later unable to cope with the mounting incursions of Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 forces, Hungarian invasions from the northwest and the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...

. In an ill-fated attempt to combat these problems, he divided the country between his two sons, thus forcing it to face the imminent Ottoman conquest weakened and divided.

Early rule

Ivan Alexander was the son of the despotēs
Despotes
Despot , was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent...

Sracimir of Krǎn
Kran, Bulgaria
Kran is a town in central Bulgaria. It is located just south of the Balkan Mountains and is administratively part of Kazanlak Municipality, Stara Zagora Province. Kran was an important castle of the Second Bulgarian Empire in the 13th–14th century...

 by Petrica
Keratsa Petritsa
Keratsa Petritsa was a Bulgarian noblewoman , sister of tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria. Her eldest son Ivan Alexander rose to the Bulgarian throne after vicissitudes of politics....

, a sister of Michael Asen III of Bulgaria
Michael Shishman of Bulgaria
Michael Asen III ), ruled as emperor of Bulgaria from 1323 to 1330. The exact year of his birth is unknown but it was between 1280 and 1292. He was the founder of the last ruling dynasty of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Shishman dynasty...

. Therefore, Ivan Alexander was a nephew of Michael Asen III. Paternally, Ivan Alexander descended from the Asen dynasty
Asen dynasty
The Asen dynasty ruled a medieval Bulgarian state, called in modern historiography the Second Bulgarian Empire, between 1187 and 1280.The Asen dynasty and the Second Bulgarian Empire rose as the leaders of a rebellion against the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the year 1185/1186 caused by the...

. By 1330 Ivan Alexander was himself a despotēs and governed the city of Loveč
Lovech
Lovech is a town in north-central Bulgaria with a population of 36,296 as of February 2011. It is the administrative centre of the Lovech Province and of the subordinate Lovech Municipality. The town is located about 150 km northeast from the capital city of Sofia...

. Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab
Basarab I of Wallachia
Basarab I the Founder was voivode or prince of Wallachia . His rise seems to have taken place in the context of the war between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Orthodox states in the north of the Balkan Peninsula...

 of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

, Ivan Alexander fought in the Battle of Velbǎžd against the Serbs at modern-day Kjustendil
Kyustendil
Kyustendil is a town in the far west of Bulgaria, the capital of Kyustendil Province, with a population of 44 416 . Kyustendil is situated in the southern part of the Kyustendil Valley, 90 km southwest of Sofia...

 in 1330, in which Bulgaria suffered defeat. The defeat, combined with the worsening relations with the Byzantine Empire, precipitated an internal crisis, which was exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines. A coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

 drove Ivan Stefan
Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria
Ivan Stefan ruled as emperor of Bulgaria for eight months from 1330 to 1331. He was the eldest son of emperor Michael III Shishman and Anna Neda of Serbia, a daughter of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia. Ivan Stephen was descendent to the Terter dynasty, the Asen dynasty and the Shishman...

 out of the capital Tǎrnovo
Veliko Tarnovo
Veliko Tarnovo is a city in north central Bulgaria and the administrative centre of Veliko Tarnovo Province. Often referred to as the "City of the Tsars", Veliko Tarnovo is located on the Yantra River and is famous as the historical capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, attracting many tourists...

 in 1331, and the conspirators placed Ivan Alexander on the throne.

The new ruler set about consolidating his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire. In 1331 Ivan Alexander campaigned around Adrianople
Edirne
Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

 and reconquered northeastern Thrace
Thrace
Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded by the Balkan Mountains on the north, Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea on the south, and by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara on the east...

. Meanwhile, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan
Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia
Stephen Uroš IV Dušan the Mighty , was the King of Serbia and Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks until his death on 20 December 1355. Dušan managed to conquer a large part of Southeast Europe, becoming one of the most powerful monarchs in his time...

 deposed his father Stefan Uroš III Dečanski
Stefan Uroš III Decanski of Serbia
Stephen Uroš III of Dečani was King of Serbia from January 6, 1322 to 8 September 1331. He defeated and killed several of his family members who wanted to take the throne from him. He took his epithet Dečanski from the great monastery he built at Dečani.-Early:He was the son of King Stefan Uroš II...

 and became Serbian king in 1331. This helped normalize the previously tense relations between the two countries. Ivan Alexander and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan concluded an alliance, which was cemented by the marriage of the Serbian king to Helena of Bulgaria
Helena of Bulgaria
Jelena or Helena of Bulgaria was the daughter of Sratsimir of Kran and Keratsa Petritsa and the sister of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

, a sister of Ivan Alexander, on Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...

 1332.

At about the same time, Belaur, a brother of Michael Asen III, rebelled in Vidin
Vidin
Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in northwestern Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Serbia and Romania, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin...

, probably in support of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan's claim to the throne. The advance of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos
Andronikos III Palaiologos, Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus was Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341, after being rival emperor since 1321. Andronikos III was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and Rita of Armenia...

 against Bulgaria in the summer of 1332 protracted military operations against the rebels. The Byzantines overran Bulgarian-controlled northeastern Thrace, but Ivan Alexander rushed southward with a small army and swiftly caught up with Andronikos III at Rusokastro.
After giving the impression that he wished to negotiate, Ivan Alexander, reinforced by Mongol
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...

 cavalry, overwhelmed the smaller but better organized Byzantine army in the Battle of Rusokastro
Battle of Rusokastro
The Battle of Rusokastro occurred on July 18, 1332 near the village of Rusokastro, Bulgaria between the armies of the Bulgarian and Byzantine Empires. The result was a Bulgarian victory.-Origins of the conflict:...

. The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander, while Andronikos III sought refuge within the walls of Rusokastro. The war ended with Ivan Alexander meeting Andronikos and agreeing a peace based on the status quo
Status quo
Statu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...

. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirene), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339. The Bulgarian emperor was now free to turn his attentions to Belaur, but it was not until 1336 or 1337 that the rebellion in the northwest was put down.

In about 1332 Ivan Alexander had crowned his eldest son Michael Asen IV co-emperor, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family. He followed up this traditional association with the coronation of his younger sons Ivan Sracimir
Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1356 to 1396. He was born in 1324 or 1325, and he died in or after 1397. Despite being the eldest surviving son of Ivan Alexander, Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman and proclaimed...

 and Ivan Asen IV in 1337. Ivan Alexander may have intended the creation of two younger co-emperors to establish immediate control over important cities and regions, as Ivan Sracimir was eventually based in Vidin, and Ivan Asen IV perhaps in Preslav
Preslav
Preslav was the capital of the First Bulgarian Empire from 893 to 972 and one of the most important cities of medieval Southeastern Europe. The ruins of the city are situated in modern northeastern Bulgaria, some 20 kilometres southwest of the regional capital of Shumen, and are currently a...

. Nevertheless, this was a marked departure from Byzantine practice, in which younger sons of the sovereign were made despotēs, whether they were charged with a territorial administration or not.

Relations with the Byzantine Empire

In the early 1340s relations with the Byzantine Empire temporarily deteriorated. Ivan Alexander demanded the extradition of his cousin Šišman, one of the sons of Michael Asen III, threatening the Byzantine government with war. Ivan Alexander's show of force backfired, as the Byzantines managed to see through his intentions and sent against him the fleet of their ally, the Turkish emir of Smyrna
Smyrna
Smyrna was an ancient city located at a central and strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Thanks to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence. The ancient city is located at two sites within modern İzmir, Turkey...

 Umur Beg. Landing in the Danube Delta
Danube Delta
The Danube Delta is the second largest river delta in Europe, after the Volga Delta, and is the best preserved on the continent. The greater part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania , while its northern part, on the left bank of the Chilia arm, is situated in Ukraine . The approximate surface is...

, the Turks of Umur Beg pillaged the countryside and attacked nearby Bulgarian cities. Forced to restrain his demands, Ivan Alexander invaded the Byzantine Empire again at the end of 1341, claiming that he was summoned by the people of Adrianople. However, Ivan Alexander's troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines near the city.

In 1341–1347 the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a protracted civil war
Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347
The Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 was a conflict between supporters of designated regent John VI Kantakouzenos and guardians acting for John V Palaiologos, Emperor Andronikos III's nine-year-old son, in the persons of the Empress-dowager Anna of Savoy, the Patriarch of Constantinople John XIV...

 between the regency for Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 under Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy
Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna, was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second wife of Andronikos III Palaiologos.-Family:She was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy and his second wife Maria of Brabant. Her maternal grandparents were John I, Duke of Brabant and Margaret of Flanders...

 and his intended guardian John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos
John VI Kantakouzenos or Cantacuzenus was the Byzantine emperor from 1347 to 1354.-Early life:Born in Constantinople, John Kantakouzenos was the son of a Michael Kantakouzenos, governor of the Morea. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was a descendant of the reigning house of...

. The neighbours of the Byzantines took advantage of the civil war, and while Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia sided with John VI Kantakouzenos, Ivan Alexander backed John V Palaiologos and his regency. Although the two Balkan rulers picked opposite sides in the Byzantine civil war, they maintained their alliance with each other. As the price for Ivan Alexander's support, the regency for John V Palaiologos ceded him the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv
Plovdiv
Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe...

) and nine important fortresses in the Rhodope Mountains
Rhodope Mountains
The Rhodopes are a mountain range in Southeastern Europe, with over 83% of its area in southern Bulgaria and the remainder in Greece. Its highest peak, Golyam Perelik , is the seventh highest Bulgarian mountain...

 in 1344. This peaceful turnover constituted the last major success of Ivan Alexander's foreign policy.

Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat

During the same period, the Serbian king took advantage of the Byzantine civil war to take possession of what is now Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...

, and of most of Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

 and northern Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

. In 1345 he began to call himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks", and in 1346 he was crowned as such by the newly created Patriarch of Serbia
Patriarch of Serbia
This is a list of the Archbishops and Patriarchs of Peć and the Serbs from the creation of the church as an archdiocese in 1219 to today's Patriarchate. The list includes all the Archbishops and Patriarchs that led the Serbian Orthodox community under Patriarchate of Peć...

. These actions, which the Byzantines received with indignation, appear to have been supported by Bulgaria, as the Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon had participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan.

By the second half of the 1340s, little remained of Ivan Alexander's initial successes. John VI Kantakouzenos' Turkish allies pillaged parts of Bulgarian Thrace in 1346, 1347, 1349, 1352 and 1354, to which were added the ravages of the Black Death. The Bulgarians' attempts to repel the invaders met with repeated failure, and Ivan Alexander's third son and co-emperor, Ivan Asen IV, was killed in battle against the Turks in 1349, as was his older brother Michael Asen IV in 1355 or a little earlier.

By 1351 the Byzantine civil war was over, and John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the threat posed by the Ottomans to the Balkan Peninsula
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...

. He appealed to the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria for a united effort against the Turks and asked Ivan Alexander for money to construct warships, but his appeals fell on deaf ears as his neighbours distrusted his intentions. A new attempt for cooperation between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire followed in 1355, after John VI Kantakouzenos had been forced to abdicate and John V Palaiologos had been established as supreme emperor. To cement the treaty, Ivan Alexander's daughter Keraca Marija
Keratsa of Bulgaria
Keratsa-Maria of Bulgaria was the daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria and his second wife, a converted Jewess, Theodora.-Marriage:On 17 August 1355 Keratsa was betrothed to the future Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos...

 was married off to the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos
Andronikos IV Palaiologos was Byzantine Emperor from 1376 to 1379.-Life:...

, but the alliance failed to produce concrete results.

Further stability problems and external conflicts

At home Ivan Alexander compromised the internal stability of his realm by divorcing his first wife Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia
Theodora of Wallachia was the daughter of Basarab I of Wallachia and Lady Margareta. She married Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria as his first wife. This marriage produced four children — Michael Asen, Ivan Sratsimir, Ivan Asen and Vasilisa. In 1345 Tsar Ivan Alexander divorced Tsaritsa Theodora and...

 (in about 1349) and marrying a converted Jew, also named Theodora. The new marriage produced new sons, whom Ivan Alexander proceeded to crown co-emperors, Ivan Šišman in about 1356 and Ivan Asen V by 1359. Ivan Alexander's last surviving son from his first marriage, the co-emperor Ivan Sracimir, became effectively independent around 1356; and Ivan Alexander's control over other powerful vassals, such as the rulers of Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...

 and Dobruja
Dobruja
Dobruja is a historical region shared by Bulgaria and Romania, located between the lower Danube river and the Black Sea, including the Danube Delta, Romanian coast and the northernmost part of the Bulgarian coast...

, who pursued their own foreign policies, was hardly stronger.

From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin
Capetian House of Anjou
The Capetian House of Anjou, also known as the House of Anjou-Sicily and House of Anjou-Naples, was a royal house and cadet branch of the direct House of Capet. Founded by Charles I of Sicily, a son of Louis VIII of France, the Capetian king first ruled the Kingdom of Sicily during the 13th century...

 king Louis I of Hungary, who annexed Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 in 1352 and established a vassal principality there, before conquering Vidin
Hungarian occupation of Vidin
The Hungarian occupation of Vidin was a period in the history of the city and region of Vidin, today in northwestern Bulgaria, when it was under the rule of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1365 to 1369....

 in 1365, and taking Ivan Sratsimir and his family into captivity.

In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364. In 1366, when Emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...

 was returning from his trip to the west, the Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria. This stance backfired, as another Byzantine ally, Count Amadeus VI of Savoy
Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy
Amadeus VI , nicknamed the Green Count was Count of Savoy from 1343 to 1383. He was the eldest son of Aimone, Count of Savoy and Yolande of Montferrat....

, leading the Savoyard crusade
Savoyard crusade
The Savoyard crusade was born out of the same planning that led to the Alexandrian Crusade. It was the brainchild of Pope Urban V and was led by Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy, against the Ottoman Empire in eastern Europe...

, captured several Bulgarian maritime cities in retaliation, including Ankhialos (Pomorie
Pomorie
Pomorie is a town and seaside resort in southeastern Bulgaria, located on a narrow rocky peninsula in Burgas Bay on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast. It is situated in Burgas Province, 20 km away from the city of Burgas and 18 km from the Sunny Beach resort. The ultrasaline lagoon...

) and Mesembria (Nesebǎr
Nesebar
Nesebar is an ancient town and one of the major seaside resorts on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, located in Burgas Province. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Nesebar Municipality...

), though he failed to take Varna
Varna
Varna is the largest city and seaside resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast and third-largest in Bulgaria after Sofia and Plovdiv, with a population of 334,870 inhabitants according to Census 2011...

. Outmanoeuvred, Ivan Alexander was forced to make peace.

The captured cities were turned over to the Byzantine Empire, while Emperor John V Palaiologos paid the sum of 180,000 florins
Italian coin florin
The Italian florin was a coin struck from 1252 to 1533 with no significant change in its design or metal content standard. It had 54 grains of nominally pure gold worth approximately 200 modern US Dollars...

 to Ivan Alexander. The Bulgarian emperor used this sum and territorial concessions to induce his at least de jure
De jure
De jure is an expression that means "concerning law", as contrasted with de facto, which means "concerning fact".De jure = 'Legally', De facto = 'In fact'....

vassals Dobrotica
Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386....

 of Dobruja and Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of Wallachia
Vladislav I of the Basarab dynasty, also known as Vlaicu-Vodă, was a ruler of the principality of Wallachia . He was a vassal of the Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Alexander. In 1369 Vladislav I subdued Vidin and recognised Louis I of Hungary as his overlord in return for Severin, Amlaş, and Făgăraş...

 to reconquer Vidin from the Hungarians. The war was successful, and Ivan Sracimir was reinstalled in Vidin in 1369, although the Hungarian king forced him to acknowledge his overlordship.

The relatively successful resolution of the crisis in the northwest did nothing to help recover the losses in the southeast. To make matters worse, in 1369 (the date is disputed), the Ottoman Turks under Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 conquered Adrianople (in 1363) and made it the effective capital of their expanding state. At the same time, they also captured the Bulgarian cities of Philippopolis and Boruj (Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora
Stara Zagora is the sixth largest city in Bulgaria, and a nationally important economic center. Located in Southern Bulgaria, it is the administrative capital of the homonymous Stara Zagora Province...

). As Bulgaria and the Serbian princes in Macedonia prepared for united action against the Turks, Ivan Alexander died on February 17, 1371. He was succeeded by his sons Ivan Sracimir in Vidin and Ivan Šišman in Tǎrnovo, while the rulers of Dobruja and Wallachia achieved further independence.

Culture and religion

During Ivan Alexander's rule, the Second Bulgarian Empire entered a period of cultural renaissance, which is sometimes referred to as the "Second Golden Age of Bulgarian culture", the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great
Simeon I of Bulgaria
Simeon I the Great ruled over Bulgaria from 893 to 927, during the First Bulgarian Empire. Simeon's successful campaigns against the Byzantines, Magyars and Serbs led Bulgaria to its greatest territorial expansion ever, making it the most powerful state in contemporary Eastern Europe...

. A large number of Bulgarian monasteries and churches were constructed or renovated on the order of Ivan Alexander. Mural portraits of him as a donor
Donor portrait
A donor portrait or votive portrait is a portrait in a larger painting or other work showing the person who commissioned and paid for the image, or a member of his, or her, family...

 can be seen in the Bachkovo Monastery
Bachkovo Monastery
The Bachkovo Monastery , archaically the Petritsoni Monastery or Monastery of the Mother of God Petritzonitissa in Bulgaria is an important monument of Christian architecture and one of the largest and oldest Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Europe...

's ossuary and in the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo
The Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo are a group of monolithic churches, chapels and monasteries hewn out of solid rock and completely different from other monastery complexes in Bulgaria, located near the village of Ivanovo, 20 km south of Rousse, on the high rocky banks of the Rusenski Lom, 32 m...

. Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander prove that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during that period, as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik
Pernik
Pernik is a city in western Bulgaria with a population of 81,052 . It is the main city of Pernik Province and lies on both banks of the Struma River in the Pernik Valley between the Viskyar, Vitosha and Golo Bardo mountains.Originally the site of a Thracian fortress founded in the 4th century BC,...

, according to a Hilandar
Hilandar
Hilandar Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in 1198 by the first Serbian Archbishop Saint Sava and his father, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of the medieval Serbian principality of Raška...

 monastery deed. In addition, the tsar also initiated the construction of the Dragalevci
Dragalevtsi
Dragalevtsi is a quarter of Sofia, part of Vitosha municipality and situated in the southwestern part of the city, at the foot of the mountain of Vitosha...

 and Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo
Kilifarevo is a small town in central northern Bulgaria, administratively part of Veliko Tarnovo municipality, Veliko Tarnovo Province. Previously a village, it was proclaimed a town in 1973....

 monasteries.

Literary activity also flourished during the reign of Ivan Alexander. Several important literary works were created in the period, such as the Middle Bulgarian
History of the Bulgarian language
The History of the Bulgarian language can be divided into four major periods:* prehistoric period ;...

 translation of the Manasses Chronicle
Constantine Manasses
Constantine Manasses was a Byzantine chronicler who flourished in the 12th century during the reign of Manuel I Komnenos . He was the author of a chronicle or historical synopsis of events from the creation of the world to the end of the reign of Nikephoros Botaneiates , sponsored by Irene...

 (1344–1345), currently preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives
Vatican Secret Archives
The Vatican Secret Archives , located in Vatican City, is the central repository for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See. The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, having primal incumbency until death, owns the archives until the next appointed Papal successor...

 in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, the richly illustrated Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356), now exhibited in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...

, the Tomić Psalter
Tomic Psalter
The Tomić Psalter is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. Produced around 1360, during the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander, it is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Tarnovo literary and art school of the time...

 (1360), today in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, and the Sofia Psalter
Sofia Psalter
The Sofia Psalter , also known as Ivan Alexander's Psalter or the Kuklen Psalter, is a 14th-century Bulgarian illuminated psalter. It was produced in 1337 and belonged to the royal family of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria....

 (1337).

Ivan Alexander's rule was also marked by efforts to strengthen the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church
Bulgarian Orthodox Church
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

 by pursuing heretics
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...

 and Jews. He organized two anti-heretical church councils, in 1350 and 1359–1360, that condemned various sects such as the Bogomils
Bogomilism
Bogomilism was a Gnostic religiopolitical sect founded in the First Bulgarian Empire by the priest Bogomil during the reign of Tsar Petar I in the 10th century...

, the Adamites
Adamites
The Adamites, or Adamians, were adherents of an Early Christian sect that flourished in North Africa in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries, but knew later revivals.-Ancient Adamites:...

 and the Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...

.

The spiritual practice of hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...

, a form of incantatory prayer, deeply influenced certain areas of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 world of the 14th century. A notable Bulgarian representative of the movement during Ivan Alexander's reign was Theodosius of Tǎrnovo
Theodosius of Tarnovo
The Holy Venerable Theodosius of Tarnovo was a high-ranking 14th-century Bulgarian cleric and hermit and the person credited with establishing hesychasm in the Second Bulgarian Empire...

.

During this time, the Bulgarian Empire had trade relations with the Mediterranean
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

 maritime powers Venice
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...

, Genoa
Republic of Genoa
The Most Serene Republic of Genoa |Ligurian]]: Repúbrica de Zêna) was an independent state from 1005 to 1797 in Liguria on the northwestern Italian coast, as well as Corsica from 1347 to 1768, and numerous other territories throughout the Mediterranean....

 and Ragusa
Republic of Ragusa
The Republic of Ragusa or Republic of Dubrovnik was a maritime republic centered on the city of Dubrovnik in Dalmatia , that existed from 1358 to 1808...

. In 1353, Ivan Alexander issued a charter allowing Venetian merchants to buy and sell goods throughout Bulgaria after Doge
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...

 Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo
Andrea Dandolo was elected the 54th doge of Venice in 1343, replacing Bartolomeo Gradenigo who died in late 1342....

 assured him they would observe the prior treaties between the two countries.

In modern times, the rule of Ivan Alexander inspired Bulgarian national writer Ivan Vazov
Ivan Vazov
Ivan Minchov Vazov was a Bulgarian poet, novelist and playwright, often referred to as "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature". He was born in Sopot, a town in the Rose Valley of Bulgaria ....

 to write the novelette
Novelette
A novelette is a piece of short prose fiction. The distinction between a novelette and other literary forms is usually based upon word count, with a novelette being longer than a short story, but shorter than a novella...

 Ivan-Aleksandǎr and the drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Kǎm propast (Towards an Abyss), in both of which the tsar is the main character.

A piece of a garment signed by Ivan Alexander and interwoven with gold was discovered in a noble's grave near Pirot
Pirot
Pirot is a town and municipality located in south-eastern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a total population of 38,432, while the population of the municipality is 57,911...

 in the 1970s; today it is preserved in the National Museum of Serbia
National Museum of Serbia
The National Museum is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia. It is located in Republic Square, Belgrade, Serbia. The museum was established on May 10, 1844. Since it was founded, its collections have to over 400,000 objects including many foreign masterpieces...

 in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. It is the first find of its kind, demonstrating a medieval tradition attested in writing according to which Orthodox rulers would present their most eminent dignitaries with a piece of a garment they had worn.

Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point
Ivan Alexander Point is the low rocky point on the southeast coast of Nelson Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, situated 7.34 km east of Ross Point, 8.64 km west-southwest of Duthoit Point, 4.17 km west-southwest of Slavotin Point and 1.73 km north-northeast of...

 on Nelson Island
Nelson Island (South Shetland Islands)
Nelson Island is an island long and wide, lying southwest of King George Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Nelson Island is located at...

 in the South Shetland Islands
South Shetland Islands
The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of . By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the Islands' sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories and they are free for use by any signatory for...

, Antarctica is named after Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria.

Family

By his first wife Theodora of Wallachia (nun Teofana), a daughter of Basarab of Wallachia, Ivan Alexander had several children, including Ivan Sracimir, who ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin 1356–1397, associated emperors Michael Asen IV (co-ruled c. 1332–1354/5) and Ivan Asen IV (co-ruled 1337–1349), and a daughter called Thamar (Kera Tamara), who was married first to the despotēs Constantine (Konstantin), and then to Sultan Murad I
Murad I
Murad I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1361 to 1389...

 of the Ottoman Empire.

By his second wife Sarah-Theodora, Ivan Alexander had several other children, which included Keraca Marija, who married the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Ivan Šišman, who succeeded as emperor of Bulgaria in Tǎrnovo 1371–1396, Ivan Asen V, associated as emperor of Bulgaria by 1359–1388?, as well as two daughters named Desislava and Vasilisa.

Timeline

 
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