Taking advantage of the
Byzantine civil war of 1341–1347 by alternately supporting both sides of the conflict, the
Serbian king Stefan Dušan expanded his state southwards,
conquering Albania and most of
Macedonia by 1345, with the exception of the great fortress cities of
Serres and
Thessalonica. This growth in power made Serbia the
de facto dominant state in the
Balkans, and fuelled Dušan's imperial ambitions: already in early 1343, the Serbian ruler elevated his titles to "
tsar and of all the Serbian and
Maritime Lands and
čestnik of the Greek [Byzantine] Lands". Following his conquest of Serres, which crowned his conquest of Macedonia, in November or December 1345 Stefan Dušan proclaimed himself emperor (), laying claim on the Byzantine imperial inheritance. On 16 April 1346 he was
crowned emperor at
Skopje in an assembly attended by the elevated
Serbian Patriarch, and also the
Bulgarian Patriarch and the
Archbishop of Ohrid. His imperial title was recognised by
Bulgaria and various other neighbors and trading partners, but not by the
Byzantine Empire. According to imperial tradition, only one emperor could exist, the emperor of the Roman Empire. Others could only be
Caesars (the second in rank).
Mount Athos addressed him as Emperor, though rather as
Emperor of Serbs than
Emperor of Serbs and Greeks. In Serbian charters, ethnic terms are used – "Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks" ( / ). In Greek, the title was " and of Serbia and of " (). The use of "" (i.e. the 'land of the
Romans', the Byzantine Empire) and not the usual Byzantine formula "of the Romans" was probably deliberately chosen; although in his
Code Dušan claimed the direct succession to all
Byzantine emperors from the time of
Constantine the Great, he lacked possession of
Constantinople and of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate, which alone conferred full legitimacy to a Byzantine ruler. Notably, when the Byzantines came around to recognizing Dušan's imperial title, it was only for Serbia proper, much as they had done with the Bulgarian Tsar
Simeon four centuries earlier. The contemporary Byzantine writers also clearly distinguished between the ancestral Serbian lands, where Dušan's son Stefan Uroš ruled as king, and the conquered lands "in where Dušan (and
Stefan Milutin before him) continued to use the pre-existing Byzantine administration. How clear this duality was in practice is open to question. Nevertheless, modern historians note that—in contrast to the lionization of Dušan by modern Serbian historiography—Dušan's proclamation of empire was not well received in Serbia proper, as indicated by the fact that he was never sanctified by the
Serbian Church, or why his official biography, alone among the medieval Serbian rulers, was never completed. On his early Western-style coinage, issued between his proclamation as emperor and his coronation, Dušan continued to use the abbreviated
Latin title ("King of
Rascia"), and simply added the title ("Emperor of the Roman lands"), but also ("Emperor of the Romans"). After his coronation, the title of king was dropped. ==List of monarchs==