Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria

Ivan Alexander was the son of the Despot Sratsimir of Kran by Petrica, a sister of Michael Asen III of Bulgaria. Therefore, Ivan Alexander was a nephew of Michael Asen III. The new ruler set about consolidating his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire. In 1331 Ivan Alexander campaigned around Adrianople and reconquered northeastern Thrace. At about the same time, Belaur, a brother of Michael Asen III, rebelled in Vidin, probably in support of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan's claim to the throne. The advance of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos 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. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirene), the marriage 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 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. Nevertheless, this was a marked departure from Byzantine practice, in which younger sons of the sovereign were made despots, 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 Umur Beg. Landing in the Danube Delta, they 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. 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 between the regency for Emperor John V Palaiologos under Anna of Savoy and his intended guardian John VI Kantakouzenos. 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. 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, and of most of Albania and northern Greece. In 1345, he began to call himself "Emperor of Serbs and Greeks", and in 1346 he was crowned as such by the newly created Serbian Patriarch. 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. 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 was married off to the future Byzantine Emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos, == 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 (in about 1349) and marrying a converted Jew, also named Theodora. From the middle of the 14th century, Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin king Louis I of Hungary, who annexed Moldavia in 1352 and established a vassal principality there, before conquering Vidin in 1365, The captured cities were turned over to the Byzantine Empire, while Emperor John V Palaiologos paid the sum of 180,000 florins to Ivan Alexander. and Vladislav I of Wallachia 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 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). As Bulgaria and the Serbian feudal lords in Macedonia as Konstantin Dragas and Prince Marko prepared for united action against the Turks, Ivan Alexander died on 17 February 1371. He was succeeded by his sons Ivan Sracimir in Vidin and Ivan Shishman in Tarnovo, while the rulers of Dobruja and Wallachia achieved further independence. == Culture and religion ==

in fresco of Ivan Alexander from the Bachkovo Monastery ossuary 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. 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 can be seen in the Bachkovo Monastery's ossuary and in the Rock-hewn Churches of Ivanovo. 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, the richly illustrated Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander (1355–1356), now exhibited in the British Library, the Tomić Psalter (1360), today in Moscow, Ivan Alexander's rule was also marked by efforts to strengthen the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church by pursuing heretics and Jews. He organized two anti-heretical church councils, in 1350 and 1359–1360, that condemned various sects The spiritual practice of hesychasm, a form of incantatory prayer, deeply influenced certain areas of the Eastern Orthodox world of the 14th century. A notable Bulgarian representative of the movement during Ivan Alexander's reign was Theodosius of Tǎrnovo. During this time, the Bulgarian Empire had trade relations with the Mediterranean maritime powers Venice, Genoa and Ragusa. In 1353, Ivan Alexander issued a charter allowing Venetian merchants to buy and sell goods throughout Bulgaria after Doge Andrea Dandolo 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 to write the novelette Ivan-Aleksandǎr and the drama 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 in the 1970s; today it is preserved in the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade. 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 on Nelson Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria. == Family ==

With his first wife Theodora of Wallachia (nun Teofana), a daughter of Basarab I, he had: • Tsar Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria (1324/1328 – 1394), succeeded his father as the next Emperor of Bulgaria. • Prince Michail Asen (–1355), Bulgarian Prince • Prince Ivan Asen IV (1326 – 1349) With his second wife Sarah-Theodora, Ivan Alexander had several other children: • Princess Kera Tamara (1340 – 1389); firstly married Despot Constantine (Konstantin) and then become a concubine of Sultan Murad I of the Ottoman Empire • Tsar Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria (1350 – 3 June 1395) • Princess Desislava of Bulgaria • Prince Ivan Asen V of Bulgaria (d. 1388) • Princess Keratsa of Bulgaria (1348 – 1390), married byzantine emperor Andronikos IV Palaiologos and had a son (John VII Palaiologos) • Princess Vasilisa of Bulgaria == Timeline ==