Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria
Encyclopedia
Ivan Sratsimir or Ivan Stratsimir was emperor (tsar
) 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 himself emperor in Vidin. When the Hungarians attacked and occupied his domains, he received assistance by his father and the invaders were driven away.
After the death of Ivan Alexander in 1371 he broke off the last ties with Tarnovo and even placed the archbishop of Vidin under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople
to demonstrate his independence. Due to its geographical position, Vidin was initially safe from attacks by the Ottoman Turks who were ravaging the Balkans
to the south and Ivan Sratsimir made no attempts to assist Ivan Shishman in his struggle against the Ottomans. Only after the fall of Tarnovo
in 1393 did his policy become more active and he eventually joined the crusade of the Hungarian king Sigismund
. However, after the disaster in the battle of Nicopolis
in 1396, the Ottomans marched to Vidin and seized it. Ivan Sratsimir was captured and imprisoned in Bursa where he was probably strangled. Although his son Constantine II
claimed the title Emperor of Bulgaria and at times controlled some parts of his father's realm, Ivan Sratsimir is generally regarded by historians as the last ruler of medieval Bulgaria.
Sratsimir Hill
on Trinity Peninsula
in Antarctica is named after Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria.
in 1324 or 1325, Ivan Sratsimir was the second son of Ivan Alexander
(r. 1331–1371), who was at that time the despot of Lovech, and Theodora
. Ivan Sratsimir was proclaimed co-emperor by his father in 1337 in his early teenage years, along with his brothers Michael Asen IV and Ivan Asen IV
. That political move by Ivan Alexander proved to be fatal for Bulgaria because the prerogatives of his sons' authority were not defined which led to rivalry between the brothers. After his proclamation Ivan Sratsimir was given the rule of Vidin
as an apanage which was explained with the desire of Ivan Alexander to have the different regions of the state under the direct rule of his family.
In the 1340s Ivan Sratsimir rose in prominence because he was married and already had children, while his eldest brother Michael Asen and his wife did not produce children for ten years. In 1352 Ivan Alexander introduced the title junior emperor in order to secure the smooth and secure transition of the throne and Ivan Sratsimir became known by that title. In the end of 1347 or in the beginning of 1348, however, Ivan Alexander divorced with his first wife and sent her to a monastery to marry the Jewes
Sarah-Theodora
. That event spoiled the relations between Ivan Sratsimir and his father and the conflict deepened after the birth of Ivan Shishman
in 1350/1351. The conflict climaxed in 1355–1356 when the undisputed heir to the throne, Michael Asen IV, perished in battle against the Ottomans. According to the Majorat
system, Ivan Sratsimir should have come next in the succession line but since Ivan Shishman was born in the purple
, i.e. after his father was crowned, Ivan Alexander and Sarah-Theodora used it to declare Ivan Shishman as a successor to the throne. A hint of the feud between father and son is the fact that the image of Ivan Sratsimir was not included in the Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander where the whole imperial family was pictured, including Ivan Alexander's son in law. That could be interpreted as either Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited and proclaimed himself emperor in Vidin or that he was denied the title junior emperor and given the rule of Vidin as a compensation.
, he married his first cousin Anna
, the daughter of the Wallachian voivode Nicholas Alexander, in 1356 or 1357, a move that was probably arranged with the help of Ivan Sratsimir's mother Theodora as a reaction to the actions of Ivan Alexander.
He ruled with the tacit consent of his father for around ten years until 1365 when the Hungarian king Louis I, who styled himself King of Bulgaria among the other titles, demanded that Ivan Sratsimir acknowledge his suzerainty and become his vassal. When the Bulgarian ruler refused, Louis I marched from Hungary on 1 May 1365 and captured Vidin on 2 June after a brief siege. The rest of the Vidin Tsardom was conquered in the next three months. Ivan Sratsimir and his family were captured and taken to the castle of Humnik in modern Croatia
and the region of Vidin was placed under direct Hungarian rule governed by a Ban
, appointed by the King of Hungary. Ivan Sratsimir spent four years in honorary Hungarian captivity and he and his family were forced to accept Catholicism
. The Hungarians also sent Franciscan
monks to convert the population of the Vidin Tsardom to Catholicism. Although the Hungarian accounts boasted that the Franciscans converted 200,000 people, or a third of the region's population, that move brought great discontent among the Bulgarian population and eventually failed. That was in fact the first forceful conversion in the country after the Christianization of Bulgaria
five centuries earlier. In a contemporary book, a monk wrote:
Initially Ivan Alexander, who was still nominally the rightful ruler of Vidin, did not take active measures for its recovery, although his refusal to give safe conduct to the Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos
who was returning to Constantinople
from Western Europe was explained by the deterioration of the Bulgarian–Hungarian relations. By 1369, however, he organised an Orthodox anti-Hungarian coalition for the liberation of Vidin with the participation of the Wallachian voivode Vladislav I Vlaicu
and despot Dobrotitsa
. The allied campaign was a success and after it was supported by a popular uprising in Vidin against the Catholic clergy and the Hungarian authority, Louis I had to give up his claims and restore Ivan Sratsimir to the throne in Vidin in the autumn of 1369. According to J. Fine, Ivan Sratsimir was allowed to return in Vidin by Louis I as a Hungarian vassal because of his popularity among the population and that Ivan Sratsimir used the Hungarian patronage to assert independence from his father and later to resist his brother in Tarnovo
.
After the death of emperor Ivan Alexander on 17 February 1371, Ivan Sratsimir broke off the last links that connected Tarnovo and Vidin and began to rule without even nominal acknowledgement to the authorities in Tarnovo. He was since styled, as written in the accounts of the Patriarchate of Constantinople: "How should the Patriarch and the Archbishop write to ruler of Vidin and emperor Kamtsimir (Sratsimir): Most Faithful and Allmighty ruler of Vidin the whole of Bulgaria..." The authority of Ivan Sratsimir was treated as equal to that of Ivan Shishman and the details even suggest that he was even presented as a senior ruler. Due to the insufficient information, some early Bulgarian historians such as Konstantin Jireček
supported the hypothesis that Ivan Sratsimir and Ivan Shishman were engaged in a military conflict over Sofia
but the idea has been dismissed by most modern historians. In fact, despite the rivalry, the brothers maintained scrupulous relations until 1381 and Ivan Sratsimir was even pointed as a potential successor of the empire by Ivan Shishman. Fine suggests that immediately after the death of his father, Ivan Sratsimir tried to seize the control over the whole of Bulgaria for himself and even captured and held Sofia for a year or two, which lead to permanent hostility between the two brothers and spoiled any chances for a common Bulgarian resistance against the Ottomans.
The relations between the two Bulgarian states worsened in 1381 when Ivan Sratsimir broke the connections with the Bulgarian Patriarchate in Tarnovo
and instead placed the Archbishopric of Vidin under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
. That decision was a demonstration of the independence of Vidin from Tarnovo but did not lead an open conflict between the two. The hostility between Ivan Sratsimir and Ivan Shishman remained on the eve of the Ottoman invasion. Most historians agree that in the 1370s and the early 1380s Vidin was still away from the route Ottoman campaigns and was not endangered. During and after the massive Ottoman invasion in north-eastern Bulgaria in 1388, the sources suggest two brothers were in uneasy relations. As a result of the Ottoman success in the 1388 campaign and the resulting changes of the balance of power, Ivan Sratsimir had to become an Ottoman vassal and to accept an Ottoman garrison in Vidin. Ivan Sratsimir remained inactive while the Ottomans destroyed the remains of the Tarnovo Tsardom – the Tarnovo fell
in 1393 and Ivan Shishman was killed in 1395. In 1396 Ivan Sratsimir joined the Christian crusade organised by the Hungarian king Sigismund
. When the crusader army reached Vidin the Bulgarian ruler opened the gates and surrendered the Ottoman garrison. The Ottoman garrison of Oryahovo
tried to resist but the local Bulgarians managed to capture it. However, the Christian army suffered a heavy defeat on 25 September in the battle of Nicopolis
and the victorious Ottoman sultan Bayezid I
immediately marched to Vidin and seized it by the end of 1396 or the beginning of 1397. Ivan Sratsimir was captured and imprisoned in the Ottoman capital Bursa where he was probably strangled.
Along with Tarnovo, during the rule of Ivan Sratsimir Vidin also emerged as a major literary center, under the strong influence of the Tarnovo Literary School
. Some of the works that have survived from that period include the Tetraevangelia of the Metropolitan Danail and the Vidin collection from 1360, ordered by Empress Anna, which contains the hagiographies of thirteen Orthodox saints and a description of the holy sites in Jerusalem. Joasaph of Bdin, who was elected Archbishop of Vidin in 1392 wrote Praising epistle for the movement of St Philotea relics from Tarnovo to Vidin which contained all features of the Tarnovo Literary School. Joasaph also demonstrated great respect to Patriarch Evtimiy of Tarnovo, the most prominent figure in the Bulgarian cultural and literary life in the second half of the 14th century.
In the late 1360s the region of Vidin resisted the forceful conversion to Catholicism
undertaken by the Hungarian authorities and remained Orthodox. The subjugation of Vidin to the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1381 led to a conflict with the Patriarchate of Tarnovo but after the fall of Tarnovo and the dissolution of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, Ivan Sratsimir tried to negotiate with the Ottomans to place some of the former eparchies of Tarnovo in his jurisdiction. In 1395 he sent there a delegation led by the heir to the throne Constantine and Joasaph of Bdin to bring the relics of Saint Philotea to Vidin. According to Joasaph the mission was successful and the relics remained in Vidin for the next two centuries. However, he does not mention the diplomatic results.
Ivan Sratsimir began to mint his own coinage to show his legitimacy as early as the 1360s. The abundance of coin treasure throves found on the territory of the Tsardom of Vidin is an inducation of the wealth and the well developed trade in the region during the second half of the 14th century. The Brasov Charter, the only surviving document made by Ivan Sratsimir, grants the merchants of the Transylvanian town of Brasov
free access and the right to trade in his realm.
, a daughter of his uncle Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia, and had at least three children. Dorothea
(Doroslava), married King Tvrtko I of Bosnia
and became Queen of Bosnia while Constantine II
succeeded him as Emperor of Bulgaria. Sratsimir also had a daughter, who died young at the court of Elisabeth of Poland
.
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...
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...
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 Alexander of Bulgaria
Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor of Bulgaria from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire. 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 Sratsimir was disinherited in favour of his half-brother Ivan Shishman
Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria
Ivan Shishman ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Tarnovo from 1371 to 3 July 1395. The authority of Ivan Shishman was limited to the central parts of the Bulgarian Empire. His indecisive and inconsistent policy did little to prevent the fall of his country under Ottoman rule. In 1393 the Ottoman...
and proclaimed himself emperor in Vidin. When the Hungarians attacked and occupied his domains, he received assistance by his father and the invaders were driven away.
After the death of Ivan Alexander in 1371 he broke off the last ties with Tarnovo and even placed the archbishop of Vidin under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople , part of the wider Orthodox Church, is one of the fourteen autocephalous churches within the communion of Orthodox Christianity...
to demonstrate his independence. Due to its geographical position, Vidin was initially safe from attacks by the Ottoman Turks who were ravaging the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
to the south and Ivan Sratsimir made no attempts to assist Ivan Shishman in his struggle against the Ottomans. Only after the fall of Tarnovo
Siege of Tarnovo
The siege of Tarnovo occurred in the spring of 1393 and resulted in a decisive Ottoman victory. With the fall of its capital, the Bulgarian Empire was reduced down to a few fortresses along the Danube.- Origins of the conflict :...
in 1393 did his policy become more active and he eventually joined the crusade of the Hungarian king Sigismund
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
. However, after the disaster in the battle of Nicopolis
Battle of Nicopolis
The Battle of Nicopolis took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied army of Hungarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German and assorted troops at the hands of an Ottoman force, raising of the siege of the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis and leading to the end of the...
in 1396, the Ottomans marched to Vidin and seized it. Ivan Sratsimir was captured and imprisoned in Bursa where he was probably strangled. Although his son Constantine II
Constantine II of Bulgaria
Constantine II , ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1397 to 1422. He was born in the early 1370s, and died in exile at the Serbian court on 17 September 1422...
claimed the title Emperor of Bulgaria and at times controlled some parts of his father's realm, Ivan Sratsimir is generally regarded by historians as the last ruler of medieval Bulgaria.
Sratsimir Hill
Sratsimir Hill
Sratsimir Hill is the hill rising to 732 m at the north extremity of Korten Ridge on Davis Coast in Graham Land, Antarctica. Surmounting Lanchester Bay to the west and its sub-embayment Jordanoff Bay....
on Trinity Peninsula
Trinity Peninsula
Trinity Peninsula is the extreme northern portion of the Antarctic Peninsula, extending northeastward for about from a line connecting Cape Kjellman and Cape Longing. Dating back more than a century, chartmakers used various names for this portion of the Antarctic peninsula, each name having some...
in Antarctica is named after Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria.
Early life
Born in LovechLovech
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...
in 1324 or 1325, Ivan Sratsimir was the second son of Ivan Alexander
Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria
Ivan Alexander , also known as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor of Bulgaria from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire. 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...
(r. 1331–1371), who was at that time the despot of Lovech, and Theodora
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...
. Ivan Sratsimir was proclaimed co-emperor by his father in 1337 in his early teenage years, along with his brothers Michael Asen IV and 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....
. That political move by Ivan Alexander proved to be fatal for Bulgaria because the prerogatives of his sons' authority were not defined which led to rivalry between the brothers. After his proclamation Ivan Sratsimir was given the rule of 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...
as an apanage which was explained with the desire of Ivan Alexander to have the different regions of the state under the direct rule of his family.
In the 1340s Ivan Sratsimir rose in prominence because he was married and already had children, while his eldest brother Michael Asen and his wife did not produce children for ten years. In 1352 Ivan Alexander introduced the title junior emperor in order to secure the smooth and secure transition of the throne and Ivan Sratsimir became known by that title. In the end of 1347 or in the beginning of 1348, however, Ivan Alexander divorced with his first wife and sent her to a monastery to marry the Jewes
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
Sarah-Theodora
Sarah-Theodora
Sarah, Theodora or Sarah-Theodora is the name that the second wife of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria is known under nowadays. There are some Greek and French sources claiming her to be a daughter of a Venetian banker. Sources agree that she was Jewish, having lived with her family in the Jewish...
. That event spoiled the relations between Ivan Sratsimir and his father and the conflict deepened after the birth of Ivan Shishman
Ivan Shishman of Bulgaria
Ivan Shishman ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Tarnovo from 1371 to 3 July 1395. The authority of Ivan Shishman was limited to the central parts of the Bulgarian Empire. His indecisive and inconsistent policy did little to prevent the fall of his country under Ottoman rule. In 1393 the Ottoman...
in 1350/1351. The conflict climaxed in 1355–1356 when the undisputed heir to the throne, Michael Asen IV, perished in battle against the Ottomans. According to the Majorat
Majorat
Majorat is the right of succession to property according to age . A majorat would be inherited by the oldest son, or if there was no son, the nearest relative. This law existed in some of the European countries and was designed to prevent the distribution of wealthy estates between many members of...
system, Ivan Sratsimir should have come next in the succession line but since Ivan Shishman was born in the purple
Born in the purple
Traditionally, born in the purple was a term used to describe members of royal families although the term was later expanded to include all children born of prominent or high ranking parents. The parents must be prominent at the time of the child's birth so that the child is always in the spotlight...
, i.e. after his father was crowned, Ivan Alexander and Sarah-Theodora used it to declare Ivan Shishman as a successor to the throne. A hint of the feud between father and son is the fact that the image of Ivan Sratsimir was not included in the Tetraevangelia of Ivan Alexander where the whole imperial family was pictured, including Ivan Alexander's son in law. That could be interpreted as either Ivan Sratsimir was disinherited and proclaimed himself emperor in Vidin or that he was denied the title junior emperor and given the rule of Vidin as a compensation.
Early reign and Hungarian invasion
Ivan Sratsimir was proclaimed emperor in Vidin in 1356 and began to use the title Emperor of Bulgarians and Greeks, as his father. In order to secure the alliance of WallachiaWallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
, he married his first cousin Anna
Anna of Wallachia
Anna of Wallachia or Anna Basarab was a Wallachian princess and empress consort of Bulgaria in Vidin, second wife of emperor Ivan Sratsimir....
, the daughter of the Wallachian voivode Nicholas Alexander, in 1356 or 1357, a move that was probably arranged with the help of Ivan Sratsimir's mother Theodora as a reaction to the actions of Ivan Alexander.
He ruled with the tacit consent of his father for around ten years until 1365 when the Hungarian king Louis I, who styled himself King of Bulgaria among the other titles, demanded that Ivan Sratsimir acknowledge his suzerainty and become his vassal. When the Bulgarian ruler refused, Louis I marched from Hungary on 1 May 1365 and captured Vidin on 2 June after a brief siege. The rest of the Vidin Tsardom was conquered in the next three months. Ivan Sratsimir and his family were captured and taken to the castle of Humnik in modern Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
and the region of Vidin was placed under direct Hungarian rule governed by a Ban
Ban (title)
Ban was a title used in several states in central and south-eastern Europe between the 7th century and the 20th century.-Etymology:The word ban has entered the English language probably as a borrowing from South Slavic ban, meaning "lord, master; ruler". The Slavic word is probably borrowed from...
, appointed by the King of Hungary. Ivan Sratsimir spent four years in honorary Hungarian captivity and he and his family were forced to accept Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
. The Hungarians also sent Franciscan
Franciscan
Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....
monks to convert the population of the Vidin Tsardom to Catholicism. Although the Hungarian accounts boasted that the Franciscans converted 200,000 people, or a third of the region's population, that move brought great discontent among the Bulgarian population and eventually failed. That was in fact the first forceful conversion in the country after the Christianization of Bulgaria
Christianization of Bulgaria
The Christianization of Bulgaria was the process by which 9th-century medieval Bulgaria converted to Christianity. It was influenced by the khan's shifting political alliances with the kingdom of the East Franks and the Byzantine Empire, as well as his reception by the Pope of the Roman Catholic...
five centuries earlier. In a contemporary book, a monk wrote:
Initially Ivan Alexander, who was still nominally the rightful ruler of Vidin, did not take active measures for its recovery, although his refusal to give safe conduct to the Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos
John V Palaiologos was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341, at age nine.-Biography:...
who was returning to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
from Western Europe was explained by the deterioration of the Bulgarian–Hungarian relations. By 1369, however, he organised an Orthodox anti-Hungarian coalition for the liberation of Vidin with the participation of the Wallachian voivode Vladislav I Vlaicu
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...
and despot Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa
Dobrotitsa was a Bulgarian noble, ruler of the de facto independent Principality of Karvuna and the Kaliakra fortress from 1354 to 1379–1386....
. The allied campaign was a success and after it was supported by a popular uprising in Vidin against the Catholic clergy and the Hungarian authority, Louis I had to give up his claims and restore Ivan Sratsimir to the throne in Vidin in the autumn of 1369. According to J. Fine, Ivan Sratsimir was allowed to return in Vidin by Louis I as a Hungarian vassal because of his popularity among the population and that Ivan Sratsimir used the Hungarian patronage to assert independence from his father and later to resist his brother in Tarnovo
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...
.
Reign after 1371
Konstantin Josef Jirecek
Konstantin Josef Jireček , son of Josef Jireček, was a Czech historian, diplomat and slavist.He entered the Bulgarian service in 1879, and in 1881 became minister of education at Sofia...
supported the hypothesis that Ivan Sratsimir and Ivan Shishman were engaged in a military conflict over Sofia
Sofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
but the idea has been dismissed by most modern historians. In fact, despite the rivalry, the brothers maintained scrupulous relations until 1381 and Ivan Sratsimir was even pointed as a potential successor of the empire by Ivan Shishman. Fine suggests that immediately after the death of his father, Ivan Sratsimir tried to seize the control over the whole of Bulgaria for himself and even captured and held Sofia for a year or two, which lead to permanent hostility between the two brothers and spoiled any chances for a common Bulgarian resistance against the Ottomans.
The relations between the two Bulgarian states worsened in 1381 when Ivan Sratsimir broke the connections with the Bulgarian Patriarchate in Tarnovo
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...
and instead placed the Archbishopric of Vidin under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople , part of the wider Orthodox Church, is one of the fourteen autocephalous churches within the communion of Orthodox Christianity...
. That decision was a demonstration of the independence of Vidin from Tarnovo but did not lead an open conflict between the two. The hostility between Ivan Sratsimir and Ivan Shishman remained on the eve of the Ottoman invasion. Most historians agree that in the 1370s and the early 1380s Vidin was still away from the route Ottoman campaigns and was not endangered. During and after the massive Ottoman invasion in north-eastern Bulgaria in 1388, the sources suggest two brothers were in uneasy relations. As a result of the Ottoman success in the 1388 campaign and the resulting changes of the balance of power, Ivan Sratsimir had to become an Ottoman vassal and to accept an Ottoman garrison in Vidin. Ivan Sratsimir remained inactive while the Ottomans destroyed the remains of the Tarnovo Tsardom – the Tarnovo fell
Siege of Tarnovo
The siege of Tarnovo occurred in the spring of 1393 and resulted in a decisive Ottoman victory. With the fall of its capital, the Bulgarian Empire was reduced down to a few fortresses along the Danube.- Origins of the conflict :...
in 1393 and Ivan Shishman was killed in 1395. In 1396 Ivan Sratsimir joined the Christian crusade organised by the Hungarian king Sigismund
Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor
Sigismund of Luxemburg KG was King of Hungary, of Croatia from 1387 to 1437, of Bohemia from 1419, and Holy Roman Emperor for four years from 1433 until 1437, the last Emperor of the House of Luxemburg. He was also King of Italy from 1431, and of Germany from 1411...
. When the crusader army reached Vidin the Bulgarian ruler opened the gates and surrendered the Ottoman garrison. The Ottoman garrison of Oryahovo
Oryahovo
Oryahovo is a port city in northwestern Bulgaria, part of Vratsa Province. It is located in a hilly country on the right bank of the Danube, just east of the mouth of the river Ogosta, a few more kilometres downstream from where the Jiu flows into the Danube on Romanian territory. The town is...
tried to resist but the local Bulgarians managed to capture it. However, the Christian army suffered a heavy defeat on 25 September in the battle of Nicopolis
Battle of Nicopolis
The Battle of Nicopolis took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied army of Hungarian, Wallachian, French, Burgundian, German and assorted troops at the hands of an Ottoman force, raising of the siege of the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis and leading to the end of the...
and the victorious Ottoman sultan Bayezid I
Bayezid I
Bayezid I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1389 to 1402. He was the son of Murad I and Valide Sultan Gülçiçek Hatun.-Biography:Bayezid was born in Edirne and spent his youth in Bursa, where he received a high-level education...
immediately marched to Vidin and seized it by the end of 1396 or the beginning of 1397. Ivan Sratsimir was captured and imprisoned in the Ottoman capital Bursa where he was probably strangled.
Culture, economy and religion
Tarnovo Literary School
The Tarnovo Literary School of the late 14th and 15th century was a major medieval Bulgarian cultural academy with important contribution to the Medieval Bulgarian literature established in the capital of Bulgaria Tarnovo...
. Some of the works that have survived from that period include the Tetraevangelia of the Metropolitan Danail and the Vidin collection from 1360, ordered by Empress Anna, which contains the hagiographies of thirteen Orthodox saints and a description of the holy sites in Jerusalem. Joasaph of Bdin, who was elected Archbishop of Vidin in 1392 wrote Praising epistle for the movement of St Philotea relics from Tarnovo to Vidin which contained all features of the Tarnovo Literary School. Joasaph also demonstrated great respect to Patriarch Evtimiy of Tarnovo, the most prominent figure in the Bulgarian cultural and literary life in the second half of the 14th century.
In the late 1360s the region of Vidin resisted the forceful conversion to Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
undertaken by the Hungarian authorities and remained Orthodox. The subjugation of Vidin to the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1381 led to a conflict with the Patriarchate of Tarnovo but after the fall of Tarnovo and the dissolution of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, Ivan Sratsimir tried to negotiate with the Ottomans to place some of the former eparchies of Tarnovo in his jurisdiction. In 1395 he sent there a delegation led by the heir to the throne Constantine and Joasaph of Bdin to bring the relics of Saint Philotea to Vidin. According to Joasaph the mission was successful and the relics remained in Vidin for the next two centuries. However, he does not mention the diplomatic results.
Ivan Sratsimir began to mint his own coinage to show his legitimacy as early as the 1360s. The abundance of coin treasure throves found on the territory of the Tsardom of Vidin is an inducation of the wealth and the well developed trade in the region during the second half of the 14th century. The Brasov Charter, the only surviving document made by Ivan Sratsimir, grants the merchants of the Transylvanian town of Brasov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
free access and the right to trade in his realm.
Family
Nothing is known about Ivan Stratsimir's first wife and children apart from their existence. Ivan Sratsimir married for a second time to his first cousin, Anna of WallachiaAnna of Wallachia
Anna of Wallachia or Anna Basarab was a Wallachian princess and empress consort of Bulgaria in Vidin, second wife of emperor Ivan Sratsimir....
, a daughter of his uncle Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia, and had at least three children. Dorothea
Dorothea of Bulgaria
Dorothea of Bulgaria was the first Queen of Bosnia.-Early life:She was the daughter of Emperor Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria and his wife Anna of Wallachia....
(Doroslava), married King Tvrtko I of Bosnia
Tvrtko I of Bosnia
Stjepan Tvrtko I was a ruler of medieval Bosnia. He ruled in 1353–1366 and again in 1367–1377 as Ban and in 1377–1391 as the first Bosnian King....
and became Queen of Bosnia while Constantine II
Constantine II of Bulgaria
Constantine II , ruled as emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1397 to 1422. He was born in the early 1370s, and died in exile at the Serbian court on 17 September 1422...
succeeded him as Emperor of Bulgaria. Sratsimir also had a daughter, who died young at the court of Elisabeth of Poland
Elisabeth of Poland
Elisabeth of Poland was Queen consort of Hungary and regent of Poland. She is also known as Elisabeth of Kujavia and Elisabeth Piast.-Early life:...
.
Timeline
- 1324 or 1325 — Ivan Sratsimir was born
- 1337 — Proclaimed co-emperor along with his brothers
- 1355 — Removed from the succession line in favour of his younger half–brother Ivan Shishman
- 1356 — Proclaimed emperor of Bulgaria in Vidin
- 1365 — Captured by the Hungarians after the conquest of Vidin
- 1369 — Released from captivity and reinstalled as a ruler
- 1371 — Becomes independent from Tarnovo after the death of his father
- 1381 — The Archbishopric of Vidin is subordinated to the Patriarchate of Constantinople
- 1388 — Forced to become an Ottoman vassal
- 1396 — Battle of Nicopolis — the Christian coalition is defeated; fall of Vidin
- 1397 — Ivan Sratsimir dies in Ottoman captivity