Ivan Alexander Asen (Bulgarian: Иван Александър Асен, transliterated Ivan Aleksandăr Asen, pronounced [iˈvan ɐlɛkˈsandɐr ˈasɛn]; original spelling: ІѠАНЪ АЛЄѮАНдРЪ), also known just as Ivan Alexander, sometimes anglicized as John Alexander, ruled as Emperor (Tsar) of Bulgaria from 1331 to 1371, during the Second Bulgarian Empire. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on 17 February 1371.
The long reign of Ivan Alexander Asen is considered a transitional period in Bulgarian medieval history. The Tsar began his rule by dealing with internal problems and external threats from Bulgaria's neighbours, the Byzantine Empire and Serbia, 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 forces, Hungarian invasions from the northwest and the Black Death. 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.
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. Paternally, Ivan Alexander descended from the Asen dynasty. By 1330 Ivan Alexander was a despot and governed the city of Lovech. Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab of Wallachia, Ivan Alexander fought in the Battle of Velbazhd against the Serbs at modern-day Kyustendil in 1330, in which Bulgaria suffered a 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 drove Ivan Stefan out of the capital Tarnovo 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 Asen campaigned around Adrianople and reconquered northeastern Thrace. Meanwhile, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan deposed his father Stefan Uroš III Dečanski and became Serbian king in 1331. This helped normalize the previously tense relations between the two countries. Ivan Alexander Asen and Stefan Uroš IV Dušan concluded an alliance, which was cemented by the marriage of the Serbian king to Helena of Bulgaria, a sister of Ivan Alexander, on Easter 1332.
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 Asen 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 Asen, reinforced by Mongol cavalry, overwhelmed the smaller but better organized Byzantine army in the Battle of Rusokastro. The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander Asen, 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.
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 Asen 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 Asen 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 Asen demanded the extradition of his cousin Šišman, one of the sons of Michael Asen III, threatening the Byzantine government with war. Ivan Alexander Asen'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 Asen 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 Asen's support, the regency for John V Palaiologos ceded him the city of Philippopolis (Plovdiv) and nine important fortresses in the Rhodope Mountains 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, 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. 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 of Peć 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. He appealed to the rulers of Serbia and Bulgaria for a united effort against the Turks and asked Ivan Alexander Asen 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, but the alliance failed to produce concrete results.
Further stability problems and external conflicts