Ivan Assen III.

Ivan Assen III. ( Bulgarian Иван Асен , Middle Greek Ἰωάννης Ἀσάνης ; * 1259/1260; † 1303 ) was Tsar of Bulgaria from 1279 to 1280 .

Life

Ivan Assen was a member of the Bulgarian ruling dynasty Assen . He was the eldest son of Mizo Assen and Maria Assenina and thus a grandson of Iwan Assen II. As a toddler he came to Constantinople at the court of the Byzantine with his father, who had lost the throne of the Tsar six years earlier to Konstantin Tich Assen Emperor Michael VIII. Palaiologos .

After the usurper Iwajlo had taken over rule in Bulgaria in 1277 and continuously expanded it, Michael VIII decided to build up the young pretender Iwan Assen as his own candidate. He made him despot , gave him his eldest daughter Irene as a wife and provided him with a powerful army. Iwajlo was able to defend himself against the Byzantines for a time , but then succumbed to their Mongol allies at Silistra in 1279 . When the false rumor spread in Tarnowo that Iwajlo had died in battle, the city opened the gates to Ivan Assen, who was then recognized as Tsar by Bulgaria.

In order to consolidate his ruling position in Tarnowo, Iwan Assen III married. his sister Kira Maria with the powerful Boljar Georgi Terter , whose first marriage to Maria , daughter of the despot Jakob Swetoslaw , was annulled for it. The new tsar did not succeed in gaining recognition everywhere in the Bulgarian Empire . Ivajlo reappeared before the walls of the capital and opened the siege; two attempts by the Byzantines to relieve the trapped were thwarted by him. In view of the hopelessness of their situation, Iwan Assen III fled. and Irene Palaiologina secretly from Tarnowo, taking with them selected pieces of the crown treasure. From the port of Mesembria ( Nessebar ) they reached Constantinople by sea, where Michael VIII, angry about their cowardice, refused to receive them for several days.

In 1280 or 1281 Iwan Assen traveled to the khanate of the Golden Horde with the request for weapons aid for his return to the Bulgarian throne. The Mongol chief Nogai Khan had Ivan's rival Iwajlo killed, but made no serious attempt to overthrow Georgi Terter, who had meanwhile advanced to tsar, and to overthrow Ivan Assen III. to bring back to power in Tarnowo. This disappointed retired into exile on the domain of his father on Scamandros in the Troas , where he died in 1303.

family

Ivan Assen III. and Irene Palaiologina became the ancestors of the great and influential Asanes line in Byzantium, which provided numerous high officials and dignitaries until the end of the empire in the 15th century. They had the following children:

1. Michael Assen, Bulgarian titular tsar
2. Andronikos Asanes
3. Isaac Asanes
4. Manuel Asanes
5. Constantine Asanes
6. Theodora Asanina
7. Maria Asanina, wife of Emperor Roger de Flor

Ivan Assen's granddaughter Irene Asanina was with Emperor John VI. Kantakuzenos married, his great-granddaughter Helena Kantakuzene to Johannes V. Palaiologos .

swell

• Nikephoros Gregoras 1, 132-133; 220 (ed. Ludwig Schopen , CSHB , 1829)
• Georgios Pachymeres 1, 435-468 passim; 2, 72-73 and passim (ed. Albert Failler, CFHB Ser. Paris. Vol. 24, 1984)
• Manuel Philes 249 (ed. Manuel Gédéon, 1882/83)

literature

• Franz Dölger : Regest of the imperial documents of the Eastern Roman Empire from 565-1453. Part 3, Volume 3: Regesten from 1204–1282 (= corpus of Greek documents from the Middle Ages and modern times. Row A: Regesten. Dept. 1, Part 3, Vol. 3). 2nd edition revised by Peter Wirth . CH Beck, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-406-00738-4 , No. 1916a, 2033-2036, 2093, 2099.
• Божидар Ферјанчић: Деспоти у Византији и Јужнословенским земљама (= Посебна издања . Vol. 336; Византолошки институт Vol. 8.). Српска академија наука и уметности, Београд 1960, pp. 45–46, 144.
• John Van Antwerp Fine: The Late Medieval Balkans: A critical Survey from the late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 1994, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 , pp. 197-198.
• Rodolphe Guilland: Recherches sur les institutions byzantines. Vol. 2 (= Berlin Byzantine Works. Vol. 37). Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1967, p. 15.
• Erich Trapp , Rainer Walther, Hans-Veit Beyer: Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit . 1. Fascicle: Ἀαρών - Ἀψαρᾶς (= publications of the Commission for Byzantine Studies . Vol. 1/1). Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1976, ISBN 3-7001-0169-4 , p. 140 No. 1501.

Web links

• Ivan Asen Mytzes of Bulgaria on Medieval Lands

predecessor	Office	successor
Ivajlo	Tsar of Bulgaria 1279–1280	Georgi I. Terter