Ivan Assen II.

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Tsar Ivan Assen II, fresco in the Zografou monastery
The victory column in the Church of the Holy 40 Martyrs in Veliko Tarnovo .
Bulgaria under Ivan Assen II after the battle of Klokotnitsa .

Ivan Assen II ( Bulgarian Иван Асен II , scientific transliteration Ivan Asen , also Johannes Assen II ; † June 24, 1241 ) was Tsar of the Second Bulgarian Empire between 1218 and 1241 . Ivan Assen II belonged to the influential Bulgarian ruling house Assen .

Life

Ivan Assen II was the son of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Assen I (1186–1196), who founded the Second Bulgarian Empire together with his brothers Theodor Peter (1196–1197) and Kalojan (1197–1207). His mother Elena was a daughter of the Serbian Tsar Stefan Nemanja . Iwan Assen II was baptized as Dragan , but later took the titular name Iwan , which was common in the Byzantine culture.

With Russian help, Ivan only ousted the usurper Boril (1207-1218) from the throne in 1218 and married Maria, the daughter of the Hungarian king Andreas II. Under Ivan's rule, the Second Bulgarian Empire (1186-1396) experienced its greatest prosperity and expansion, comparable to the history of Bulgaria only with that under the tsars Simeon the Great or Samuel in the First Bulgarian Empire (678-1018). The Bulgarian Empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Aegean and Adriatic Sea and became the strongest power in the Balkans .

After the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, Kalojan had already hoped for the vacant imperial crown and had entered into a church union with the Pope , but was disappointed with the establishment of the Latin Empire . Nevertheless, Ivan tried to win the favor of the Latins and the crown of the Pope and offered his daughter Helena to the Latin Emperor Baldwin as a wife. The rejection made Ivan a bitter enemy of the Latins, but also a rival of the western Greek emperor Theodor Komnenos Dukas . From the despotate of Epirus he had pursued a Byzantine restoration policy - initially as Ivan Assen's son-in-law in alliance with the Bulgarian tsar, but then against him after the conquest of Thessaloniki in 1224. On March 9, 1230 he was defeated by Ivan in the battle of Klokotnitsa , captured, blinded and sent back to Thessaloniki as a vassal.

As a sign of his victory, Ivan Assen had the Church of the Holy 40 Martyrs built in his capital, Veliko Tarnovo . In it he had a marble column built into which an inscription, which can still be seen today, was carved. The inscription reads:

“In 1230 I, Ivan Assen, the pious tsar in Christ the Lord and autocrat of the Bulgarians, son of the old Assen , had this most holy church built from the foundation walls and decorated with paintings in honor of the Forty Martyrs, with whose help I In the twelfth year of my reign went to battle in Thrace , destroyed the Greek army and even captured the Greek tsar Theodoros Komnenos with all his boyars. I conquered all countries from Adrianople to Durazzo - the Greek, Albanian and Serbian lands. The Franks only kept the cities around Constantinople and this city itself, submitted to the authorities of my power, since they themselves had no other tsar besides me, and thanks to me they spent their days, because God ordered it, because without Him neither a word nor a word an act is performed. Glory to him forever and ever! Amen."

The time after the Battle of Klokotnitsa

Almost all areas of Theodor (Macedonia, Albania, Belgrade / Branicevo) fell to Ivan, only in southern Epirus itself Theodor's nephew Michael II Angelus was able to assert himself . Ivan spared the newly won areas and left them their own local administrations.

During this time the kingdom of Nicaea sought Bulgarian help against the advancing Mongols. An alliance was formed and secured through dynastic marriages: The Eastern Greek Emperor Theodor II. Laskaris of Nicaea married Ivan's daughter Helena in 1232 and a united Nicene-Bulgarian army besieged the Latins in Constantinople in 1235.

Ivan Assen II founded the Bulgarian Patriarchate in 1235 , which was confirmed by the Orthodox Churches at the Lampsakus Church Council that same year . As in 927 under Tsar Simeon I , the Bulgarian Orthodox Church broke away from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople for the second time . The Archbishop of Tarnowo, Ioakim I, was ordained as the new Bulgarian Patriarch .

For a short time Iwan Assen changed fronts again when he allied himself again with the Catholic Church in 1236 and supported the Latins with Bulgarian troops in the fight against Nikea. But after an epidemic cost his wife Maria, his son and his patriarch their lives in 1237, Iwan Assen saw it as a divine sign to renew the alliance with Greek Orthodox Christianity and the Emperor of Nicaea. On the charge of the church split, Pope Gregory IX. 1238 launched the crusade against the Bulgarian Tsar. As a second wife, Iwan Assen took Irene - the daughter of his blind vassal Theodore of Thessaloniki.

Through the marriage of his other daughter Beloslava to the Serbian prince Stefan Vladislav , Ivan also tied Serbia ( Raszien ) to himself, but Vladislav was overthrown after the death of his father-in-law. As support against the Mongols and against the Hungarians (who repeatedly posed a threat to Belgrade and Vidin ), Iwan Assen brought the Cumans into the country. In 1241, however, he was subject to a Mongol advance division and died shortly afterwards, before the "Tatar storm" in 1242 destroyed his empire. Hungary, Nicaea and Serbia seized further parts of Bulgaria.

Bulgarian historians are critical of the Byzantine heritage emphasized by Iwan Assen. The claim to world domination derived from this overwhelmed, wasted and ultimately ruined the forces of Bulgaria, the orthodox Christianity of the upper class ran away from large parts of the common people and over to the sect of the Bogomils .

family

Ivan Assen II was married three times.

  1. Iwan Assen ⚭ Anna
    1. Marija ⚭ 1225 Manuel Angelos , vassal and despot of Thessaloniki
    2. Beloslawa ⚭ after 1285 Stefan Vladislav , King of Raszien
  2. Iwan Assen ⚭ 1221 Maria († 1237) of Hungary, daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary
    1. Elena Assenina of Bulgaria (1224–1254) ⚭ 1235 Theodor II. Dukas Laskaris
    2. Tamara (* after 1230)
    3. Kaliman I (1234–1246), Tsar of Bulgaria (1241–1246)
  3. Iwan Assen ⚭ 1237/38 Irene Angelina , daughter of the emperor Theodoros I. Angelos Komnenos Dukas
    1. Michael II. Assen (* approx. 1238–1256), Tsar of Bulgaria (1246–1256)
    2. Teodora-Anna ⚭ Sebastokrator Pjotr
    3. Marija ⚭ Boyars Mizo Assen
      1. Ivan Assen III. (1259 / 1260–1303) Mitso, Tsar of Bulgaria (1279–1280)
      2. Kira-Marija ⚭ Georgi I Terter († after 1304), Tsar of Bulgaria (1280–1292)

See also

literature

Footnotes

  1. ↑ according to this page, however, the daughter was married to the boyar Tih
  2. ↑ Constantin Jireček: Chapter XVI. Car Joannes Asen II. Pp. 251-252.
    Gerhard Eckert : Bulgaria. Art monuments from four millennia from the Thracians to the present. DuMont, Cologne 1984, ISBN 3-7701-1168-0 , p. 67.
  3. ^ Gerhard Podskalsky : Theological literature of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria and Serbia 815-1459. Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-45024-5 , p. 79.
  4. ↑ Miroslav Marek: The house of Asenids . December 8, 2003.
predecessor Office successor
Boril Tsar of Bulgaria
1218–1241 		Kaliman I.
personal data
SURNAME Ivan Assen II.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ivan II Asen; Johannes Assen II .; Иван Асен II (Bulgarian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Son of the Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Assen I.
DATE OF BIRTH 12th Century
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 1241