Ivan Shishman

Ivan Shishman. Tetra Gospel Book of Tsar Ivan Alexander

Ivan Schischman (* around 1350 ; † June 3, 1395 in Nikopol ) was a Bulgarian prince and from 1371 Tsar of Bulgaria in Veliko Tarnovo .

Life

Ivan was the eldest son of Tsar Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria from the Shishmanid family from his second marriage to Theodora, a Jew who had converted to the Orthodox faith .

He was raised to co-regent by his father in 1356, while his half-brother Iwan Strazimir received the area around Vidin as a rulership. During his reign, Bulgaria came under the rule of the Ottomans , who would rule the country for 500 years.

After the death of his father, Iwan supported an anti-Ottoman coalition of the South Serbian king Vukašin Mrnjavčević , whom he supported with a Bulgarian contingent. However, the Serbian-Bulgarian army was completely wiped out in the Battle of the Maritsa on September 26, 1371. Thus Bulgaria became the main area of Turkish expansion in Europe at the end of the 14th century . In 1373 Ivan was forced to recognize Ottoman suzerainty over his empire and to give his sister Thamar (Kera Tamara) to the sultan as a wife.

St. Ivan Shishman.

Despite its submission, Bulgaria was not spared from Ottoman attacks in the next few decades. Under such pressure, he lost Ichtiman in 1378, followed by Sofia in 1383. Finally, he refused to pay homage to the Turkish Sultan Murad I. In 1388 the Ottomans overran Bulgaria and besieged Ivan in Nikopol. He had to submit to the Sultan again. In 1393 Bulgaria was again a target of Turkish attacks, after three months of siege the Bulgarian capital Veliko Tarnovo fell on July 17th . The conquest of the capital is often seen as the end of the Second Bulgarian Empire, although Ivan Shishman survived in the Nikopol fortress.

Ivan ruled from Nikopol as an Ottoman vassal, but was executed on June 3, 1395 on the orders of Sultan Bayezids I and his territory was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. His half-brother Iwan Stratsimir kept a Bulgarian empire in Vidin upright until it was annexed in 1396/7. Another Bulgarian entity was the Dobruja despotate on the Black Sea coast.

The Shishman Peak on Livingston Island in Antarctica is named after him.

literature

• Andreev, Jordan; Ivan Lazarov; Plamen Pavlov: Koj koj ev srednovekovna Bǎlgarija . Sofia 1999. ISBN 954-402-047-0 .
• Andreev, Jordan: Bǎlgarija prez vtorata četvǎrt na XIV vek Veliko Tǎrnovo 1993.
• Andreev, Jordan; Tsar Iwan Schischman / 1371-1395 / in Bǎlgarskite khanove i zare VII-XIV vek , “Petar Beron” publishing house, Sofia, 1998, pp. 208-217, ISBN 954-402-034-9
• Božilov, Ivan: Familijata na Asenevci (1186–1460) (in Bulgarian). Sofia 1985.
• Fine, Jr., John VA: The Late Medieval Balkans , Ann Arbor 1987. ISBN 0-472-08260-4 .
• Podskalsky, Gerhard : Theological literature of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria and Serbia 815-1459. Munich 2000. ISBN 3-406-45024-5

predecessor	Office	successor
Ivan Alexander	Tsar of Bulgaria 1371-1393	Ivan Strazimir