Peter IV (Bulgaria)

Peter IV ( Bulgarian Петър IV ; birth name Theodor , Bulgarian Теодор ; † 1197 in Veliko Tarnowo ) was Tsar of the Second Bulgarian Empire from 1186 to 1190 and from 1196 to 1197 .

Life

Theodor was, together with his brothers Iwan Assen and Kalojan, one of the founders of the Assenid dynasty . First they administered the region around Lovetsch under Byzantine rule . In 1185, Theodor and Iwan Assen asked Emperor Isaak II in Kypsela to be admitted to the Pronoia system, a kind of tax tenancy as a substitute for pay. The two brothers urgently needed land and the income from it in order to be able to pay a substantial new tax to the emperor. This new tax was introduced by Isaac II to raise money for the war against the Normans and for the marriage to the daughter of Béla III. from Hungary to get together. However, her request was abruptly rejected.

With the support of the Cumans, the two Assen brothers sparked an armed uprising by the Bulgarians , which soon spread in the area between the Balkan Mountains and the Danube , and declared themselves independent from the Byzantine Empire. The Bulgarian territories were released from the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Ohrid and an independent Bulgarian church was founded. The monk Vasily (Basilios) , who crowned Theodore as tsar in the new capital Tarnowo in 1186, was raised to its head . In order to underline the continuity with the First Bulgarian Empire, Theodor took the dynastic name Peter at the coronation - like Deljan and Konstantin Bodin before him . Isaac II initiated several campaigns against the Bulgarians through his generals Johannes Dukas , Johannes Kantakuzenos and Alexios Branas , but in 1187 he had to contractually recognize the establishment of the Second Bulgarian Empire.

In 1189 Peter offered the crusaders led by Friedrich Barbarossa military support against Byzantium in return for political recognition of his tsarism. In the spring of 1190 he left the throne in Tarnowo to his militarily more successful brother Ivan and from then on resided as co-tsar in the old capital Preslaw . After the assassination of Ivan Assen by the Boljar leader Iwanko in 1196, Peter besieged the usurper in Tarnowo and, after his flight to Constantinople , took control again. Only a year later he himself fell victim to a Boljar conspiracy. He was succeeded by his younger brother Kalojan, who had been made co-regent in 1196.

Peter IV is the namesake for Peter Peak , a mountain on Livingston Island in Antarctica.

swell

• Georgios Akropolites 12 (ed. August Heisenberg , BSGRT Vol. 1–2, 1903, reprint 1978)
• Niketas Choniates 369-404 and 434-472 (ed. Jan-Louis van Dieten, CFHB Vol. 11, 1975)

literature

• Charles M. Brand: Byzantium confronts the West, 1180-1204. Harvard University Press, Cambridge NJ 1968, ISBN 0-8143-1764-2 , p. 338 and passim .
• Jean-Claude Cheynet: Pouvoir et contestations à Byzance (963-1210) (= Publications de la Sorbonne. Series Byzantina Sorbonensia. Vol. 9). Reimpression. Publications de la Sorbonne Center de Recherches d'Histoire et de Civilization Byzantines, Paris 1996, ISBN 2-85944-168-5 , pp. 120–121, No. 165.
• Jan-Louis van Dieten: Niketas Choniates. Explanations of the speeches and letters together with a biography. (= Supplementa Byzantina . Vol. 2). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1971, ISBN 978-3-11-002290-2 , pp. 64-65, 70, 79.
• John VA Fine: The Early Medieval Balkans. A critical survey from the sixth to the late twelfth century. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI 1991, ISBN 0-472-08149-7 , pp. 10-17.
• Detlef Kulman: Petŭr II. (Bulgaria) . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, p. 432 f.
• Phaidon Malingoudis: The news from Niketas Choniates about the creation of the Second Bulgarian State. In: Byzantina 10, 1980, ISSN  1105-0772 , pp. 51-147.
• Leonidas Mavrommatis: La Formation du deuxième royaume bulgare vue par les intellectuels byzantins. In: Études balkaniques 21, 1985, issue 1, ISSN  0324-1645 , pp. 30-38.
• Alicia Simpson: Niketas Choniates. A Historiographical Study. (= Oxford Studies in Byzantium ). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013, ISBN 978-0-19-967071-0 , p. 306 and passim .
• Paul Stephenson: Byzantium's Balkan Frontier: A Political Study of the Northern Balkans 900–1204. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2000, ISBN 0-521-77017-3 , pp. 288-306 (passim) .
• Vasilka Tapkova-Zaimova: Restauration de la Bulgarie par les Assenides. (Problèmes du pouvoir). In: Études balkaniques 21, 1985, Issue 3, ISSN  0324-1645 , pp. 27-36.

Web links

Commons : Peter IV (Bulgaria)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Teodor on Medieval Lands
• Peter IV. ("II.") In the Encyclopaedia Britannica

predecessor	Office	successor
(vacant; last title holder: Peter III. )	Tsar of Bulgaria 1186–1190	Ivan Assen I.
Ivanko	Tsar of Bulgaria 1196–1197	Kaloyan