The Rise And Fall Of The Second Bulgarian Empire 1186-1258
From 1186 to 1258 Bulgaria experienced temporary resuscitation, the
brevity of which was more than compensated for by the stirring nature of
the events that crowded it. The exactions and oppressions of the Greeks
culminated in a revolt on the part of the Bulgars, which had its centre in
Tirnovo on the river Yantra in northern Bulgaria--a position of great
natural strength and strategic importance, commanding the outlets of
coincided with the growing weakness of the eastern empire, which,
surrounded on all sides by aggressive enemies--Kumans, Saracens, Turks,
and Normans--was sickening for one of the severe illnesses which preceded
its dissolution. The revolt was headed by two brothers who were Vlakh or
Rumanian shepherds, and was blessed by the archbishop Basil, who crowned
one of them, called John Asen, as tsar in Tirnovo in 1186. Their first
efforts against the Greeks were not successful, but securing the support
of the Serbs under Stephen Nemanja in 1188 and of the Crusaders in 1189
they became more so; but there was life in the Greeks yet, and victory
alternated with defeat. John Asen I was assassinated in 1196 and was
succeeded after many internal discords and murders by his relative Kaloian
or Pretty John. This cruel and unscrupulous though determined ruler soon
made an end of all his enemies at home, and in eight years achieved such
success abroad that Bulgaria almost regained its former proportions.
Moreover, he re-established relations with Rome, to the great discomfiture
of the Greeks, and after some negotiations Pope Innocent III recognized
Kaloian as tsar of the Bulgars and Vlakhs (roi de Blaquie et de Bougrie,
in the words of Villehardouin), with Basil as primate, and they were both
duly consecrated and crowned by the papal legate at Tirnovo in 1204. The
French, who had just established themselves in Constantinople during the
fourth crusade, imprudently made an enemy of Kaloian instead of a friend,
and with the aid of the Tartar Kumans he defeated them several times,
capturing and brutally murdering Baldwin I. But in 1207 his career was cut
short; he was murdered while besieging Salonika by one of his generals who
was a friend of his wife. After eleven years of further anarchy he was
succeeded by John Asen II. During the reign of this monarch, which lasted
from 1218 till 1241, Bulgaria reached the zenith of its power. He was the
most enlightened ruler the country had had, and he not only waged war
successfully abroad but also put an end to the internal confusion,
restored the possibility of carrying on agriculture and commerce, and
encouraged the foundation of numerous schools and monasteries. He
maintained the tradition of his family by making his capital at Tirnovo,
which city he considerably embellished and enlarged.
Constantinople at this time boasted three Greek emperors and one French.
The first act of John Asen II was to get rid of one of them, named
Theodore, who had proclaimed himself basileus at Okhrida in 1223.
Thereupon he annexed the whole of Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, and Epirus
to his dominions, and made Theodore's brother Manuel, who had married one
of his daughters, viceroy, established at Salonika. Another of his
daughters had married Stephen Vladislav, who was King of Serbia from
1233-43, and a third married Theodore, son of the Emperor John III, who
reigned at Nicaea, in 1235. This daughter, after being sought in marriage
by the French barons at Constantinople as a wife for the Emperor Baldwin
II, a minor, was then summarily rejected in favour of the daughter of the
King of Jerusalem; this affront rankled in the mind of John Asen II and
threw him into the arms of the Greeks, with whom he concluded an alliance
in 1234. John Asen II and his ally, the Emperor John III, were, however,
utterly defeated by the French under the walls of Constantinople in 1236,
and the Bulgarian ruler, who had no wish to see the Greeks re-established
there, began to doubt the wisdom of his alliance. Other Bulgarian tsars
had been unscrupulous, but the whole foreign policy of this one pivoted on
treachery. He deserted the Greeks and made an alliance with the French in
1237, the Pope Gregory IX, a great Hellenophobe, having threatened him
with excommunication; he went so far as to force his daughter to
relinquish her Greek husband. The following year, however, he again
changed over to the Greeks; then again fear of the Pope and of his
brother-in-law the King of Hungary brought him back to the side of Baldwin
II, to whose help against the Greeks he went with a large army into Thrace
in 1239. While besieging the Greeks with indifferent success, he learned
of the death of his wife and his eldest son from plague, and incontinently
returned to Tirnovo, giving up the war and restoring his daughter to her
lonely husband. This adaptable monarch died a natural death in 1241, and
the three rulers of his family who succeeded him, whose reigns filled the
period 1241-58, managed to undo all the constructive work of their
immediate predecessors. Province after province was lost and internal
anarchy increased. This remarkable dynasty came to an inglorious end in
1258, when its last representative was murdered by his own nobles, and
from this time onwards Bulgaria was only a shadow of its former self.
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