Ivan Shishman

Ivan Shishman was tsar of Bulgaria, with his seat at Tarnovo, from 1371 until 1395, the last ruler there before the Ottoman conquest. He was killed by the sultan Bayezid on 3 June 1395. In the tradition of the Bulgarian people he is a legendary and valiant ruler, and in the tradition of the Church he is numbered among the right-⁠believing.

Beginnings

He was born in 1350 or 1351, the eldest son of Tsar Ivan Alexander and his second wife, Sarah-⁠Theodora, a Jewish woman converted to Orthodoxy. His birth raised again the question of the successor to the throne. Ivan Alexander had two elder sons from his first marriage, to Theodora of Wallachia; the eldest, Michael Asen IV, had been made successor and co-⁠ruler, but died in battle with the Turks, in 1355. Probably Sarah-⁠Theodora pressed for her son to be chosen, although by the system of seniority Ivan Sratsimir was next. The matter was decided in Ivan Shishman’s favour because he was born in the purple, that is, after his father’s coronation. By the end of 1355 he was proclaimed heir and co-⁠tsar. Ivan Sratsimir received Vidin, probably as compensation, and in 1356 proclaimed himself tsar there. With his father and younger brother, Ivan Asen V, Ivan Shishman presided over synods at Tarnovo in the late 1360s.

His reign

He was proclaimed tsar at his father’s death, on 17 February 1371, at about twenty. He inherited only a part of the country: the lands between the Iskar and Silistra, the valley of Sofia, parts of the Rhodopes and northern Thrace. In the west, Vidin recognized Sratsimir as tsar, and in the east the despotate of Karvuna no longer recognized the rule from Tarnovo. In 1371, at the Maritsa, Vukašin’s Serbian army was destroyed by the Turks, who advanced into the Balkans. Shishman was forced to acknowledge them as overlords and gave his sister, Tamara, to the harem of Sultan Murad. The Turks took Sofia in 1383 and Niš in 1385. In 1386 he tried to regain Wallachia and Dobruja, without success. Encouraged by the victory of the Christians at Pločnik, in 1387, he ceased to pay the sultan. The Turks besieged him at Nicopolis, and to save it he gave the Turks Drastar.

The fall of Tarnovo

In 1393 the Turks took the capital Tarnovo. Two years later Sultan Bayezid I took Nicopolis, advancing unexpectedly from the north, summoned Shishman on the pretext of a discussion and had him beheaded, on 3 June 1395. With him the rule at Tarnovo came to an end.

The culture of his time

Despite military and political weakness, in his time Bulgaria remained a great center of culture, and hesychast ideas held the Church; Patriarch Evtimiy of Tarnovo was the most notable figure of culture. Many texts were written and translated and a reform of writing was made. After the fall of the country, many scholars took refuge in other Orthodox lands and carried with them the fruits of Bulgarian culture. In Bulgarian folklore he is shown as a legendary ruler, who fought desperately against the overwhelming power of the Ottomans, and numerous places and fortresses bear his name. He was a cousin of the Serbian tsar Stefan Uroš V.