Constantine II of Bulgaria

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Constantine II (Bulgarian: Константин II, Konstantin II), ruled as emperor (tsar) of Bulgaria in Vidin from 1397 to 1422. He was born in the early 1370s, and died in exile at the Serbian court on September 17, 1422. (Constantine II claimed the title Emperor of Bulgaria and was accepted as such by foreign governments, but he is often omitted from listings of rulers of Bulgaria.)

[edit] Life

Constantine II was the son of Ivan Sratsimir (Ivan Sracimir) of Bulgaria by Anna, daughter of prince Nicolae Alexandru of Wallachia. He was crowned co-emperor by his father in or before 1395, when he was sent on a mission to the old Bulgarian capital Tărnovo.

We know almost nothing about Constantine II's circumstances after his father's arrest and imprisonment by Sultan Bayezit I in 1397. The territory of Vidin, or at least some portions of it, appear to have remained under Constantine II's rule almost until his death in 1422.

Together with his cousin Fruzhin (Fružin), a son of Ivan Shishman (Ivan Šišman), Constantine II took advantage of the Ottoman Interregnum to raise an anti-Ottoman revolt in northwestern Bulgaria. Constantine II was also allied to the Serbian prince Stefan Lazarević and the Wallachian prince Mircea I. The anti-Ottoman rebellion lasted for half a decade (1408–1413) and spread to much of Bulgaria until the rebels were defeated by the Ottoman Sultan Musa.

The Bulgarians attempted to make up for their losses by siding with Musa's brother and rival Sultan Mehmet I, but the latter's victory did little to improve their situation. After Mehmet I's victory in 1413, Constantine II spent much of his life in Hungary and Serbia. His last possessions in Bulgaria were annexed in 1422, and shortly afterwards Constantine II died at the Serbian court on September 17, 1422.

Constantine II was the last emperor of Bulgaria, and his dispossession and death in 1422 marks the end of the Second Bulgarian Empire. The Ottoman conquest had begun in earnest half a century earlier, in 1369, and Ottoman domination would last until 1878.

[edit] External links

• Detailed list of Bulgarian rulers

[edit] References

• John V.A. Fine, Jr., The Late Medieval Balkans, Ann Arbor, 1987.
• Ivan Tjutjundžiev and Plamen Pavlov, Bălgarskata dăržava i osmanskata ekspanzija 1369–1422, Veliko Tărnovo, 1992.

Preceded by Ivan Sratsimir

Emperor of Bulgaria 1397–1422

Vacant Annexation by Ottoman Empire Title next held by Alexander I