Elena Asenina of Bulgaria

Elena of Bulgaria

Biography

She was daughter of Bulgarian Emperor Ivan Asen II and Empress Anna Maria of Hungary. Anna was originally named Mária.

Elena was a Bulgarian princess and Empress of Nicaea. She was married to Theodore II Laskaris, who was Emperor of Nicaea, 1254–1258.

Princess Elena was the sister of Emperor Kaliman I of Bulgaria and Princess Tamara of Bulgaria. Her maternal grandfather and grandmother are King Andrew II of Hungary and Gertrude of Merania and her paternal grandfather and grandmother are Emperor Ivan Asen I of Bulgaria and Empress Elena of Bulgaria.

First Elena was betrothed to Baldwin II of Courtenay, the last Latin emperor.

Elena and Theodore had three children: John IV Laskaris, Irene Doukaina Laskarina, who married Constantine Tikh of Bulgaria, and Maria Doukaina Laskarina, who married Nikephoros I Komnenos Doukas of Epirus.

Theodore died in 1259 and her son John Laskaris became Emperor of Nicaea. John was only seven years old and there were regency.

References

• Cawley, Charles (2006–2007). "Ivan Asen II 1218–1241, Koloman I 1241–1246, Mihail II Asen 1246–1257". Medieval Lands. Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/BULGARIA.htm#_Toc137439355. 
• John V.A. Fine, Jr., The Late Medieval Balkans, Ann Arbor, 1987.
• The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford University Press, 1991.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.