Europe · High and late Middle Ages
Second Bulgarian Empire
1185–1396
1185–1396 (capital Tarnovo). Founded by the Asen brothers — Theodor (crowned Emperor Peter II, 1185) and Ivan Asen I — leading a Bulgarian-Vlach uprising against Byzantium; foreign sources describe the dynasty as Vlach, though it was most likely of mixed Bulgarian, Cuman, and Vlach ancestry.
- Existed
- 1185–1396
- Shown on the map
- 1188–1394
- Peak area
- 312k km²
- Region
- Europe
Overview
1185–1396 (capital Tarnovo). Founded by the Asen brothers — Theodor (crowned Emperor Peter II, 1185) and Ivan Asen I — leading a Bulgarian-Vlach uprising against Byzantium; foreign sources describe the dynasty as Vlach, though it was most likely of mixed Bulgarian, Cuman, and Vlach ancestry. Kaloyan (r. 1196–1207), "the Roman-Slayer," defeated and captured the Latin Emperor Baldwin I at the Battle of Adrianople (1205). The empire peaked under Ivan Asen II (r. 1218–1241), who crushed Epirus at Klokotnitsa (1230) and styled himself "Tsar of the Bulgarians and Greeks," ruling from the Adriatic to the Black Sea. Decline followed under Mongol, Byzantine, Hungarian, and Serbian pressure; the empire fragmented into the tsardoms of Tarnovo and Vidin and the Despotate of Dobruja before the Ottoman conquest of Tarnovo (1393) and Vidin (1396).
Common questions
- What was the Second Bulgarian Empire?
- 1185–1396 (capital Tarnovo). Founded by the Asen brothers — Theodor (crowned Emperor Peter II, 1185) and Ivan Asen I — leading a Bulgarian-Vlach uprising against Byzantium; foreign sources describe the dynasty as Vlach, though it was most likely of mixed Bulgarian, Cuman, and Vlach ancestry.
- When did the Second Bulgarian Empire exist?
- The Second Bulgarian Empire existed 1185–1396. On this map it is drawn 1188–1394.
- How large was the Second Bulgarian Empire?
- At its greatest extent drawn on this map, the Second Bulgarian Empire covered about 312,000 km². That is the largest area the border data gives it across the years it is drawn, not necessarily its greatest extent in history.
Sources
This compendium cites its sources once for the whole document rather than per territory. Its bibliography names the English Wikipedia articles for each territory as the primary basis, with Encyclopædia Britannica, the World History Encyclopedia, academic works (John Fine on the Balkans, Halperin and Martin on Muscovy, Rady and Veszprémy on Hungary) and, for a few entries, the medieval Livonian Chronicle of Henry itself. The article this entry is anchored on:
- Wikipedia — Second Bulgarian Empire en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Bulgarian_Empire
This entry was last updated .
This entry was researched and drafted with AI from the sources above, and has not been reviewed by a historian. How entries are made
Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0: reuse it with a credit to The World Through Time and a link to this page. Passages drawing on the Wikipedia articles listed above are also licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by their contributors.
Border geometry for the map itself comes from Cliopatria v0.12 (Seshat Global History Databank, CC-BY-4.0).
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