The Renewal of the Bulgarian Tsardom at the Turn of the Centuries and Empires (1185–1207)

Introduction. The “renewal of the Bulgarian Tsardom” (after the Synodicon of the Bulgarian Church of 1211) in 1185–1207 by the brothers Peter, John, and Kaloyan, the founders of the Asens’ dynasty, had opened the last stage in the history of medieval Bulgarian statehood, when the foundations of its territorial, political, and ecclesiastical system, as well as its cultural identity and status in the changed international landscape of Central and Southeastern Europe, were formed anew and determined the development of the Bulgarian Tsardom until the Ottoman conquest at the end of the 14th century. Methods and materials. The renewal events are often compressed by historians into the framework of “the Peter’s and Asen’s rebellion” (1185/1186–1190), while the reign of Kaloyan (1197–1207) is represented as a row of battles and diplomatic efforts to get his title “Tsar of Bulgarians” internationally recognized. The exaggerated attention to these two themes often subordinates the chronology of the events to the logic of the authors’ concepts and limits the variety of the actors to the characters of the “first row.” Analysis and results. The author’s attention is focused, firstly, on the proclamation and formation of the Bulgarian Tsardom, considered in the context of the crisis of the Byzantine Empire under the dynasty of Angels (1185–1204), and, secondly, on the efforts to legitimatize the “renewed” Bulgarian state during the III and IV Crusades (1189–1190; 1202–1204), the capture of Constantinople, and the creation of the Latin Empire in 1204–1207. The author concludes that the successive policy conducted by Peter, John, and Kaloyan was based on the idea of the Bulgarian Tsardom as a timeless complex of political, ideological, and cultural values that determined the common goals of the brothers and their associates in the struggle against Byzantium and, after 1204, the Latin Empire. Combining these values with situational responses to the changes in the international landscape, the brothers adapted the strategic culture of the revived Bulgarian Tsardom elaborated by them to the new challenges.