Ivan Stefan of Bulgaria
Bulgarian ruler
Ivan Stefan (Bulgarian: Иван Стефан; died after 1339 or 1343 and before 1357), also anglicized as John Stephen, ruled as emperor (tsar) of Bulgaria for eight months from 1330 to 1331.
He was the eldest surviving son of Emperor Michael Asen III "Shishman" and his first wife Ana ("Ana-Neda"), a daughter of King Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia. According to an early interpretation of a rare coin type, it was believed that after his father's accession to the throne in 1323, Ivan Stefan was briefly associated as co-emperor; when Michael Asen III divorced Ana to marry Theodora Palaiologina, the daughter of Byzantine emperor Michael IX Palaiologos, in 1324, Ivan Stephen would have lost this position, as he was exiled along with his mother and brothers. However, recent studies have cast doubt on Ivan Stephen's supposed ascension to the throne, considering the coinage in question a posthumous commemorative issue by either Ivan Stephen or his cousin Ivan Alexander, legitimizing the new monarch advertising his association with Michael Asen III. Moreover, it appears that Ivan Stephen's brother Michael was older, and was at one time intended as heir, with the title of despotes.
Accession to the throne
At the battle of Velbazhd against the Serbs, Emperor Michael Asen III was wounded and died shortly afterwards in captivity. On 2 August, the Bulgarian boyars proposed peace to the Serbian king Stefan Uroš III Dečanski. The Serbian king met them in the Mraka area and accepted the proposals, making Ivan Stephen, by now his father's oldest surviving son, emperor of Bulgaria. Ana and her sons were informed of the agreement and escorted to the Bulgarian capital Tarnovo, where they were installed in August or September 1330; Ivan Stephen's uncle Belaur remained a prominent and supportive figure, apparently governing Vidin. Commonly believed to have been about 30 years of age, Ivan Stephen ruled together with his mother, who seems to have dominated the government; the reasons for this are unknown unless he was indeed substantially younger.
Byzantine response
After Ivan Stephen took the throne, the second wife of Michael Asen III, Theodora Palaiologina, was forced to leave the capital along with her children and fled to her brother, the Byzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, at Constantinople.
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