Family Tree of the Second Bulgarian Empire
23 reigning rulers across four dynasties — with their consorts, kin and the family's Byzantine branch
The Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) was ruled by four successive dynasties — the Asen, Terter, Smilets and Shishman houses — from the uprising of the brothers Peter and Asen against Byzantium to the fall of Tarnovo to the Ottomans. This family tree charts every tsar and their relatives across those two centuries, together with the Asens in Byzantium: the descendants of Ivan Asen III, who lived on in Constantinople as the noble Asanes family. Switch between the houses with the tabs, expand a branch to follow a line, and select any name for their reign, family ties and the primary sources behind each fact.
Alexander
- Parents
- Siblings
Alexander was the first-born son of the last Tarnovo tsar Ivan Shishman.
According to the traveller Johann Schiltberger, after the fall of Nicopolis (1395/96) Alexander entered Ottoman service and adopted Islam — a fate shared by more than one descendant of the Balkan ruling houses after the conquest, who preserved their standing in the new empire at the cost of their faith.
- “Първороден син на Иван Шишман.”— Genealogy and Prosopography of the Asen Dynasty 1186–1460, p. 241