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.
Elena Asenina
- Parents
- Children
- Siblings
Elena was a daughter of Tsar Ivan Asen II and his third wife, Irene Komnene. Betrothed while still a child to Theodore II Laskaris, she became a pledge in her father's shifting policy toward the Empire of Nicaea: at one of Ivan Asen II's changes of orientation, in late 1237 or early 1238, she was returned to Nicaea.
From 1254 to 1258 Elena was Byzantine (Nicaean) empress. The early death of her husband Theodore II Laskaris deprived her, while still very young, of this highest dignity in the empire; Akropolites mentions her for the last time around 1246.
Elena had six children: Irene (wife of the Bulgarian tsar Konstantin Tih Asen), Maria, Theodora, Eudokia, an unnamed daughter, and John IV Laskaris (1258–1261). Through her daughter Irene she joined the blood of the Asens to the throne of the restored Tarnovo kingdom.