Tsaritsa
Anna-Neda
Daughter of the Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin, first wife of Michael III Shishman and mother of Ivan Stefan. Set aside when the tsar married Theodora Palaiologina.
Biography
Anna (who took the name Neda in Bulgaria) was a daughter of the Serbian king Stefan Uroš II Milutin. She became the first wife of Michael III Shishman — while he was still despot of Vidin — and bore him the son Ivan Stefan, a future Bulgarian tsar.
The marriage linked the house of Vidin with the Serbian court, but it did not prove lasting: when Michael Shishman became tsar at Tarnovo and wished to bind himself to Byzantium, he repudiated Anna-Neda and married Theodora Palaiologina. The rejection of the Serbian princess was among the causes of the worsening of Bulgarian-Serbian relations that led to the Battle of Velbazhd (1330).