Shishman dynasty
Despot Sratsimir
A despot, father of tsar Ivan Alexander. Through his marriage to Petritsa, sister of Michael III Shishman, he secured his son's hereditary claim to the throne.
Biography
Despot Sratsimir was the ruler of the appanage of Krn in the eastern Balkan range and the husband of Keratsa Petritsa — sister of Tsar Michael III Shishman Asen and a descendant of the Asens. He was probably raised to the dignity of despot by his brother-in-law Tsar Michael III Shishman, soon after the latter's accession.
Sratsimir is the father of Tsar Ivan Alexander — the link by which the Shishman dynasty inherited the Tarnovo throne in 1331. From his marriage to Petritsa came six children, among them, besides the future tsar, the Serbian empress Elena (wife of Stefan Dušan), Despot John Komnenos Asen (an independent ruler in Epiros and Thessaly), Michael Asen, Dragušin and Theodora.
The very name of his son — Ivan Alexander Asen — and the names of his grandchildren testify to the deliberate adherence to the tradition of the Asens, whose blood the family inherited through the line of his wife Petritsa.
Sources
“Иван Александър бил син на Срацимир, сестрин син на Михаил III Шишман.”
— Genealogy and Prosopography of the Asen Dynasty 1186–1460, p. 129