Fruzhin

Fružin — a name unusual for the Bulgarian Middle Ages — was the second son of Tsar Ivan Shishman. Of his life up to the fall of Tarnovo and the first years of subjection nothing is known; the first certain notice of him dates only from 1425.

Together with his cousin Constantine, the son of the Vidin tsar Ivan Sratsimir, Fružin led the great Bulgarian uprising against the Ottomans (1408–1413), which embraced the lands of both the Vidin and the Tarnovo tsardoms; he directed operations in the Tem region and eastern Bulgaria. The only certain account of the movement is found in the Life of Despot Stefan Lazarević, written by Constantine of Kostenets, who speaks of the joint struggles of "the sons of the Bulgarian tsars."

After the suppression of the uprising Fružin did not abandon the struggle, but now as a servant of the Hungarian king and emperor Sigismund, who endowed him with the estate of Lipa in the county of Temes for his part "in not a few… very hard and successful campaigns both against the Turks and against other… enemies." In 1425 he fought together with the Wallachian voivode Dan II against Silistra.

In 1435 Sigismund charged Fružin with a diplomatic mission to the Albanian insurgents: with the financial support of Dubrovnik he sailed for Albania and returned safely. He is mentioned for the last time in 1444, when he sold his estate in order to take part in the campaign of the Polish-Hungarian king Władysław III against the Turks. Fružin remains in memory as one of the last and most active fighters for the freedom of Bulgaria.