Kera Tamara

Kera Tamara was a daughter of Tsar Ivan Alexander from his first marriage to Theodora Basarab, born no later than around 1340 (the address "kera," deriving from the Greek kyra, was reserved in Bulgaria only for women of the royal family).

Before 1355/56 Tamara was married to Despot Constantine — probably a prominent Tarnovo boyar who received the highest court dignity after becoming the tsar's son-in-law. Her portrait beside him survives in the London Tetraevangelion.

Around 1371, after the death of her father and the accession of her brother Ivan Shishman, the widowed Tamara was given in marriage to the Ottoman sultan Murad I — a pledge of peace between Bulgaria and the Turks. Her sacrifice did not change the course of Bulgarian-Turkish relations, but her conduct was remembered: according to the Synodikon she "preserved her Orthodox faith, set her people free, lived piously and died in peace."