| History |
Iwan was the son of Aaron, lord of West Bulgaria, the half-brother of Samuil Kometopulos, tsar of Bulgaria, who died in 1014 after the crushing defeat of his army on 29 July 1014 by the Byzantine emperor Basilius II in the Battle of Belasita.
Iwan and his wife Marija had 11 children, of whom Trajan and Alusian would have progeny.
Iwan had been saved from death in 987 by his cousin Gavril Radomir, who succeeded his father Samuil in October 1014. However Iwan murdered Gavril in October 1015 and seized the Bulgarian throne. Due to the desperate situation of the country following the decades-long war with the Byzantine empire and in an attempt to consolidate his position, he tried to negotiate a truce with the Byzantine emperor Basilius II. After the failure of the negotiations he continued the resistance, attempting unsuccessfully to push the Byzantines back, During his period of rule, Iwan tried to strengthen the Bulgarian army, reconstructed many Bulgarian fortresses and even carried out a counter-offensive.
Iwan died in February 1018 in an unsuccessful attempt to capture the Byzantine-held city of Dyrrhachium (Durrës/Durazzo) and establish his power on the southeastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. After his death his widow Marija, the Patriarch and most of the nobility finally surrendered to Basilius II, who soon suppressed the last remnants of resistance and brought about the effective end of the First Bulgarian Empire, though his eldest son Presian II succeeded Iwan as tsar of Bulgaria for a short time in 1018. [1] |
Ellie Wood Keith Genealogy
Abt 975 - 1018 (~ 43 years)
