The Ottoman Conquest

The Ottoman conquest of medieval Bulgaria was a gradual process, concentrated in the second half of the fourteenth century and extending into the early fifteenth. It affected the changing territories of Bulgarian rulers across the Danube region, the Balkans and Thrace, rather than the borders of modern Bulgaria. The First Bulgarian Empire is conventionally dated from 681 to 1018; after a period of Byzantine rule from 1018 to 1185, the Second Bulgarian Empire emerged. Its late medieval fragmentation left several Bulgarian-ruled territories facing Ottoman expansion without a single government able to coordinate their defence.

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A divided political landscape

By the fourteenth century, authority in Bulgaria and Byzantium had weakened as powerful local rulers gained independence from their capitals. In Bulgaria, Ivan Alexander’s son Ivan Sratsimir governed the Vidin region from 1356, while Dobrotitsa held sway in Dobruja as a ruler who was nominally subordinate to the Bulgarian tsar. These territories had their own interests and did not consistently act together. After Ivan Alexander’s death in 1371, his sons ruled separate centres: Ivan Shishman in the lands associated with Tarnovo and Ivan Sratsimir in Vidin. Dobruja and several other Balkan territories also had their own rulers.

Regional conflict made coordinated resistance harder. Byzantium was divided by civil war, and Serbia’s expansion had brought it into competition with its neighbours. During the Byzantine conflict, rival parties hired forces from across the Aegean and Anatolia. Ottoman troops serving as mercenaries became involved in Balkan fighting and raided the surrounding countryside. These early raids should be distinguished from campaigns by the Aydinid ruler Umur Beg: his forces crossed from Asia Minor in 1345 and defeated the independent Bulgarian ruler Momchil near Peritor on 7 July. That episode reflected the region’s insecurity, but it was not itself the beginning of Ottoman rule over Bulgaria.

The Ottomans gained a foothold at Tsimpe on the Gallipoli peninsula in the early 1350s. Their occupation of Gallipoli after the earthquake of 1354 made passage between Anatolia and Europe more secure. A permanent base allowed troops to remain in Thrace and support further campaigns, rather than depending on a fresh crossing for each raid.

Fragmentation and Ottoman vassalage

Ottoman expansion was not simply a sequence of battles against a unified Bulgarian state. Rulers sometimes fought separately, made agreements under pressure or competed with one another for territory. The defeat of a large Balkan army at Chernomen in 1371, where the Macedonian rulers Vukashin and Uglesha were killed, was followed by renewed Ottoman campaigns in Thrace. Ivan Shishman’s forces lost ground, while the separate rulers had no common command.

In 1373, Shishman negotiated peace and accepted a vassal relationship with the Ottoman sultan Murad I. A vassal ruler retained authority over his own territory but acknowledged the superior power of another ruler and had to accept the political terms imposed on him. In this case, the agreement was reinforced by the marriage of Shishman’s sister Kera Tamara to Murad. The Ottomans returned some captured territory, including Ihtiman and Samokov, but Shishman’s position remained dependent on an increasingly powerful neighbour.

Vassalage left a local ruler in place but brought obligations to a stronger power, including tribute and military cooperation. The balance could change after a refusal of service, a new alliance or a campaign. Ottoman garrisons in captured towns gave the sultan direct bases from which to enforce these demands and advance into neighbouring territories.

Control of Sofia and the northern approaches

The capture of Sofia in the early 1380s gave the Ottomans an important base at the junction of routes through the central Balkans. From this position their armies could move towards the northwest as well as maintain pressure on Shishman’s lands. Control of the city connected local conquest with the wider network of Ottoman bases in Thrace.

In 1388 an Ottoman army under Ali Pasha crossed the eastern Balkan Mountains and advanced into northern Bulgaria. Its surprise attack took several towns, including Ovech and Shumen. Varna’s defenders resisted strongly enough to make the besiegers withdraw, but the campaign placed further pressure on Shishman. The Ottomans also threatened Nicopolis, a major Danube fortress where Shishman organized the defence. They did not take it at first, but the settlement that followed required the Bulgarians to surrender Silistra, where an Ottoman garrison was installed. These gains reduced Shishman’s territory and gave the Ottomans positions from which they could press farther into the region.

The falls of Tarnovo and Vidin

Tarnovo, the capital of Shishman’s realm, fell to the Ottomans in July 1393. This ended the city’s role as the centre of an independent Bulgarian state, though it did not immediately end all Bulgarian political authority. Accounts of the capture describe killings and forced resettlement; Patriarch Euthymius was confined at Bachkovo Monastery. Shishman retained authority at Nicopolis and over some Danube fortresses for a time, but his remaining position was precarious. He was killed in 1395.

Vidin, ruled by Ivan Sratsimir, survived Tarnovo’s fall but was also vulnerable. Sratsimir had previously accepted Ottoman overlordship as the threat grew. In 1396, he aided the Christian forces campaigning against the Ottomans, and Vidin was brought under Ottoman control after their defeat at Nicopolis. Sratsimir was taken prisoner. The end of Vidin’s independence is conventionally dated to 1396, although some accounts place its final subjugation in 1397. In Dobruja, Ottoman and Wallachian control alternated during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries before Ottoman authority became established.

Constantine II and the disputed endpoint

Ivan Sratsimir’s son Constantine II survived the loss of Vidin and continued to claim the title of Bulgarian tsar. Some historians argue that he ruled part of the former Vidin lands, perhaps as an Ottoman vassal, and that other rulers recognised his title. Other accounts treat the conquest of Vidin in 1396 or 1397 as the end of the Bulgarian state. A dynastic claim could continue after the fall of a capital and the loss of independent rule.

The civil conflict after Bayezid I’s defeat and capture by Timur in 1402 opened opportunities for Balkan rulers and claimants to change sides. Constantine and his cousin Fruzhin, Ivan Shishman’s son, are associated with resistance in the early fifteenth century, although its dating and extent remain debated. Constantine continued to bear the Bulgarian imperial title and died at Belgrade in 1422. His claim outlasted the fall of the principal capitals.