Despot Alexios Slav

Alexios Slav was an independent Bulgarian ruler of the Asen dynasty. He was despot of his own principality in the Rhodope-Pirin region. He was a first cousin of Tsar Boril and Sebastokrator Strez. After Tsar Kaloyan died in 1207, Slav came into conflict with Boril, accusing him of treachery. The following year he concluded an alliance with the Latin emperor Henry of Flanders, who granted him the title of "despot". A large part of eastern Macedonia and the central and western Rhodope Mountains became his territories. Slav was the Latin emperor's only steadfast ally in the Balkans, and the emperor therefore took him seriously. In effect, Despot Alexios Slav was the last stable independent ruler in the Balkans during the thirteenth century. He managed to rule independently for more than 20 years. He was praised by both historians of his own time and modern historians. Legends about him survive, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Rhodope Mountains were named after him as "Slav's Forests". The River Dospat is believed to have been named after the title of despot that he held.