Despot Balik

Archon Balik was a medieval boyar and founder of the Despotate of Dobruja, also known as the Despotate of Karvuna. In the second quarter of the fourteenth century, after the fall of the Terter dynasty in 1322, Balik gradually separated the territory of the Karvuna district, present-day Dobruja, from the Tarnovo Tsardom and established his own feudal despotate based in Karvuna, present-day Balchik.

Balik appears to have been a descendant of the Terters, and the region around Karvuna was granted to him as an appanage. In 1346, the Byzantine empress Anna of Savoy turned to Despot Balik for assistance against the usurper John VI Kantakouzenos. His brothers Theodore and Dobrotitsa led an army of 1,000 men, but it suffered defeat. In 1347, Umur Bey of Aydin launched a battle in the Black Sea against Dobruja, in which Balik and Theodore were killed.

After Balik's death, his brother Dobrotitsa became ruler of the despotate, and the capital moved to Kaliakra. The town of Balchik bears the despot's name, changed from Balik into "Balchik" through Turkish.