Cometopulus Nikola

Komit Nikola was a prominent figure in the First Bulgarian Empire, particularly during Tsar Peter I's reign, 927–969. He governed Sredets, then the centre of a province in southwestern Bulgaria. Nikola's origins have been interpreted in various ways, but he is thought to have belonged to Krum's dynasty and may have been the son of Gavril, Tsar Simeon the Great's brother.

Nikola's presumed province comprised lands west of the River Iskar and included the fortress towns of Vidin, Sredets, Skopje, Ohrid, Prespa, Strumica, Edessa, Bitola, Devol and others. He is regarded as a boyar who probably opposed Tsar Peter I's policy of making peace with Byzantium. The boyars in his circle insisted on continuing military operations, and the uprisings led by Peter's brothers Ivan and Michael expressed this division.

Although there is no clear evidence of Nikola's active participation in these uprisings, he very probably supported them secretly. This may explain why he did not actively support Tsar Boris II during the attacks on the capital Preslav by the Kievan prince Sviatoslav I and the Byzantine emperor John Tzimiskes.

After the conquest and the capture of Tsar Boris II, Nikola's lands, by then governed by his sons, remained the First Bulgarian Empire's only centre of organised resistance against Byzantium until its final collapse.