Despot Sratsimir

Sratsimir was a senior Bulgarian aristocrat of the thirteenth century, a despot and founder of the Sratsimir dynasty, a branch of the larger Shishman dynasty. He was the father of Tsar Ivan Alexander.

There is no specific information about Sratsimir's life before the 1320s, but he is thought to have been a major feudal lord in the region of Karvuna, present-day Balchik. There he ruled semi-independently and pursued his own policies, like other Balkan nobles of the period. Professor G. Atanasov also draws attention to documents indicating the separation of the Varna metropolitanate from the Tarnovo Patriarchate as evidence of the emergence of a distinct political authority in the Principality of Karvuna under Despot Sratsimir.

The chronicle of Emperor John Kantakouzenos states that after the palace coup in Bulgaria in 1331, "the Bulgarians chose as their tsar Alexander, son of Sratsimir and nephew of Michael, who had ruled previously". From the Synodikon of Boril we learn that Sratsimir was a despot, while his brothers Radoslav and Dimitar are also mentioned with the title of "despot".

Sratsimir successfully navigated the political twists and turns of 1321–1323, when three Bulgarian tsars successively occupied the Tarnovo throne. During this period he was probably granted the title of despot, although it is unclear which ruler bestowed it on him. By 1331, when Ivan Alexander ascended the Bulgarian throne, Sratsimir was no longer alive.

Regarding the origins of Sratsimir's wife, Keratsa Petritsa, Dr Petar Nikolov-Zikov suggests that she belonged to the Byzantine Synadenos family rather than the Asen family. He believes that Keratsa was a sister of Theodore Synadenos and a daughter of John Komnenos Angelos Doukas Synadenos. It is thought that her hand was sought in marriage for the Bulgarian aristocrat Sratsimir and that, after an unrealised marriage to the Bulgarian tsar Todor Svetoslav, Keratsa married Sratsimir. This hypothesis explains Ivan Alexander's royal descent through both his mother Keratsa, from the Synadenos and Komnenos families, and his father Sratsimir, from the Shishman, Asen and Laskaris families.