54 Bulgar invasions saw his blinded soldiers he immediately died By 1018 the last remnants of Bulgarian resistance were quashed and the First Bulgarian Empire came to an end THE SECOND BULGARIAN EMPIRE The Bulgarian state disappeared until 1185, when the brothers Petar and Asen organized a rebellion against Byzantium The revolt initiated the Second Bulgarian Empire, whose capital became Turnovo (present-day Veliko Turnovo) In a pattern that became characteristic of the reconstituted state, first Asen and then Petar were assassinated by disgruntled boyars It was their youngest brother, Kaloyan (r 1197–1207), who managed to introduce temporary stability to Bulgaria At the time, most of the troubles in the Balkans were coming from the crusaders In 1204 they captured Constantinople and proclaimed that the Bulgarian czar was their vassal Offended, Kaloyan marched against the armies of the Fourth Crusade and defeated them in a battle near Adrianople (present-day Edirne) Kaloyan captured Emperor Baldwin and took him as prisoner to his capital, Turnovo, where he died The Bulgarian forces also decapitated the leader of the Fourth Crusade, Boniface Kaloyan himself was assassinated shortly afterwards, by dissident nobles, while besieging Thessalonica After Kaloyan, Boril took the throne (1207–18) In 1218 the son of Asen, Ivan Asen II, returned from exile and deposed Boril His reign (1218–41) saw the greatest expansion of the Second Bulgarian Empire which reached the Adriatic and the Aegean Besides his military successes, Ivan Asen II also reorganized the financial system of Bulgaria and was the first Bulgarian ruler to mint his own coins After his death, decline quickly set in The external sources for this decay were the Mongol onslaught of Europe and the rise of Serbia as a major power in the Balkans The royal palace in Turnovo saw 13 czars in less than a century Perhaps the most colorful of those was the swine-herder Ivailo, who rose from a common peasant to the Bulgarian throne With a band of determined followers, he managed to defeat local detachments of the Mongol Golden Horde and push them across the Danube In 1277 he entered Turnovo and personally killed the czar His rule lasted only two years, and he was removed by troops dispatched from Constantinople The end of the Second Bulgarian Empire came during the rule of Czar Ivan Alexander (1331–71) He managed to consolidate the territory of Bulgaria, and the country enjoyed economic recovery Ivan Alexander was also a great patron of the arts However, he contributed to the breakup of the Bulgarian realm He separated the region of Vidin from the Bulgarian monarchy and set up his eldest son, Ivan Stratsimir, as a ruler there He proclaimed the son from his second marriage, Ivan Shishman, as the inheritor of the Bulgarian throne As czar, Ivan Shishman (1371–93) fought a losing battle both against the Ottoman Turks and against the breakaway ambitions of Bulgarian boyars Turnovo fell to the Ottomans in 1393, and three years later Vidin also succumbed, causing the end of the Second Bulgarian Empire See also Bulgar invasions; Byzantine Empire; Constantinople, massacre of; Crusades Further reading: Anastassoff, Christ The Bulgarians Hicksville, NY: Exposition Press, 1977; Crampton, Richard J A Concise History of Bulgaria Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Khristov, Kristo Bulgaria, 1300 Years Sofia: Sofia Press, 1980; Vasilev, Vasil A Bulgaria Sofia: Sofia Press, 1979 Emilian Kavalski Bulgar invasions The earliest records of Bulgar invasions in Europe come from the fifth century In 481 Emperor Zeno employed Bulgar mercenaries against the Ostrogoths who had invaded the Danubian provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire During the reign of Emperor Anastasius (491– 518), the Bulgars made several incursions into Thrace and Illyricum During the sixth century the Bulgars raided the Balkan Peninsula twice, and in 568 hordes of them surged into Italy from central Europe Further invasions of Bulgars into present-day Italy took place around 630 At the time, the bulk of Bulgar invasions were focused on the lands of Byzantium south of the Danube River The original homeland of the Bulgars was somewhere between the northern coast of the Caspian Sea and the expanses of Central Asia and China The name “Bulgar” is of Turkic origin—from the word Bulgha, which means “to mix.” This derivation underlines the complex ethnic makeup of the Bulgars and suggests that they were a hybrid people with a Central Asian, Turkic, or Mongol core combined with Iranian elements The Bulgars were stockbreeders, who chiefly raised horses The Bulgar army was dominated by its fast-moving cavalry It is often argued that the semilegendary leader of the Bulgars, Avitokhol, who alleg-