Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria - Dethronement and Later Life

Dethronement and Later Life

During his rule Ivan Stephen was supported only by his uncle Belaur, while the rest of the nobility considered his a protégé of Dečanski and remained hostile. As a result of the discontent with the new government at the failures against the Byzantine, in March 1331 the protovestiarios Rascin and the logothete Philip organized a successful coup. The despot of Lovech Ivan Alexander was chosen as emperor of Bulgaria.

Ivan Stephen fled with his mother and his brother to Niš, in the lands of Belaur, where they stayed for a year and a half. In 1332 he and his mother moved to Dubrovnik while his brothers went to the Golden Horde, where his brother Shishman sought support from the Mongols and from the Byzantine Empire, but his efforts also came to nothing. There is no certain information on his later life.

According to Detlev Schwennicke Ivan Stephen went with his mother to southern Italy where he married the illegitimate daughter of the prince of Tarento Philip I but did not have children. In 1342 he was with the future Byzantine emperor John VI Kantakouzenos during his escape from Constantinople. Twenty years later he was in a prison in Siena and seemed to have died in Naples in 1373. Schwennicke also wrote that Ivan Stephen could have perished in 1373 at Slobitsa.