Peter IV of Bulgaria - Disputed Origins

Disputed Origins

While the person of Petar IV remains little known and enigmatic, the ethnic nature of the rebellion which he headed together with his brothers has been hotly disputed in the age of nationalism. Bulgarian historians insist on the Bulgarian origin of the rebellion and its leaders, while Romanian historians want to see them as proto-Romanian Vlachs (Wallachians).

The main source on the restoration of the Second Bulgarian Empire is the Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates. Choniates refers to the people of Peter and Ivan Asen as "the barbarians around Mount Haimos, who were earlier called Mysoi, and are now called Blachoi" (Choniates, 482 ). The designation "Mysians" is derived from the Roman province of Moesia, corresponding to the territory between the Balkan (Haimos/Haemus) mountains and the Lower Danube.

The term Mysians had been used to designate the Bulgarians by classicizing Byzantine historians since at least Leo the Deacon in the second half of the 10th century. (In the same classicizing vein, Byzantine authors were want to call the Ruses "Scythians" and the Serbs "Triballoi".) To add to the confusion, elsewhere in Choniates' history, the subjects of Petar IV and Ivan Asen I are on occasion called "Mysians", "Vlachs" or two different but conjoined peoples, "the people of the Bulgarians and Vlachs" (Choniates, 485 ). The contemporary German (Austrian) chronicler Ansbert mentions "the Vlach Kalopetrus and his brother Assanius" (33), and calls Peter Blacorum et maxime partis Bulgarorum in hortis Tracie dominus, "ruler of the Vlachs and the greatest part of the Bulgarians in the gardens of Thrace" (58).

The eminent Bulgarian historian Vasil Zlatarski has drawn attention to the fact that under Byzantine rule Bulgaria proper was divided between a theme of Bulgaria (in the west) and a theme called Paradounabion/Paristrion and later Moesia (in the east). Since Niketas Choniates explicitly states that "the Mysians ... are now called Vlachs", Zlatarski concludes that the conjoint terms Bulgarians and Vlachs found in the sources indicate the extension of Petar IV and Ivan Asen I's control over the population of both themes, Bulgaria and Moesia. This conclusion is supported by the testimony of Ansbert, who would be correct to identify Petar IV as master of (all) Moesia (as ruler of the Vlachs) and of (a part) of Bulgaria (as ruler of the greater part—superlative!--of the Bulgarians).

While the primarily Cuman-populated area between the Danube and the Carpathians fell under Bulgarian suzerainty after the restoration of the Second Bulgarian Empire, Wallachia proper was not yet in existence (it was established in the 13th century). This means that the "Vlachia" in the titles of "king/emperor of Bulgarians and Vlachs" or "king/emperor of Bulgaria and Vlachia" found in the correspondence between Peter IV's successor Kaloyan and Pope Innocent III is probably still the Byzantine theme of Moesia. It should also be noted that these titles never occur in Bulgarian sources, and are found exclusively in the foreign, Latin-language diplomatic correspondence of Kaloyan's reign. The Bulgarian title reads "emperor and autocrat of the Bulgarians", later expanded to include "all Bulgarians and Greeks". Nevertheless the characterization of the state in the imperial title need not correspond completely to its ethnic composition, as it hearkened back to First Bulgarian Empire, which had been conquered by the Byzantines in 1018.

The ethnic origin of Petar IV, Ivan Asen I, and Kaloyan has been subjected to the same nationalist controversy. In his correspondence with Pope Innocent III, Kaloyan followed up the pope's flattering suggestion and called the earlier Bulgarian emperors Simeon I, Peter I, and Samuel his "ancestors". This descent is most likely nothing more than a legitimizing fiction. The "Vlachian" origin of the brothers attested in the sources may simply confirm what is already known, that they lived in Moesia. Nothing in the historical evidence allows us to identify them as either specifically Vlachs or Bulgarians. However, the non-Christian name of Ivan Asen I and his sobriquet Belgun seem to indicate Turkic, perhaps Cuman origin. This is a likely option, as large numbers of Cumans had settled in Moesia in the 12th century, and continued to do so in the 13th. If that is correct, then the nationalist controversy becomes obsolete, as the Cumans are an extinct people, which is neither Bulgarian nor Romanian, and has intermixed with both.