Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria

Ivan Asen II (1190s–1241), son of Ivan Asen I, was tsar of Bulgaria from 1218 to 1241. He fled to Rus' after Boril usurped the throne in 1207, but returned in 1218, took Tarnovo and blinded Boril. At Klokotnitsa in 1230 he crushed Theodore Komnenos Doukas and took Macedonia, Thessaly and much of Thrace.

He controlled the Via Egnatia and minted gold at Ohrid. In 1235 his alliance with Nicaean emperor John III Vatatzes restored the Bulgarian patriarchate. After jointly attacking Constantinople, he broke with Nicaea in 1237. He died in 1241, leaving the throne to his young son Kaliman.