Irene Asanina

Irene Asanina (died after 1354), daughter of Andronikos Asen and empress of John VI Kantakouzenos, took part in war and diplomacy to a degree uncommon for a Byzantine empress.

In the civil war of 1341–1347 she held Didymoteicho while her husband was driven into Serbia. When the Bulgarians she had appealed to tried to take the city, she wrote to Umur of Smyrna, whose landing on the Maritsa sent them away. She helped win the Serbs and Turkish beyliks for her husband and helped secure the peace that married her daughter Helena to John V.

As empress she organised Constantinople's defence against the Genoese in 1348 and John V's forces in 1353. When Kantakouzenos abdicated in 1354 she retired to Hagia Martha convent as the nun Eugenia, and in 1356 rejected an offer to restore her imprisoned son Matthew.