TSAR Ivan Shishman Street in central Sofia is yet another which is named after a prominent Bulgarian ruler.

Tsar Ivan Shishman, the last medieval Bulgarian tsar, was the first-born son of the second marriage of Tsar Ivan Alexander. He succeeded his father to the throne in the capital - then Turnovo - in 1371. At that time, however, after the death of Ivan Alexander, the Bulgarian state was divided into three parts which had different rulers. Ivan Stratsimir, Ivan Alexander's first-born son from his first marriage ruled the Vidin principality and Despot Dobrotitsa was in charge of the Dobrudja principality. Shishman, who was only 20 when he took the throne, was acknowledged the ruler of the rest of the state.

A few months after Shishman became tsar, the army of Sultan Murad, ruler of the Ottoman Empire, defeated the troops of the Macedonian brothers Vulkashin and Uglesha at a bloody battle in the village of Chernomen in the valley of the Maritsa river. This was only the first step of the Ottoman Empire in conquering the Balkan peninsula.

The Turks continued their march on the peninsula and ravaged the territories of Bulgaria, leaving terror and ruin in their wake. Shishman watched them conquer Macedonia and the Rhodope mountains, conscious that he was not strong enough to help Bulgarian strongholds in the Rhodopes against the assailants. Turkish troops also conquered the region of Northern Thrace.

Shishman was to suffer the consequences of dissent between he and the Balkan rulers. Shishman himself, in the face of the common threat, found it hard to extend a hand to his neighbours. He was compelled to start negotiations, make peace and suffer the humiliation of becoming vassal to the Turkish sultan. He even had to send his sister Kera Tamara, famed for her beauty, to be one of the sultan's wives.

Soon afterwards the Turks violated the peace treaty. After heavy fighting, Shishman surrendered the regions of Ihtiman, Samokov and Sofia. He fought desperately to defend the western part of the Balkan Range, but Sultan Murad's troops overran Nish and Prilep and headed for the heart of the Balkans.

Only then did Shishman and the other Balkan rulers manage to join forces. King Lazar of Serbia, the Bosnian King and Despot Ivanko of Dobrudja offered an alliance to Shishman, which he entered even though he could not supply troops.

In 1387 the allied Christian forces routed the Turks at Plochnik in Serbia, proving that the sultan's army was not invicible.

The Turkish army, however, soon recovered after the defeat and took the offensive again. It penetrated the Balkan passes and conquered parts of north-eastern Bulgaria around the fortress of Drustur on the Danube. Shishman was forced to confirm his submission as vassal to the Turkish sultan. After the tragic defeat of the Christian army at Kosovo Pole in the Serbian territory in June 1389, the Bulgarian troops returned home fewer in number. The defeat of the allied Christian forces paved the way for the total domination of the Ottoman Turks on the Balkan peninsula.

Even though Shishman was a good warrior and diplomat, he was not strong enough to prevent the Ottoman conquest. In July 1393, after three months of siege under the courageous leadership of Patriarch Evtimii, the capital Turnovo finally fell to the Turks. In the besieged stronghold of Nikopol (on the Danube), Shishman heard of the massacred nobles and of the Bulgarian population sold as slaves. He managed to hold on to this final piece of Bulgarian land in the ancient fortress on the Danube for months.

In 1395 Shishman finally surrendered to the army of Sultan Murad and died a captive.