Kaliman I of Bulgaria

Kaliman Asen I Калиман І Асен
Tsar of Bulgaria
Reign	1241–1246
Predecessor	Ivan Asen II
Successor	Michael Asen
Born	1234
Died	August/September 1246
House	Asen dynasty
Father	Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria
Mother	Anna Maria of Hungary

Kaliman Asen I, also known as Coloman Asen I or Koloman (Bulgarian: Калиман Асен I; 1234–August/September 1246) was emperor (or tsar) of Bulgaria from 1241 to 1246. He was the son of Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria and Anna Maria of Hungary. He was only seven when he succeeded his father in 1241. In the following years, the Mongols invaded Bulgaria and imposed a yearly tax on the country. He may have been poisoned, according to contemporaneous rumors about his death.

Kaliman was the son of Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria and Anna Maria of Hungary. He was born in 1234. His mother died before 1237, when his widowed father married Irene Komnene Doukaina. Ivan Asen also died in the first half of 1241.

Kaliman was only seven when he succeeded his father. Although no primary sources provide information about the government of the country during the minor monarch's reign, Bulgaria was obviously ruled by one or more regents. Historian Alexandru Madgearu proposes that Ivan Asen's brother, Alexander, was most probably the sole regent for Kaliman; other scholars say, a regency council was established under the leadership of Patriarch Joachim I. Bulgaria, the Latin Empire and the Empire of Nicaea signed a truce for two years shortly after Kaliman Asen's ascension.

Two contemporaneous clergymen, Roger of Torre Maggiore and Thomas the Archdeacon, recorded that Kadan (a son of Ögödei, Great Khan of the Mongols) broke into Bulgaria in March 1242. Thomas also mentioned that Kadan and Batu Khan "resolved to hold a muster of their military forces" in Bulgaria. More than 60 years later, Rashid-al-Din Hamadani also knew that "after much fighting" Kadan captured two towns in "Ulaqut" (or Bulgaria). Archaeological evidence shows that at least a dozen Bulgarian fortresses (including Tarnovo, Preslav and Isaccea) were destroyed during the Mongol invasion. Although the country was not occupied, the Bulgarians were to pay a tribute to the Mongols thereafter.

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