A Bulgarian swineherd killed his emperor, married his widow, defeated the Mongols, and ruled as tsar — then was killed at a Mongol dinner party in 1281.
Ivaylo was a Bulgarian peasant — possibly a swineherd — whose nicknames were 'Cabbage' and 'Radish,' reflecting his lowly origins. In 1277, fed up with a Bulgarian nobility that had failed to protect the countryside from devastating Mongol raids, he raised an army of peasants and began one of the most unlikely rises to power in medieval history.
His first major feat was defeating the very Mongols who had been terrorizing Bulgaria — an achievement the noble army had failed to accomplish. Riding this wave of popular support, Ivaylo's peasant army then turned on Emperor Constantine Tikh. They met in battle, Constantine was killed, and Ivaylo marched on the capital. The Bulgarian nobility, having no better option, accepted him as their new emperor.
To legitimize his rule, Ivaylo married Maria Kantakouzene, the widow of the emperor he had just killed. She was a Byzantine princess of high rank, and the marriage was extraordinary — a peasant rebel now sat on the Bulgarian throne beside a noblewoman of imperial blood. Marxist historians later celebrated his uprising as the first great peasant revolt in European history.
Byzantium refused to accept a peasant emperor and sent armies to depose him. Ivaylo defeated two Byzantine invasions in succession — military victories that stunned the region. But a third Byzantine intervention placed a rival claimant on the throne, and while Ivaylo was fighting the Mongols in the north, the Bulgarian nobility switched sides. He returned to find his capital closed against him.
With nowhere left to go, Ivaylo fled to the court of the Mongol Khan Nogai, who had previously been his enemy. He spent two years trying to win Nogai's support for a return to power. In 1281, Nogai invited Ivaylo to a feast — and had him killed at the table. The cabbage-seller who had been emperor of Bulgaria for a year was dead at 40, and his revolt faded into folk legend.