Despotate of Dobruja

The Despotate of Dobruja, also called the Principality of Karvuna, was a quasi-independent Bulgarian state on the western Black Sea coast. It broke away from the declining Second Bulgarian Empire in the 1340s under Balik, a frontier lord of probable Cuman-Terter descent, and was ruled after 1357 by his son Dobrotitsa, who took the title of despot. Its first capital was the fortress of Karvuna, today Balchik; later the seat moved to Kaliakra, and briefly to Varna. The despotate controlled the ports between Varna and the Danube delta, drew revenue from the grain trade with Constantinople, and maintained a small fleet that engaged in commerce and piracy. Allied with Venice, Dobrotitsa challenged Genoese influence in the Black Sea in the 1370s and even tried to place his son-in-law on the throne of Trebizond. After his death in 1386, his successor Ivanko made peace with the Ottomans, but Varna fell in 1389. From 1406 to 1411 much of Dobruja was held by Mircea the Elder of Wallachia; in 1411 the Ottomans incorporated the region into their empire. Its ports and fortresses remained strategically important through the final Ottoman conquest of the Black Sea coast.