Tervel of Bulgaria

Khan Tervel (Bulgarian: Тервел) also called Tarvel, or Terval, or Terbelis in some Byzantine sources, was the Emperor of Bulgaria during the First Bulgarian Empire at the beginning of the 8th century. In 705 Emperor Justinian II named him Caesar, the first foreigner to receive this title. He was probably a Christian like his grandfather Khan Kubrat. Tervel played an important role in defeating the Arabs during the Siege of Constantinople in 717–718.

The Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans states that Tervel belonged to the Dulo clan and reigned for 21 years. According to the chronology developed by Moskov, Tervel would have reigned 695–715. Other chronologies place his reign in 701–718 or 700–721, but cannot be reconciled with the testimony of the Imennik. The testimony of the source and some later traditions allow identifying Tervel as the son and heir of his predecessor Asparukh, who had perhaps died in battle against the Khazars.

Alliance with Justinian II

Tervel is first mentioned in the Byzantine sources in 704, when he was approached by the deposed and exiled Byzantine emperor Justinian II. Justinian acquired Tervel's support for an attempted restoration to the Byzantine throne in exchange for friendship, gifts, and his daughter in marriage. With an army of 15,000 horsemen provided by Tervel, Justinian suddenly advanced on Constantinople and managed to gain entrance into the city in 705. The restored emperor executed his supplanters, the emperors Leontius and Tiberius III, alongside many of their supporters. Justinian awarded Tervel with many gifts, the title of kaisar (Caesar), which made him second only to the emperor and the first foreign ruler in Byzantine history to receive such a title, and a territorial concession in northeastern Thrace, a region called Zagora. Whether Justinian's daughter Anastasia was married to Tervel as had been arranged is unknown.

Tervel (disambiguation)

Tervel can refer to:

Tervel (town)

Tervel (Bulgarian: Тервел, pronounced [ˈtɛrvɛl]) is a town in northeastern Bulgaria, part of Dobrich Province. It is the administrative centre of Tervel Municipality, which lies in the westernmost part of the province. As of December 2009, the town has a population of 6,667 inhabitants.

History

The old Ottoman Turkish name of the town was Kurtbunar ("well of the wolves"): the village was first mentioned in Ottoman tax registers of 1673, although the area has been inhabited continuously since antiquity by the Getae tribe of Thracians, then the Slavs and the Bulgars, and constituted a part of the Bulgarian Empire during most of the Middle Ages. In 1878, Kurtbunar became part of the newly liberated Principality of Bulgaria and it was promoted to a district centre of Silistra County on 26 July 1882. The village was part of Romania along with all of Southern Dobruja between 1913 and 1940, and the name was rendered as Curtbunar. It was also a district centre of Durostor County under Romanian rule. The modern Bulgarian name honours Tervel of Bulgaria, a successful 8th-century Bulgarian monarch. The former village was proclaimed a town in January 1960.