by a series of upstart rulers, whose activities were cut short by the
victories of King Uro[)s] II of Serbia (1282-1321), who conquered all
Macedonia and wrested it from the Bulgars. In 1285 the Tartars of the
Golden Horde swept over Hungary and Bulgaria, but it was from the south
that the clouds were rolling up which not much later were to burst over
the peninsula. In 1308 the Turks appeared on the Sea of Marmora, and in
1326 established themselves at Brussa. From 1295 to 1322 Bulgaria was
presided over by a nobleman of Vidin, Svetoslav, who, unmolested by the
Greeks, grown thoughtful in view of the approach of the Turks, was able to
maintain rather more order than his subjects were accustomed to. After his
death in 1322 chaos again supervened. One of his successors had married
the daughter of Uro[)s] II of Serbia, but suddenly made an alliance with
the Greeks against his brother-in-law Stephen Uro[)s] III and dispatched
his wife to her home. During the war which ensued the unwonted allies were
utterly routed by the Serbs at Kustendil in Macedonia in 1330.

From 1331 to 1365 Bulgaria was under one John Alexander, a noble of Tartar
origin, whose sister became the wife of Serbia's greatest ruler, Stephen
Du[)s]an; John Alexander, moreover, recognized Stephen as his suzerain,
and from thenceforward Bulgaria was a vassal-state of Serbia. Meanwhile
the Turkish storm was gathering fast; Suleiman crossed the Hellespont in
1356, and Murad I made Adrianople his capital in 1366. After the death of
John Alexander in 1365 the Hungarians invaded northern Bulgaria, and his
successor invoked the help of the Turks against them and also against the
Greeks. This was the beginning of the end. The Serbs, during an absence of
the Sultan in Asia, undertook an offensive, but were defeated by the Turks
near Adrianople in 1371, who captured Sofia in 1382. After this the Serbs
formed a huge southern Slav alliance, in which the Bulgarians refused to
join, but, after a temporary success against the Turks in 1387, they were
vanquished by them as the result of treachery at the famous battle of