Anna of Wallachia

Who is Anna of Wallachia?

Anna of Wallachia or Anna Basarab was a Wallachian princess and Empress consort of Bulgaria in Vidin, second wife of Emperor Ivan Sratsimir.

She was the daughter of Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia and his Catholic wife, Clara. She had a younger sister, Anka, married to the Serbian king Stephen Uroš V. Her father's sister was Theodora, the first wife of Emperor Ivan Alexander and mother of Ivan Sratsimir. She married Ivan Sratsimir in 1356–1357. The marriage was a reaction to Ivan Alexander's divorce with Theodora and aimed at weakening the positions of the new empress, Sarah-Theodora. It is not known whether Theodora had any role for the arrangement of the wedding between her son and her niece or whether it was on her initiative.

Between 1365 and 1369, Vidin was occupied by the Kingdom of Hungary and the ruling family was held captive in the castle of Humnik, where they were forced to convert to Catholicism. They were later released but Anna's daughters remained in Hungary. One of them died young but Dorothea married the Ban of Bosnia Tvrtko I.

Anna is also known that she ordered the Vidin Psalter of 1359–1360. The empress was born Catholic and it is unknown whether she became an Eastern Orthodox in Bulgaria but the book she ordered contains only hagiographies of Orthodox saints, which is a hint that she most likely converted to Orthodoxy.