Zaharija of Serbia
Prince of Serbia
895 CE to 924 CE
Zaharija Pribislavljević or Zaharija of Serbia (c. 890s – 924) is Prince of the Serbs from 922 to 924.
He defeats his cousin Pavle in 922, ruling Serbia for two years.
Zaharija is the son of Pribislav, the eldest son of Mutimir (r. 851–891) of the first Serbian dynasty (ruling since the early 7th century).
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Constantinople, unhappy with Simeon’s intervention in Serbia, sends Zaharije Prvoslavljevic in 920 to oust his cousin Pavle, but he fails and is sent to Bulgaria as prisoner.
Constantinople has meanwhile attempted to ignite Serbia against Simeon, but he has substituted Pavle with Zaharije Pribisavljević, a former refugee at Constantinople that he had captured.
Simeon is a gifted military leader whose campaigns have greatly extended Bulgaria's borders, but he has ultimately dissipated the country's strength in his efforts to take Constantinople.
Desperate to conquer the imperial capital, he plans a large campaign in 924.
He sends envoys to the Fatimid caliph Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi Billah, who possesses the powerful navy that Simeon needs.
The caliph agrees and sends his own representatives back with the Bulgarians to arrange the alliance.
However, the envoys are captured by imperial agents at Calabria.
Romanos offers peace to the Arabs, supplementing this offer with generous gifts, and ruins their union with Bulgaria.
Simeon arrives at Constantinople in the summer of 924 and demands to see the patriarch and the emperor.
He converses with Romanos on the Golden Horn on September 9, 924 and arranges a truce, according to which Constantinople will pay Bulgaria an annual tax, but will be ceded back some cities on the Black Sea coast.
During the interview of the two monarchs, two eagles are said to have met in the skies above and then to have parted, one of them flying over Constantinople and the other heading to Thrace, as a sign of the irreconcilability of the two rulers.
In his description of this meeting, Theophanes Continuatus mentions that "the two emperors... conversed", which may indicate renewed Constantinople’s recognition of Simeon's imperial claims.
Zaharije, who has been persuaded by Constantinople to revolt against Simeon, is supported by many Bulgarians exhausted from Simeon's endless campaigns against the Empire.
The Bulgarian emperor sends a punitive force under Sigrica and Marmais, but they are routed and the two commanders beheaded, which forces Simeon to conclude an armistice with Constantinople in order to concentrate on the suppression of the uprising.
Simeon sends an army led by Časlav Klonimirović in 924 to depose Zaharije.
He is successful, as Zaharije flees to Croatia.
The Serbian zhupans are then summoned to recognize Caslav as the new Prince.
When they come, however, they are all imprisoned and taken to Bulgaria, as is Časlav.
Much of Serbia is ravaged, and many people flee to Croatia, Bulgaria and Constantinople.
Simeon makes Serbia into a Bulgarian province, so that Bulgaria now borders Croatia and Zahumlje.
He then resolves to attack Croatia, because it is an ally of the Empire and had sheltered the Serbian prince.