What if the bulgarian emperor Simeon I had managed to be crowned as Eastern Roman Emperor?
I can see a way of doing this: have byzantine emperor Alexander III, who was reported an incompetent drunkard, live past the match of polo that IOTL killed him of exhaustion. A civil war for the throne breaks out due to unrest, and Simeon is one of the pretenders, perhaps the strongest in military terms. He prevails, and is crowned in Constantinople. If there's an easier way of giving the crown to Simeon, tell me.
I ask: what are the effects of a bulgarian-byzantine personal union in the 10th century? How long will it last?
With already such a massive empire in his hands, where will Simeon direct his military campaigns to next?
 
There was an interesting TL done about this once.
If I recall it took his entire reign to reunite the Empire and the Bulgarian dynasty slowly "Rhomaified".
 
Yeah, if it ever did happen (which is unlikely under Simeon) the Bulgarian nobility would assimilate into Roman culture.

One of the most plausible ways for a Bulgarian (or Serbian) emperor in this era IMO is a royal marriage. Suppose the Roman Emperor had three sons, and the third was married off to a Bulgarian princess (in a time of good relations between the two states). Their son somehow becomes the Tsar of Bulgaria (bunch of deaths in the main line?).

Then, a civil war breaks out between the two other sons of the old Roman Emperor and the Tsar decides to enter the fray. For his attempt to succeed, it could be that the Tsar's father was a close friend of a major Anatolian strategos (without this I agree that Anatolian conquest is implausible) and the strategos allies himself to the Bulgarian claimant.
 
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