The Uprising of Peter Delyan and Harald Hardrada’s Varangian Guard

In the category “strangest pairings of national heroes”, it turns out that Harald Sigurdsson, king of Norway, later given the nickname Hardrada (“the hard ruler”) and one of the greatest heroes of Norse lore, was intimately involved in a bloody chapter of Bulgaria’s medieval history – the uprising of Peter Delyan.

The Origins of Bulgaria: Myths and Facts

What follows is a tale of two, well, tales. More specifically, two tales of the origin of the Bulgarian state.

One tale says that Bulgaria is 1331 years old (having been founded in 681), speaks of an age-old alliance between the prosperous Slavic tribes on the Balkans and a refugee band of Bulgars pushed out of Crimea by overwhelmingly strong adversaries, and is prominent in every history book, in every cocktail party summary of Bulgarian history, in every Bulgaria-themed blog.

The other, well, makes a little bit more sense. Stick with me through 3400 words and I will show you some fascinating examples of manipulation of historical facts, as well as a different logical account of the foundation of the Bulgarian state.