Asparuh of Bulgaria

Asparuh led his people in the second half of the 7th century, a time when the eastern Roman frontier was porous and the steppe tribes were pushing west. In 681 he founded the First Bulgarian Empire, planting a polity that would outlast him by centuries. The name appears in sources as Ispor or Isperih as well, testament to the fluid orthography of early medieval chroniclers. What he built became the framework for a kingdom that would challenge Byzantium for generations.