German politologists pushed the idea that ancient Bulgarians ware somehow the whimsical desecdands of the dog of his third cousin so that they could write us off as "Turkomen".

This idea was further pushed by the USSR and the late Ottoman Empire as it just so happened to cover both of their chauvisnist rethorics surrounding our existence.

And last but not least it got cimented by the Schizophrenia of the Alt-Right Bulgarian ultranationalist circle (a weird mixture between German Skinheads and Turkish pan-Turanists, featuring the very worst of both worlds) with below basic education d!p$h!ts making tatoos of him on their chests without having any historical knowlege as to who the guy was, or what he did.

As for the guy himself he is surreal general and legendary historical figure rivaling those of fairytales, but nowdays he has become more of a buzzword or the go to identity of the none-Rome related European sucessor countries with inferiority complex against some sort of Rome-cosplaying Empire. Just to put things into prespective:

-The French nobles claim to be his descendands when Italially manage to piss them off really bad.

-Germany claims to be his descendand when their HRE cosplay falls short.

-Hungary claims to be his descendand as they want to be original.

-Poland claims to be related to him as to spite Russia.

-Serbia takes claim of him as to portray themselves on top of the Byzantine Empire.

-Bulgarian crackheads take claim of him as to portray us as this mighty and (nowdays) totally relevant country.

-Romanians crackheads call him a Dacian.

-Turks take claim of him as to spite the Greeks.

ect. All and all because nothing else can make you feel like the relevant guy in a world full of "2 Headed Eagle Cosplayers", as taking claim of the very Guy who sacked the "2 Headed Eagle country" once durring 5th century.