Explaining The Real Pechenegs In Vikings Valhalla

Vikings: Valhalla

Warning : raider for Viking : Valhalla time of year 2 .

Viking : Valhallaintroduced the Pechenegs , who became the biggest threat that Harald ( Leo Suter ) and Leif ( Sam Corlett ) encountered on their agency to Constantinople , but who were the Pechenegs in substantial life ? AlthoughVikings : Valhalla , just likeVikings , has already take many creative liberties and has n’t been fully historically exact , it take many character reference , places , and conflicts from historical record and legend as well , and among those are the Pechenegs .

After reunite not long afterthe end of Kattegat , Leif , Harald , and Freydis ( Frida Gustavsson ) parted ways again , with the latter move to Jomsborg , and Leif and Harald going to Nóvgorod to ask Harald ’s uncle , Yaroslav the Wise , for assistant to claim the throne of Norway . However , Harald ’s programme did n’t sour , and he ended up deciding to travel to Constantinople so as to forge his own army there , but it was n’t proceed to be an easy journeying . In addition to forming a crew that let in a unreliable enslaver , they were at risk of coming across the Pechenegs , who were know for their brutal ways . The Pechenegs were a real group , but didVikings : Valhallado a historically accurateportrayal of them ?

link up : Viking : Valhalla Fact Check : Did Leif & Harald Really Fight Together ?

The True Story of Vikings: Valhalla’s Pechenegs

The Pechenegs were seminomadic ethnic people from Central Asia . The Pechenegs spoke the now - extinct Pecheneg nomenclature , and grant to historian Omeljan Pritsak , their fatherland was located between the Aral Sea ( an endorheic lake between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan that is now almost completely ironic ) and the mediate course of the Syr Darya . The Pechenegs transmigrate incessantly and made veritable raid against their neighbors wherever they fall , so it ’s not surprising that they earned mess of enemies and fought many battles . The Pechenegs allied with the Byzantines in the 9th century , and the latter used them to fend off other , sometimes more unsafe tribes , as were the Kyivan Russ and the Magyars .

By the 9th and 10th centuries , the control of the Pechenegs had expanded through much of the steppes of southeast Europe and the Crimean Peninsula , and during this time they also set out wars against Kyivan Rus . The Pechenegs round and besieged Kyiv , and some of them joined the Prince of Kyiv , Sviatoslav I , in his Byzantine campaign , but they ended up ambushing and wipe out him . Pecheneg Khan , Kurya , is said to have made a chalice from Sviatoslav ’s skull ( inVikings : Valhalla , the Pecheneg leader who take in Harald captive had various skull around him that he had turn into chalices and more ) . The Pechenegs were later get the better of during the reign of Yaroslav I the Wise , and that was the start of their decline . The Pechenegs were annihilated as an independent force in 1091 at the Battle of Levounion , and were last mention as member of Turkic Tribes in 1168 .

Why Vikings: Valhalla Season 2 Introduced The Pechenegs

Harald and Leif ’s journeyto Nóvgorod and Constantinople is what made way for the Pechenegs ’ introduction inVikings : Valhalla , as they were around their territories and would have been hard for them not to add up across them . The Pechenegs advanced towards the gate of Constantinople in 1090 - 1091 , which pose a serious scourge to the imperium of Alexios I Komnenos , so he appealed to the Turk nomadic kindred of the Cumans to join him against the Pechenegs . This made elbow room for the above - mention Battle of Levounion , and the attempt on the Pechenegs was so vicious that the group was almost wipe out , and the survivor were captured by the Byzantines and take into imperial service .