What if a strong Byzantine Empire survived to the 20th century?

[Traitorfish]

If the ethnicity of the ruling dynasty determines the identity of the state, then England was abolished in 1485.

 

[Kyriakos]

If the ethnicity of the ruling dynasty determines the identity of the state, then England was abolished in 1485.

Considering this is not the (non-rd) OT, maybe you should not one-liner a post which obviously did not at all mean the dynasty, but the population :/

Then again the nickname "otaman" does not sound very byzantine-friendly, at first sight Might have more to do with otaku, though (?).

 

[Domen]

If the ethnicity of the ruling dynasty determines the identity of the state, then England was abolished in 1485.

Not in 1066 ??? Since 1066 English dynasty was French-speaking, while peasants remained English-speaking.

 

[Yoda Power]

What if a strong Byzantine Empire survived to the 20th century?

It did. The Osmanlıs were just the latest dynasty to rule the Rum.

With that kind of logic you could make a similar claim that Tsarist Russia was the Byzantine Empire too...

 

[Pangur Bán]

With that kind of logic you could make a similar claim that Tsarist Russia was the Byzantine Empire too...

Not at all. The Ottomans actually ruled the Rum, controlled their bureaucrats, palaces, taxation system, and so on, and Mehmet the Conqueror in fact presented himself as Constantine's successor: Kaiser-i-Rum. They had been eating away at the Empire from within, but the course of the dynasty's expansion was very much driven by presenting themselves to both Christians and Muslims as the old Roman state with a Muslim Turkish face. Not noticed how similar the boundaries are?

 

[Yoda Power]

Not at all. The Ottomans actually ruled the Rum, constrolled their bureaucrats, palaces, taxation system, and so on,

By that logic pretty much every empire that conquers another is just its continuation. If that's the case it's more or less pointless to distinguish between empires in the first case.

and Mehmet the Conqueror in fact presented himself as Constantine's successor: Kaiser-i-Rum.

Exactly. Just as the Russian Tsar did.

argh, you edit your post now I have to edit mine.

They had been eating away at the Empire from within, but the course of the dynasty's expansion was very much driven by presenting themselves to both Christians and Muslims as the old Roman state with a Muslim Turkish face. Not noticed how similar the boundaries are?

That they claimed to be the Roman Empire didn't make them the Roman Empire, just as it didnt make Russia the Roman Empire. Besides I don't agree that their borders are that similar. Yes there is some overlap, but also many differences and you would have to go all the way back to Justinian (that's like a thousand years!) to have even remotely similar borders.

 

[Pangur Bán]

By that logic pretty much every empire that conquers another is just its continuation. If that's the case it's more or less pointless to distinguish between empires in the first case.

Exactly. Just as the Russian Tsar did.

argh, you edit your post now I have to edit mine.

That they claimed to be the Roman Empire didn't make them the Roman Empire, just as it didnt make Russia the Roman Empire. Besides I don't agree that their borders are that similar. Yes there is some overlap, but also many differences and you would have to go all the way back to Justinian (that's like a thousand years!) to have even remotely similar borders.

These kind of 'empires' are not necessarily a good way of framing and analyzing states over a long period. Such concepts are too fuzzy, and we tend to distinguish these 'empires' in a very arbitrary and ideologically-driven way. We are content to call for instance Turkish ruled Persia 'Persia', Turkish Egypt 'Egypt', but Turkish-ruled Romania has to be 'Turkey'. In truth we don't do that because, at least in part, Roman identity was too precious to Western historical myth.

 

[Traitorfish]

Considering this is not the (non-rd) OT, maybe you should not one-liner a post which obviously did not at all mean the dynasty, but the population :/

I don't think it's obvious, no. Much of the Ottoman Empire's population was Greek rather than Turkish, and the proportion only shifted quite gradually, so it seemed to me that by drawing the line at 1453, he must have been talking about the ruling dynasty, or at least aristocracy. After all, in both cases, the claim was ultimately to a Roman heritage, which was originally Latin rather than either Greek or Turkish, and it's not obvious why the former should be accepted and the latter not.

Not in 1066 ??? Since 1066 English dynasty was French-speaking, while peasants remained English-speaking.

Under the House of Normandy, yes, but under the Plantagenet monarchs it's more complicated. The Anglo-Norman aristocracy was heavily Anglicised by the 15th century, partly through acculturation and partly through intermarriage with the remnants of the Saxon aristocracy. Whether a given Plantagenet was "English" or "French" came down to their personal ancestry and upbringing, and it wasn't necessarily impossible to be bother. Besides, the date of "1485" was half-joking, a reference to the fact that Henry Tudor regarded himself as a Welshman, which none of his descendants really did. More realistic dates would be 1603 or, more likely, 1714.

But, it doesn't really matter, because the point is that attempting to derive the ethnic character of a state from the ethnic character of its monarch is wholly unreliable, because these things are too personal and too fluid to tell us anything about the a state's ethnic composition, institutional nature or even ideological self-image, and if they appear enduring, e.g. three centuries of "Manchu" monarchs in China, it's only because there are mechanisms in place to make it so. Which this whole issue of 1066/1485/1603/1714 really just goes to show.

 

[Flying Pig]

I don't think it's obvious, no. Much of the Ottoman Empire's population was Greek rather than Turkish, and the proportion only shifted quite gradually, so it seemed to me that by drawing the line at 1453, he must have been talking about the ruling dynasty, or at least aristocracy. After all, in both cases, the claim was ultimately to a Roman heritage, which was originally Latin rather than either Greek or Turkish, and it's not obvious why the former should be accepted and the latter not.

There are several not entirely apocryphal stories of men riding around the remote villages of Greece after independence from Turkey proclaiming to the villagers that they were now citizens of the new Greece and free of the Turkish yoke, only to be told that the people living there consider themselves Romans. Indeed, the Greek language was called 'Roman' until independence, because that was the name for the people who spoke it.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not sure if the language was called 'roman' (haven't come across that, and doubt if it was spread as a (false, obviously) idea) but the people did indeed call themselves Romioi. The term still is used (although less). The main figures of the revolution, from the Greek side, also called themselves Romioi and spoke of the last roman emperor (Constantine Palaiologos).

As i noted, if the revolution had managed to liberate anything near the areas that was its original goal, then the country would be more likely (although not at all certain) to have been called Romania or something similar (the Romania, above the Danube, is called that due to hypothesised relation of the population there to soldiers of the united Roman Empire pre seperation to east and west parts).

In reality it was both Greece and Roman "empire", but it formed in late 1820 as merely a western european puppet state (particularly after the assassination of the by then Russian Czar minister, Kapodistrias).

Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias (11 February 1776 – 9 October 1831), sometimes anglicized as John Capodistrias (Greek: Κόμης Ιωάννης Αντώνιος Καποδίστριας Komis Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias;[1] Russian: граф Иоанн Каподистрия Graf Ioann Kapodistriya; Italian: Giovanni Capo d'Istria Conte Capo d'Istria), was a Greek Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire and one of the most distinguished politicians and diplomats of Europe.[2][3][4][5] After a long career in European politics and diplomacy he was elected as the first head of state of independent Greece (1827–33) and he is considered the founder of the modern Greek State,[6][7][8][9] and the founder of Greek independence.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Greek is neologistic identity pretty much imposed on ethnic Romans in the early modern period by historico-romantic ideologues from the West. This happening has produced illusory ethnic continuity with ancient Greeks and an illusory distinction between 'Greek' and 'Roman' (which was disappearing even in the era of the Republic).

 

[Kyriakos]

Greek is neologistic identity pretty much imposed on ethnic Romans in the early modern period by historico-romantic ideologues from the West. This happening has produced illusory ethnic continuity with ancient Greeks and an illusory distinction between 'Greek' and 'Roman' (which was disappearing even in the era of the Republic).

Entirely false, many ways to annul that, but tl dr just check the Nicaean empire and how the citizens were regularly called by their own orators and Emperor as Hellenes. But i suppose you can do that on your own and i don't mean to pointlessly involve myself in a tag-of-war here, let alone on this subject

 

[Flying Pig]

Greek is neologistic identity pretty much imposed on ethnic Romans in the early modern period by historico-romantic ideologues from the West. This happening has produced illusory ethnic continuity with ancient Greeks and an illusory distinction between 'Greek' and 'Roman' (which was disappearing even in the era of the Republic).

Not sure about that. Greeks still had Greek names and Romans still had Roman names until the end of the empire. Most highly educated (which can only have been the top 10% of the population, at best) Romans spoke Greek, but few Greeks living in Greece would have learned Latin. Roman literature maintains its stereotyping of Greeks well into the imperial period. 'Greek' is not a problematic category, 'Roman' is, though - it can only truly be used in the sense of 'citizens of the City of Rome'. People living in the city of Rome would have looked down on other Latins until around the time of Augustus, and Latins would have felt superior to Italians, and Italians to provincials, and provincials to barbarians all throughout the 'Roman' period. In the time of the Punic Wars, something like 80% of Italy did not speak Latin.

Were Byzantines Roman too? If not, then if Byzantium survived till now, we might be calling it a different name, like Italy.

They considered themselves Roman, though the lingua franca was Greek. Drill in the Army was still called in Latin for quite a while, although it was a foreign language to the troops as much as to their officers - rather like the situation in Ireland today.

 

[otaman1]

Were Byzantines Roman too? If not, then if Byzantium survived till now, we might be calling it a different name, like Italy.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Entirely false, many ways to annul that, but tl dr just check the Nicaean empire and how the citizens were regularly called by their own orators and Emperor as Hellenes. But i suppose you can do that on your own and i don't mean to pointlessly involve myself in a tag-of-war here, let alone on this subject

Nay, entirely true. Your counter point in no way addresses let alone refutes my assertions. These uses are like Englishmen calling themselves Saxons, or Britons (until the 1700s)--peripheral classicisms.

 

[Kyriakos]

^I am convinced now, you win. Albania #1 (you are from Scotland iirc)

 

[Pangur Bán]

Not sure about that. Greeks still had Greek names and Romans still had Roman names until the end of the empire. Most highly educated (which can only have been the top 10% of the population, at best) Romans spoke Greek, but few Greeks living in Greece would have learned Latin. Roman literature maintains its stereotyping of Greeks well into the imperial period. 'Greek' is not a problematic category, 'Roman' is, though - it can only truly be used in the sense of 'citizens of the City of Rome'. People living in the city of Rome would have looked down on other Latins until around the time of Augustus, and Latins would have felt superior to Italians, and Italians to provincials, and provincials to barbarians all throughout the 'Roman' period. In the time of the Punic Wars, something like 80% of Italy did not speak Latin.

But 'Greek' was 'Roman' in the Middle Ages, and all Mediterranean Greek-speakers were Romans of the second half of antiquity. They weren't Latin-speakers, but that's not what 'Roman' meant.

Ironically, it is quite possible that Latin-speakers had overtaken Greek-speakers in what is now Greece in Late Antiquity. But that's another story.

 

[Flying Pig]

I'm not sure that's true; it just so happened that for quite a long time the political identification of 'Roman' overlapped with the ethnic and cultural identification of 'Greek'. There were non-Greek Romans, and there were non-Roman Greeks living overseas. Regardless, you claimed 'the end of the Republic', which is plain wrong - it's only defensible from that time at which the Byzantine Empire had shrunk to include only Greece. And it's totally impossible that Latin speakers overtook Greek speakers, because they never penetrated the East in any significant quantity. Hence the language of the Byzantine Empire remained Greek, and Latin declined, rather than increasing, in official usage until by the 8th Century or so it was a dead language. The exception to this is parts of Thrace, which is why I don't find this:

I'l center da la cretta da tuottas confessiuns differentas infra il cristianissem sto la persuna da Gesu. El vain onuro scu il salveder chi ho chaschuno il reconciliamaint traunter Dieu e'ls umauns in forza da sia vita, da sia paschiun, da sia mort sülla crusch ed in vigur da sia resüstaunza dals morts zieva trais dis.

Gesu es medemmamaing vair umaun e vair Dieu. Scu l'ultim piglia'l part a la trinited divina insembel cun sieu bap celestiel e cul spiert sench.

particularly difficult to understand in outline

 

[Pangur Bán]

I'm not sure that's true; it just so happened that for quite a long time the political identification of 'Roman' overlapped with the ethnic and cultural identification of 'Greek'. There were non-Greek Romans, and there were non-Roman Greeks living overseas. Regardless, you claimed 'the end of the Republic', which is plain wrong - it's only defensible from that time at which the Byzantine Empire had shrunk to include only Greece. And it's totally impossible that Latin speakers overtook Greek speakers, because they never penetrated the East in any significant quantity. Hence the language of the Byzantine Empire remained Greek, and Latin declined, rather than increasing, in official usage until by the 8th Century or so it was a dead language.

No, my statement about the end of the Republic was correct as were my other statements; but I will address several of your own assertions. The Byzantine Empire never 'shrunk to include only Greece'. Latin was spoken throughout the Balkans, including in most of what is now Greece. It was almost certainly wide-spread in Syria too. Latin was the Roman Empire's military language in the east as elsewhere, even deep into 'Byzantine' times; Greek was the urban and bureaucratic language in the east. Latin-speakers were replaced mostly by Slavic speakers, but they were still a high proportion of the population. They were relabeled Vlakhs, a borrowing of the Germanic word for 'Roman' via Slavic. Greek-speakers, not Vlakhs, were the Romans ... and even Latin writers of the early Crusading era recognized this by naming Anatolia Romania.

 

[Yoda Power]

These kind of 'empires' are not necessarily a good way of framing and analyzing states over a long period. Such concepts are too fuzzy, and we tend to distinguish these 'empires' in a very arbitrary and ideologically-driven way. We are content to call for instance Turkish ruled Persia 'Persia', Turkish Egypt 'Egypt', but Turkish-ruled Romania has to be 'Turkey'. In truth we don't do that because, at least in part, Roman identity was too precious to Western historical myth.

To some degree I agree, but I think you should not fall into the reverse trap of thinking that every classification is a modern construction. I'm quite sure that most urban Byzantines/Romans/Greeks/christians who spoke Greek and called themselves Roman/whatever were quite aware that they were ruled by another empire.

Ironically, it is quite possible that Latin-speakers had overtaken Greek-speakers in what is now Greece in Late Antiquity. But that's another story.

That's news to me. Got a source? Edit: come to think of it, it's actually not. But I think only for administration, no?