Was there ever an ethnic group that self-identified as Byzantine? Or was it simply a Greek-speaking imperial state without any real participation on the part of the commoner? If so, could it have evolved into a nation (distinct from Greece) given time?
Could the Byzantine empire have been thought of as a 'nation?'
- Thread starter Mouthwash
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The name "Byzantine" was first applied to that empire in 1557 by Hieronymus Wolf, over a century after it had been conquered. So no-one in the Byzantine empire ever self-identified as "Byzantine".
Whether any ethnic group within it identified as "Roman", since that's what the empire called itself, is a more reasonable question; but the problem then is saying what you mean by "ethnic group". I don't see any reason to suppose that the inhabitants of the core Byzantine territories didn't consider themselves to be "Romans".
Whether any ethnic group within it identified as "Roman", since that's what the empire called itself, is a more reasonable question; but the problem then is saying what you mean by "ethnic group". I don't see any reason to suppose that the inhabitants of the core Byzantine territories didn't consider themselves to be "Romans".
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
There's records that the Byzantines called themselves Romei (or whatever the English transcription is. ask Kyriakos), which pretty much means "descendants of Romans".
Besides, what does "Byzantine" mean then?
Besides, what does "Byzantine" mean then?
Yer taking it too literally. I know it wasn't literally called 'Byzantine,' I'm just asking if they self-identified as a nation.
That seems to be just misleading semantics (I used the term right!
). The term Roman should be applied to the actual classical Romans. Suggesting that 9th century Greeks in Constantinople were Romans as well is a bit like saying that Iraq is actually the Abbasid Caliphate or whatever.Constantinople was called Byzantium back when it was a Greek city-state, so some 16th-century joker apparently reused the term.
The concept of a 'nation' is essentially 19th century. (The only exception to that being the HRE, whose official name was 'Holy Roman Empire of the German nation'.)
If you were asking did the 'Byzantines' consider themselves Roman, then the answer would obviously be Yes. (Not in the 'classical' sense, but in the sense that the Romans themselves applied it. Obviously the term Roman means something different in the 4th century BCE than it does in the 4th century CE.)
Ancestor? Not descendent?
If you were asking did the 'Byzantines' consider themselves Roman, then the answer would obviously be Yes. (Not in the 'classical' sense, but in the sense that the Romans themselves applied it. Obviously the term Roman means something different in the 4th century BCE than it does in the 4th century CE.)
Ancestor? Not descendent?
sophie
Break My Heart
What is a nation, and does it actually exist in reality?
Many historians (myself included) would argue that the sense of "nationhood" only exists insofar as contemporary people thought of it as a Thing, which didn't really get going until perhaps as early as the 17th century, but in all likelihood later (weird legal documents such as the trials of some of Owain Glyn dŵr's supporters in the early 15th century excepted).
Now the discussion of ethnicity in the Byzantine state is a much more valid question, and one which has already been answered by Plotinus (and many others over the years on this forum) which is that Byzantines called themselves romaioi or Romans.
Many historians (myself included) would argue that the sense of "nationhood" only exists insofar as contemporary people thought of it as a Thing, which didn't really get going until perhaps as early as the 17th century, but in all likelihood later (weird legal documents such as the trials of some of Owain Glyn dŵr's supporters in the early 15th century excepted).
Now the discussion of ethnicity in the Byzantine state is a much more valid question, and one which has already been answered by Plotinus (and many others over the years on this forum) which is that Byzantines called themselves romaioi or Romans.
Pangur Bán
Deconstructed
They were a nation, the Rum, and there are still self-identifying Rum in Anatolia:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcAYP4irSyQ
So the Byzantine nation still exists, we just don't realise it because our historiography is so ideologicized and has cleansed them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcAYP4irSyQ
So the Byzantine nation still exists, we just don't realise it because our historiography is so ideologicized and has cleansed them.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Yeah, sorry. Got the two mixed up.
I can't even.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Were "the Byzantines" ever actually a Thing, outside of modern historiography? Is there any indication that they saw themselves as in some way distinct from the pre-Byzantine Romans, or just as Romans living at a later date?
sophie
Break My Heart
The latter, mostly.
Yeah, I'm not seeing what's so contentious about some of the people calling themselves Romans. I mean, although there had been a lot of change since the fall of the Western Roman Empire, there is still some continuity, enough that some of the population would still consider themselves Romans.
They identified with the imperial state. Not the original Romans themselves, even though the terms were the same.
Here, try Egypt. It's hard to believe that an average second millennium Egyptian would have had much in common with an Arab Egyptian, but modern Egyptians view themselves as the same civilization, mostly because of the geographical continuity of the country.
That's the question I asked. And again, they would still be a separate nation even if they thought of themselves as "Romans."
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I wouldn't say so. You asked if they were a "nation", I asked if they were a distinct identity, but those are only the same question if you start with a certain set of assumptions about how nations and identities operate. We can imagine a "Roman nation" persisting into the Byzantine period and becoming identified with the Roman state, and we can imagine a "Byzantine people" without imagining a corresponding "nation"; neither assumes the other.
What leads you to that conclusion?
I've given at least two analogies on this thread so far.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
The analogies illustrate your conclusion, but they don't tell us how you got to it.
Would the original Romans have identified with the medieval Byzantines? If so, then they are presumably the same nation. But they almost certainly wouldn't have. Simply because the Byzantines may have identified with the Roman nation doesn't make them actual Romans, any more than the Argead claim to be descended from Hercules makes them part of a 'demigod' ethnic group. Tales of origin, mythological or not, don't determine what the people actually are. Like I said; semantics.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Who were the "original Romans"? Is a 4th century Gallo-Roman an "original Roman"? Would he have been recognised as such by a Roman living a five hundred or a thousand years previously? Would the thousand-year Roman have recognised the five hundred-year Roman? When, exactly, does this leap from true Roman to mere Byzantine occur, in your view?
What you seem to be hitting on, here, is that culture changes and that identities change, but that they don't necessarily change in the same way, but this isn't a peculiarly Roman problem.
(edit: Also, and I mean this as an observation rather than a criticism, but do you not see a certain contradiction between your insistence that time and cultural divergence render peoples as objectively-distinct nations, while at the same time propounding a Jewish nationalism that takes as a premise the ability of shared descent to over-ride time and cultural divergence? It is not obvious that the identification of a tenth century Byzantine with Julius Caesar is no any more spurious than the identification of a twenty-first century Jew with, say, Maimonides.)
What you seem to be hitting on, here, is that culture changes and that identities change, but that they don't necessarily change in the same way, but this isn't a peculiarly Roman problem.
(edit: Also, and I mean this as an observation rather than a criticism, but do you not see a certain contradiction between your insistence that time and cultural divergence render peoples as objectively-distinct nations, while at the same time propounding a Jewish nationalism that takes as a premise the ability of shared descent to over-ride time and cultural divergence? It is not obvious that the identification of a tenth century Byzantine with Julius Caesar is no any more spurious than the identification of a twenty-first century Jew with, say, Maimonides.)
I don't know much about their ethnic characteristics, so I couldn't say.
No idea. I haven't the least education in that era; I'm just making a conceptual argument.
Why wouldn't it be?
I definitely don't think mere descent is a justification for Jewish nationalism. We have unified religious and historical traditions. Jews from all eras would almost certainly have identified with one another to varying degrees.
It is. (Maimonides, ironically, is famous for propounding and clarifying what Judaism was.) I can't imagine he would think of a modern Israeli, religious or secular, as being something else, especially since his ideas are now undisputed as the proper definition of faith. On the other hand, I'd say comparing a 21st century Jew to a pre-Babylonian Exile Judean would be a stretch.
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