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Starred109

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So I formed the Byzantine Empire in Victoria 2, and it got me thinking.

If the Byzantine Empire actually reformed in the late 1830's, how would the world react? How would things change?

Most importantly, how long would the reformed empire survive?
 

trybald

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Nationalism would either implode it or render it moribund like Austria-Hungary.
 

Starred109

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An Islamic Byzantine Empire would pretty much act like the Ottoman Empire I imagine.

I meant if the Empire was reformed by the Greeks, not by the Muslims, like in Vicky 2, if they somehow did it in real life.
 

trybald

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Byzantium is Rome. And idea of Rome was built around becoming Roman citizen. It is debatable could nationalism have been able to shatter this, if this concept survived into 19th century.

That was during the Roman Republic and Principate. Byzantium was built upon the Orthodox religion and adherence to Orthodoxy equaled the loyalty of the state and the Emperor. There's no coincidence that Orthodoxes are called "Maliki" in Arabic, i.e. Emperor's people. Had Byzantium survived to modern era, it would implode in the fire of nationalism, since religion no longer had such a hold on the people.

Moreover, I believe the question in OP was how would Byzantium fare if it was recreated in 19th century. As far as I know, there were three entities interested in recreating Byzantium. It was Russia, Greece and Bulgaria. In each of these project such Byzantium would be simply a realization of an Imperial dream. It would be simply another multi-ethnic empire under Russian, Greek or Bulgarian domination. And such such, it would most likely quickly implode.
 

jamhaw

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I somehow doubt the average greek in 1800 would identify with the Byzantine empire.
I may be wrong but I believe that Greek nationalism up until the 18th and early 19th century was largely "Byzantine" - they ultimately realized that they could better appeal to the West via Classicism (and of course this was a high point of neo-classicism in general) as opposed to relying on Mediaeval claims to heritage and legitimacy.

I believe Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria kept a full set of Byzantine regalia with him during the Balkan Wars in case he ever won Constantinople for instance.

Of course this would be merely with a Greater Bulgaria or Greece headquartered in Constantinople, perhaps with some more reactionary ceremonial and regalia.
 

diegosimeone

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I may be wrong but I believe that Greek nationalism up until the 18th and early 19th century was largely "Byzantine" - they ultimately realized that they could better appeal to the West via Classicism (and of course this was a high point of neo-classicism in general) as opposed to relying on Mediaeval claims to heritage and legitimacy.

I believe Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria kept a full set of Byzantine regalia with him during the Balkan Wars in case he ever won Constantinople for instance.

Of course this would be merely with a Greater Bulgaria or Greece headquartered in Constantinople, perhaps with some more reactionary ceremonial and regalia.

It depends how you define 'Byzantine'.

The people never claimed that they were Byzantines. They claimed they were Romans. And they were in fact reamnants of the Roman Empire which migrated part of its dominion to the former town of Byzantium (Constantinople later and currently Istanbul in Turkey)

The crossing and merging of Greek and Roman identity occurred when the Latin Empire sacked the Roman Empire in 1204. People then felt abandoned by the West and the Greek-ness prevailed over the Roman-ness. So the Roman Empire slowly became introduced to the easterners as 'Kingdom of the Greeks' and the term 'Rum' (Roman) became the same as Greek and Ionian(Yunan).

It is true that Greek nationalism at the time was a bit confusing. First, there were those who were Hellenic, ie not in favor of a Christian state and then there were those who were claiming Christianity and Rome, ie the Byzantium region as the home of the resurrected empire. The first also held claim on the Byzantine region (eastern Thrace as we called it) as well as Ionia (Asia Minor, basically the region the Turks know call 'Aegean').

At that time, some of the people behind the Revolution, mostly Greeks, were in favor of a Balkan-dominant state without the aim of a nation-state but an anti-Ottoman empire that would become a leader in the region consisting of Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Romanians and Bulgarians. That failed of course.
There was also the school of thought of 'Hellenoturcism', a faction that believed that while being under Ottoman occupation was harsh, there was the mechanism to overcome it and eventually rule the Ottomans, like it happened with the Roman Empire where the Hellenic culture overcame the Roman dominance in the region. This was rather evident after the Greek Independence War as most people were still under Ottoman rule and there were lots of fans of this confederation or co-rule idea, which was farfetched at the time. Even in the early 20th century after all the conflicts, important Greek politicians still believed that it was a matter of decades but then the Balkan Wars happened following by the Greco-Turkish war that ended in 1923 so it's all 'what ifs' and wishful hypotheses based on pretty much nothing other than the fact that Greeks were rather successful in trade for at least a century (until they were heavily taxed) and there was some influence in the High Gate from the Fanariotes ('Fener' region of the City).
I haven't seen any fans of Hellenoturcism ever since the 1950s, maybe there are some still.

An Islamic Byzantine Empire would pretty much act like the Ottoman Empire I imagine.

There were various Sultans who did claim that they were the continuation of the Roman Empire. To a small extent they were right but that was purely coincidental.
 

krieger11b

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I meant if the Empire was reformed by the Greeks, not by the Muslims, like in Vicky 2, if they somehow did it in real life.
Well depends a lot. I mean the original Byzantium could be pretty brutal, there is a reason you never hear about Samaritans outside the Bible/Tora. They rebelled a few times, sometimes with the Jews, sometimes without. Genocide would then ensue each time.

Other than that there would be a lot more Armenians around too.
 

George_VI

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I may be wrong but I believe that Greek nationalism up until the 18th and early 19th century was largely "Byzantine" - they ultimately realized that they could better appeal to the West via Classicism (and of course this was a high point of neo-classicism in general) as opposed to relying on Mediaeval claims to heritage and legitimacy.

I believe Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria kept a full set of Byzantine regalia with him during the Balkan Wars in case he ever won Constantinople for instance.

Of course this would be merely with a Greater Bulgaria or Greece headquartered in Constantinople, perhaps with some more reactionary ceremonial and regalia.

You're right on the Ferdinand thing; from "The Guns of August", a description of Edward VII's funeral:
"Behind him rode the widowed Queen Alexandra's two brothers, King Frederick of Denmark and and King George of the Hellenes; her nephew, King Haakon of Norway; and three kings who were to lose their thrones; Alfonso of Spain, Manuel of Portugal, and wearing a silk turban, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, who annoyed his fellow sovereigns by calling himself Czar and kept in a chest a Byzantine Emperor's full regalia, acquired from a theatrical costumer, against the day when he should reassemble the Byzantine dominions beneath his scepter".
 

Director

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I agree that a Byzantine empire reformed from Ottoman lands would basically be an Ottoman state: Turkish and Muslim among other characteristics.

The only way you get a Byzantine Empire in 1800 is if it never fell. Here's one explanation: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...-history-of-the-modern-byzantine-navy.909945/

Apologies if the pictures don;t show up. Photobucket has taken my pics ransom and is demanding money to release them.
 

Okawoa

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There would have been genocide against the Turks. At best it would've been like the French "clearing" of Algerians from Algiers/valuable lands in the 1830's. The Greeks would've been embedded with that nice cocktail of religion/nationalism and Russia would've stood-by and treated it like their conquest of the Steppie. Britain or Austria might have stepped in similar to how they stopped Bulgaria from becoming too bloated. I think that Byzantinum might have become the first "mid-range" power like Czechoslovia or Yugoslavia, simply based off tourism/commercial links to Alexandria. If it became a British satellite that would improve its chances to be a more poor version of Italy.
 

AegonVLLI

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I could easily see a more successfull Greece or Bulgaria taking everything west of the Bosporus and maybe the west coast of Turkey and then starting to call itself Byzantine Empire or Roman Empire etc. But this wouldn't change the nature of the state, a national state predominantly founded around their respective nationalities.
And this being the 19th centuries, apart from some changing names and/or royal traditions, this would change nothing substantial. The King of France or Italy would not kowtow to the Roman Emperor just because he is an Emperor.
Of course, the territories conquered would change quite a lot, just like they did in reality during that period, mostly in regards to the peoples living there, who would flee (or be forced to flee, or even be killed) to their own nation state. Maybe the Greeks would call themself Byzantine now, but with that word now meaning "Greek people living in the Greek Byzantine Empire". Apart from that, I doubt anything would change.
If you disregard 1000s of butterflies which could potentially occur, that is. But all of these would be pure speculation...