1- I do get the greeks were a bit contemptuous of the other less educated people but if a serb managed to conquer greece and made his capital in constantinople and if he had been educated there, the ERE has proven that it could accept foreign rulers. I wouldn't say that there wouldn't be revolts, but a strong state that can each time for 200 years destroy the revolts can pretty much make any veilty of revolt disappear
2- I'm not talking about the ERE but about the romans from pannonia and whatever was the name of the roman province the bulgar came into
3- more like I'm talking about succession. when it's divine law that you should be next or that betraying you will make everyone turn against you you're safe. But when someone can come and say I can lead better and people will follow him, it's harder to have a stable succession since young heirs or ones with few achievements would find little support. Once you have your hands on the power, it's harder to get you out. As for justinian he pretty much put an end to religious tolerance in the empire, so I can understand why
4- yeah it goes back to what I think : if you have no moral pressure that force you then it is quite impossible. But that's because in there customs there was no such thing. If for 200 years the son of the emperor became emperor, it would be much more difficult for a general to be accepter for exemple
Sorry for delaying my reply, I was a bit ill so I took my time and refreshed my knowledge of the subject a bit, so lets go a bit:
1)Which are the foreign rulers you talk about? Also both Serbs and Greeks have revolted to the Ottomans more than once in 500 years of Occupation. So crushing revolts is not a complete deterrent.
2)In general and by conflicting accounts, it was called Thracia. Those were predominately Greek tribes (DNA and culture wise) that had the oxymoron of been the only Greeks to be shunned. In Alexanders time they were brought to heel and made Greek proper. So if I guess it right, you want to say that the local (by then Roman/Greek) population influenced the Bulgars with their culture. It certainly did. So did the Romans in France and Spain though and Italy after all three were taken over by Germanic tribes. But as you see all those are completely different and didn't get along well.
3)That depends as well. Emperor Andronikos Komnenos had his rule solidified but in the end his death was quite painful and humiliating (and If I my say so undeserved, but those Greeks and their traditions...)
4)The custom was succession by merit till the 1100 or so. The only exceptions were military force and 'nationwide' unrest forcing them to abdicate or a truly exceptional offspring. That said, with the end of the Komnenoi imperial succession became completely hereditary.
But by then, to paraphrase a saying in the game: The empire was on paper.
I have a tricky question regarding the topic: one could argue that the current French are actually a mix of peoples: Breton, Normans, Burgundians, Occitans (I lack a better word for them, the speakers/former speakers of Occitain) and of course Franks/Gauls aka French. Through a series of determined rulers West Francia aka France became a centralized nation state (even though even during the Revolution minority elements were still present and resisted assimilation for a century or more). These peoples had about the same in common as the peoples of the Balkans. So, based on this similar situation, 2 questions arise:
You speak of a process that has been active for about 1700 years in France, since the province fell to the Germans. Although at first these people you say were culturally distinct, they had 3 phases in which they came together and melded (like the British Isles): Romans->Charlemagne's conquest->100 years war-France. And all of them more or less had the same ancestry and the same effects on their culture by their conquerors. Their division when all said and done was something rooted in political reasons (petty princes and so on) rather than cultural. There were cultural differences but I doubt that a Franc would consider the Occitans as the scum of the earth.
These things didn't happen in the Balkans ever. The Balkans had a 'high nosed elite' the Greek/Romans, and the newcomer 'Barbarians' who in turn looked for ways to undermine imperial control and saw each other as rivals on who will replace the empires control. And all three saw each other as the scum of the earth. See also that after the Slavic tribes arrived, the EREs control of the Danube was tenuous at best thus not allowing cultural assimilation.
1. Could a strong series of kings in the region have fought off the Turks and formed a strong, region-covering nation state by the 19th century? I say that this is plausible.
2. Would have these kings renamed the country? Like Wikipedia would say, "dubious". If the resulting nation would have been a sort of national evolution, perhaps (see Kings of Franks becoming King of France). But most likely not. So we'd have no tag change. In the highly unlikely event - picking a proper name is a fool's errand, IMO.
1) It would have the same outcome as Yugoslavia IMHO. Only this time it would end about 100-200 years after its inception. What we westerners dont understand is this (and I keep repeating it too much it seems): Nationalism appeared on the 1100s in the Balkans first. These three entities were not hailing from a common ancestry or culture group but were completely three different nations, not STATES, NATIONS. It is way more different. The only thing they had in common was religion.
If we use this argument and say unification was plausible due to it alone then:
1)They would have made it in real life too under the Rhegas idea of the Balkan federation.
2)The whole of Europe was both Catholic, was ruled at a time by the Hapsburg's and had a common cultural and national ancestry (Germanic). And If I wanted to push it further I would put the Pope into the mix who was actively pushing (for his own thing ofc) for something similar. The closest this came to be was the HRE, and that was only a Germanic thing pretty much shunned by the rest.
