‘Continuity’ is a very vague and subjective concept.

I agree.

I mean, they used the title of Kayser-i-Rum to justify a claim to Italy and Western Europe as a whole, and went in big on Classical antiquity as legitimization for their dynasty for the first ~100 years after Istanbul was taken.

Interesting, I didn’t know.

Thank you for your perspective and the context.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear on a crucial point. There was continuity. While the other states that we call “successor states” were founded by foreigners who conquered or were granted parts of the Roman Empire and who adopted some elements of Roman culture, the “Byzantine Empire” was just a division of the Roman Empire that lived on after the barbarian invasions. That part had been speaking Greek since the beginning, and was already Christan by then, just like the Western half.

For the Eastern Roman Empire, there was no title to take, because they already had the Roman title. For the Turks, maybe, I’d like to know why you think so. I don’t know enough. My initial assumption would be that they took it simply because they conquered the Romans, and their territory, and wanted to give their rule legitimacy before the Roman people.

Thanks for all of the memes and interesting contexts.

I have a few disagreements here.

1. Why do you consider the “Byzantine Empire” a successor state to the Roman Empire? My understanding is that what we nowadays call the “Byzantine Empire” was THE Roman Empire. We have just chosen to give the medieval Roman Empire a different name for convenience as it’s territory, ambitions, realities, and culture differed much from that of the ancient Roman Empire. So in my view, the Byzantine Empire isn’t a successor state to the Roman Empire, it’s THE Roman Empire.

2. This is just subjective, but I don’t perceive this as hollow. I think it’s normal that terms and identities evolve with time, especially when speaking of centuries. People are not always thinking of the past, they didn’t have Internet and most weren’t spending time reading books about events that had happened centuries before. They were concerned, as of now, with the present, and Romans (of the Roman Empire, not inhabitants of the Roman city) in the Middle-Ages spoke Greek and were Christians. When the Turks conquered them, they effectively ruled the Romans, and as always, new rulers try to give themselves legitimacy (perhaps the only hollow part). And from the perspective of Turks, who as you say had never visited Rome and weren’t concerned with it, the territory of the Romans should naturally be called… Rum.

Often, when people learn that I love history, they ask me which time I’d prefer to live in.

I always like the face of surprise they make when they hear my answer.

“Today.”

Do you have a source concerning this innovation being made by Arabs? I was puzzled as to what Ethiopians were doing with coffee before, and I couldn’t find any answer.

Relevant (and recommended): The Deathworlders

That was well after 1971 though. 1971 was during the Japanese economic miracle.

How did it start?

Was it on Archive of our Own?