Were the Ottomans a Roman dynasty?

TherE are hardly any real Greeks left living from the ancient Hellas..They are now from the lineage of Romans,Venetians, and even Turks, Especially the people of Greek islands are mostly originated from what is Italy now,former Rome ,then Venice..

@@skylar4735 DNA tests prove otherwise!

@@skylar4735 after Alexander the great the greeks were relying a lot on assimilating other people into greek culture to preserve and expand greekness. I don't care at all if i have the exact same dna as the mycenaeans or if my dna is a jumbled mix of everything. Also you should prove you're correct. I can pull up studies showing that greeks have nearly identical dna to the ancient mycenaeans, but can you show any studies proving your point? I ask because no person who i ever heard saying your claim has ever given any evidence other than "this is the case because this is the case and cope". And finally, roman isn't an ethnicity, it's a nationality. You're confusing romans with latins, and though rome was started by the latins and at first only latins were considered romans they later on allowed people of other ethnicities to be roman citizens too.

@@johnsarkissian5519 dna tests say Greeks are only 20% Hellenic and Cypriots are 8% (which is based on Proto-Hellenic Yamnaya ancestry)

@@EagleHunter31
Here is a far more credible source:
www.science.org/content/article/greeks-really-do-have-near-mythical-origins-ancient-dna-reveals

I agree they are separate entities. The Ottomans were a world power that dominated the Mediterranean Basin for centuries. And created a Turkish culture that is in place today, in many respects. The end of Roman political and cultural sway came to an end in 1204 with the crusader sack of city. The rump state would have fallen much earlier if we’re not for the impact of Tamerlane. The renaissance in the west in 1400’s ( due much in part to Arab preservation of ancient texts) revived Roman and Greece cultural influence west. Not the rise of Ottoman power after the fall of Constantinople. Also the sack of Baghdad by Mongols not only destroyed the most advanced city at that but and precluded any chance of a hybrid culture emerging in east. In many ways the mongol empire’s rise and decline set the stage for a new and different power to dominate the world stage , the ottomans. Just my take- happy to find folks interested in late Roman history.

Anadolu Selçukluları belki de Büyük Selçuklunun Roma ile hiçbir ilgisi yok. Dümdüz düşmanlar.

Was there his successor soliman?

As a Rumları, one of those stubborn ones that just won't disappear yet. I see it as a inheritance of our legacy too. One of my main reasons comes down to the people. There was a Ottoman historian who asked himself "where did the Romans go" after the fall of Constantinople because he noticed almost all the people spoke Turkish and it had only been 70ish years. So he went around İstanbul and asked shop owners and bakers and fish mongers about themselves and their families. Through talking with these people he came to realise that they didn't go somewhere but became the Turks that he thought replaced them. Science backs this up with the Turkic migration estimated to be 15% of Anatolia's population in the 11th century and that 15% is the average Turkic haplogroup occurrence.
If Mehmed II conquered Rome for us I'm sure the Greeks would be singing a different tune about the Turks today.

"inheritors" i think you mean "destroyers and pillagers of ".. a bunch of wannabe savages from the eastern wastes taking credit for the advancements brought by centuries of Roman and Greek men.

i personally think the reason people still see france as francs or china as china was because well.. they still exists today. so people were fimiliar with it on world maps. even if it was gaul or frankish kingdoms its still just "historical france".

what does "from a western standpoint" even mean in this context? it's pretty common knowledge in my circles that in a nation-state of over a billion, there are obviously distinct cultures and peoples, and of the CCP trying to homoginize their entire culture into "we are and were all always Han", so who are you speaking for?
you can just speak for yourself and not assume your ignorance onto everyone else if you'd be so kind

Well its not just us Europeans that take that perspective. China today does so too. However: Unlike Ottomons, the foreign rulers in China relativly quickly absorbed and inherited traditions, clothing, eating style etc. from the locals (they often maintained distinct differences; though). While Ottomans mostly maintained their cultural tradition, language, clothing, rules of legitimacy and inheritance etc. Therefore I don't see this a perfect analogy.
What is true is, that Chinese dynasties were not just new families on the throne like when one Roman emperor was pushed aside by the next usurper but indeed the difference between Chinese dynasties could have well been that of late medieval Byzantium vs. the Rome under Augustus. But the changes within Eastern Roman empire were rather gradual (even the adoption of Greek language in court despite population speaking Greek), while the change that came with the Ottoman rule was drastic and immediate on many levels.

@@aidanrock8719 I think its safe to say that outside of Asia knowledge of Chinese history is way less common than about the Classic Roman Empire. (With Byzantium being probably almost as obscure as China). Especially when we are talking about pre Quing or at least Ming dynasties.
I think that ignorance is pretty commonplace to some extent. Interestingly the Cultural Revolution under Mao eradicated a lot of awareness, historic knwoledge and philosophic views from Chinese population and some decades later PRC reintroduced these but in a censored and regime-friendly form. So one could argue that even many Chinese get a very idealized view of their history and could be called ingorant to some extent, not as ignorant than most Euopeans and Americans, though.

@@greenling. I would claim Persia is a better comparison to China versus Ottoman Empire
But I find some problem with the whole idea of comparison in general . I think we’ve gotten a little carried away with not remembering that these civilizations didn’t have any inherent basis for comparison, because they didn’t even know each other existed (in detail) except in modern hindsight, after society and civilization has changed as much as it has.
When you get down to the nitty-gritty details of how China Persia or Egypt actually functioned, you realize they were all very different societies.

Sultan Beyazıdın lakabı Sultanı İklimi Rum olarak bilinir Rum diyarlarının sultanı anlamına gelir

@@tarikyildirim8859ayrıca kafesteki bülbül olarak da bilinir diye hatırlıyorum ben.

I call myself the emperor of mars, that means I am

​@@sneed457no, In Arabic, Ottoman empire was called "Sultanate Al Rumiyyah سلطنة الرومية"
In Persian it was ''Romestan" The land of Rome.
This simply means no country or empire was ever ruled on Lineage but the name of land

​@@sneed457well if you also ruled over all of mars and martians and treated by other powers as ruler of mars then yes you could call yourself emperor of mars. Because you know that was what ottomans did :)

By the point or Western Rome's collapse, 'Roman' didn't refer just to ethnic Italians, but also to people of 'barbarian' ancestry who had acquired Roman citizenship. I think we need to look at Western civilization through the same lens we look at Chinese civilization as. We are the Romans, our civilization is a continuation of their civilization.

I think it is not an ethnicity since Romans were Latins (indoeuropean speakers that descended into Italy thought Pannonia and north Italy) nor a language. It is related to citizenship , since romans were aware of the fact thier small numbers must force them to "romanize" or instillate a way of living and a mindset close to their, then making them "Romans". So it is something really close to american citizenship: firstly established by anglosaxon people but open to everyone. so, answering your question, it means being an holder of a citizenship which imply being faithful to the roman state.

to be Roman is to be a citizen of Rome, i.e born within the Roman imperial borders to a Roman parent. or later on given citizenship by the Roman authority. it is mostly an ethnicity but it welcomed a few barbarians here and there. but turks ? romans ? a joke must first make sense to be funny...

@@houssamassila6274 many turks were already roman citizens even before turkic raids of anatolia since they were hired to figth for roman country. There were even half turkic emperor of rome Leo, son of tzitzek. Eastern rome was in touch with turks way before than ottomans and selcuks. It didnt start with raids.

It Is a mix of all of these things and after you surpass a certain treshold you can claim to be Roman. Where the treshold lies Is a debate that Is too long to explain in KRplus comments

Probably muslim turk and christian greek has far more similarities than latin pagan augustus.

@@gokalpari1033 I always feel, without being an expert that Greek=Orthodox and Turk= Muslim, is an oversimplification of a more complex tapestry that used to exist. And maybe the last century has made this a self fulfilling prophecy.

Kinda. You're right but the greeks were part of the Roman empire, they were literally the eastern part of the Roman empire + Rome itself was becoming christian by its fall. The Turks are a completely different, people whose only claim is the right of conquest.

@@gokalpari1033 in any way no , latins were hugely influenced by the Greeks , look at their architecture , language , religion . The ottomans didn't have almost any similarities with the Greeks at the time and the conqueror can't be the successor . It doesn't make sense

Trajan was from spain

"actual historians" = commie propagandists ig

Most actual historians busy arguing to each other

Unlike this video

@@grecoturkish3785 nothing makes a historia be extremely happy than proving another historian wrong.

@@devonwilliams9168This guy has a history PhD and has taught history at the university level. He is a historian.

It is like math, we are adopting other peoples work because it is available. Rules that worked for smart people over generations.

@9/11 was done by bush nice nick

@9/11 was done by bush Huh? Egypt, Dimashq, Mecca, Madina, Yemen, al-Quds, Basra, Baghdad, Tunis, Algiers... They had at least one fourth, if not one third, of the Islamic world under their banner, geographically.

@9/11 was done by bush Lol do you care to explain what you mean by that? I mean, I don't care personally for Islam, I believe I'd have a better life, had the Ottomans not leaned on Islam as much as they did, but what you said is simply factually wrong.

@9/11 was done by bush so according to you the only ones who should count are the Rashidun and Umayyads?

Puts words to my thoughts perfectly. The outside factor is important especially since they brought in their own customs, philosophies, and the like. Though an imperfect comparison but still useful, the Mongolians took Russia, China, and Iran yet were seen as outsiders and invaders imposing their own identity upon the existing sociopolitical structures rather than inheritors by conquest. A similar situation can be said with the turks upon Rome. The difference being the turks killed the last remnants of Rome, claimed the seat while redecorating the house rather than the Mongolians which were pushed out or absorbed into the once conquered peoples.

This is almost true as the ottomans and seljuks before them were still considering themselves as entities within the roman empire, which was more geographical and ideological. Ottomans even structured themselves copying byzantines. This is very similar to how a commander in the roman empire can take over Egypt and then challenge the throne.

​@@technosins7123 For most of Roman history, being Roman was fundamentally tied to being a Roman citizen in the Roman state. I think it was actually probably due to the Seljuks that for the first time, one could be a Roman by ethnicity and not nationality. From an outside perspective, maybe they were living in the historical lands of Romans. But until then, being a Roman was associated with living in the Roman state. I have a feeling this might be partially why the West ended up losing Roman identity (along with political disunity). After the Seljuks, most citizens of Rome were Greek speaking Romans in a proto nation-state. This is why Turks could be the rulers of the Romans but not Roman Emperors (they killed the Roman political entity, after it had previously been destroyed by the western Europeans).

@@gideonmele1556 Thank you :) I think we are already in agreement, but to elaborate, I think it's ok if customs and philosophies change. That is indeed a summary of the history of Rome. They just changed internally within the Roman state. If a Turkish regional noble had taken the throne, spread Islam, and over the centuries morphed into something similar to the Ottoman Empire, it would've still been a continuation of the Roman state.

Rome has been a cultural power. As such, it is still present now in many aspects of our lives. To complicate the matter, the peoples in the Italian peninsula and Greek peninsula came in the respective locations in waves long before there was a Greek or a Roman culture. In historical times, I would consider that a strong culture influences ethnicity almost unilateraly. It does not take long to assimilate a culture, while ethnicity comes with its own complexities and rather large time constants always under cultural influences.

Well it was more of a change. As the Ottoman Empire existed, it changed its Focus from being Roman to being the Caliphate.
The Projection of the Empire changed to being the Islamic after its Zenith was over, in the Times of Mehemed 2, Selim and Süleyman the Empire was seen as the Roman Empire

Also being a Turkic khanate. They combined all these statuses and thus reached an world status. Something no other state has ever reached

Ottomans have nothing to do with the romans

@@Omer.042 Not a Khanate but a Persianate

Another interesting fact, the mamluks back then called themselves "Turkiye," the Ottomans technically destroyed the first Turkey.

prior to taking the reins as Emperor, while still Despot of the Morea, he did raise the largest army the Romans had seen in over a century to retake lands in southern Greece and hopefully re-establish a border at the ancient Hexamillion Wall
much like Majorian and Anthemius, the Romans had a way to have the absolute greatest of people rise to the top in times of crises, just sometimes it was all too far gone to matter

The only advantage they had was enormous numbers while the defenders were a pair of thousand.

@@lightbringer2794 pair of thousands that surrounded themself three layers of walls which was one of the most advanced strongholds at its time. what interesting is turks never had to rely on those walls for protecting them afterwards.

@@reckoner8210 Nope, not an advantage when there is a blockade from all sides and sappers and cannons tearing down the walls. The walls need defenders, without people, no one can defend the walls.

@@reckoner8210 because cannons and the improvement of weapons made them useless. Also when would the ottomans needed to use the walls? They had all the lands around them. By 1900’s those walls aren’t stopping shit.

Using self-designation by a conqueror as a criterion for "X"-ness has its limits though. The Latin emperors who ruled in Constantinople from 1204 to 1261 also called themselves "Emperor of Romania", Romania being the Byzantine Empire, or "Rum". Yet we consider their state a separate entity. I feel that this is not different from denying the Ottomans their supposed "Romanness". Certainly the Greeks themselves would have disagreed with the claims of the Muslim Ottomans, as they had done with the Roman Catholic Latins.

@@ansibarius4633 I never thought self-designation was an appropriate criteria. In fact, I never said it was 😅 All I said was "it's refreshing to hear how people thought of themselves". We don't talk of Ottoman sultans as emperors of Rome either, even if they governed from Istanbul (once Byzantine). To me it was interesting to find out they called themselves so.

@@katexy7179 Ah, OK, maybe I misunderstood then. To be honest, I am not sure if the Sultans really looked at themselves that way. Maybe they did, but then again, taking the titles of your conquered enemy and proclaiming yourself as their legitimate ruler is not such an uncommon practice (Alexander and the Roman Emperors were for instance considered to be "pharaohs" of Egypt after they conquered that country). It can be a strategy for discouraging rebellion, as it makes it easier to brand any claimant who would try to restore indigenous rule a traitor rising against his lawful sovereign instead of a foreign conqueror.

Your teacher was wrong on both counts.

Different teacher each time @@AggelosKyriou

@@isancicramon0926 Both of them wrong, then

@@AggelosKyriou you missed the point.

What Roman Institutions are part of the Ottoman empire or present day Turkey?

You mean the HRE?

No it wasn't...
Since u dumb f**ks are so blinded by 'whitewashed islamic propaganda/bul**hit'
No they were not, if they were one why they opressed people who were Roman/Romanoi.. grekoi/romanoi people or simply put 'modern greeks' were Roman since when roman republic conquered Greece they were not considered as opressors or fereign cuz they were much influenced by them even tho to be fair in the begining even tho they were not considered opressors they were considered as semi-barbarians but that didn't last for long, during the late Pax Romanum Roman Empire 222 granted greeks citizenship therefore making them officially acknowledged as Romans also there were migration and intermarrige between the two so yeah this makes them legitimate also not talking about the fact that religion was the same at least with little intermidiate period before the great Schism which lasted till 1054, Roman institution lasted till 1453 or 1479 if u take in the account last reminent of Eastern Roman culture or Dospotate of Epirus, turks were neither part of western or eastern way they were muslims and from altaic background fought Rome and took countless slaves from balkans ...they are as legit as HRE(THEY ARE NOT)
When u learn history start with basics and from begining not from the fu*king middle

@@phazoneatermetroid77 he could be talking about Russia the “third Rome”

@@phazoneatermetroid77 probably

You mean the most holy, most roman, most imperial empire?

Thank you!

They emulated some stuff as partisans did with seleukids they did not continue anything rome gave western civilization streets cities and legal systems. Ottoman had no fucking streets.

İstanbul'dan selamlar :) I guess the reason you don't see aggressive idiots here is that the content and the level of English is too high-level for them to even watch and understand the video :) I also think that the presenter himself sets a good example for his audience. Thank you for the information and your positive messages for all people.

I always thought the Ottoman Empire to be a continuation of the Roman Empire. The sultans were emperors, and we're addressed as imperial highnesses. And they were till the end of the empire conscious of this. The greek minority, by the way, is still called the Rums.

probably if the Ottoman Empire had moved further west and taken Rome, it would have transformed into the Roman Empire due to changes in demographic composition and mutual assimilation

That was a very well written and constructive comment. Selam olsun sana güzel insan!

Thanks!

Funny you should mention that because I've often looked at that event as the reason for Byzantium (The City) being taken over in 1453. I'm never sure if it's due to my overzealous research or ethnic Greek heritage.... (side note) boy visiting Smyrna this year brought up pangs of sadness.

So it was "Roman" enough only when had some power? That's another weird view from a foreigner to decide the name of state based on its own ideology of what Roman should be like...

@@vanmars5718 i dont think he means power as much as an ability to identify itself on its own terms rather than have another culture (germanic or turkish) ascribed to it

@@ericthegreat7805 The Eastern Roman Empire from its beginning until the end always thought that is just the Roman Empire. Nothing else. Even as a multiethnic empire in the beginning either as solely ethnically Greek at the last centuries, the people and the establishment never changed their political and historical identification cause they never stopped having this continuum. The problem is not them, is us today that we don't want to see them as such. We always try to find some excuses, either linguistic, ethnic, religious, power etc to make them less "Roman" worthy. I usually see all this discussions stemmed from a biased point and generally dishonest since those justifications couldn't be said for any modern state.
*If USA are got invaded and being weakened aren't gonna be USA anymore? Is that how it works or is only the Byzantines that they have to endure this scrutiny since they used the name "Roman" but they speak Greek and are Orthodoxs and that's very bothering to modern view who wants anything real "Roman" to be Latin speaking and Catholic? I'm not sure we really talk with honesty when it's about Byzantium

@@papazataklaattiranimam Interesting source, of which I am aware. I can't say that I disagree with any of the aforementioned statements. I didn't claim that the Ottomans weren't Turkish, but they are a bit far from being called Turkic. There's a difference here especially when it comes to large chunks of population that converted to Islam during the course of 3-4 centuries after the Seljuk conquest of Anatolia. Adding to the mixture the arrival of the pastoralist Turkic people mainly in Central Anatolia you have a yoke from which the Turkish identity comes out of. I am not claiming anything different. In fact the Term Turcia is a western term that was applied to the region during the 11-12 centuries, namely after the crusades. From that point onwards the Muslim population of Anatolia and its dynasties were referred to as Turks by the Europeans. I don't find it curious at all to have western historians calling the Ottomans simply Turks. However, we must not forget that an Ottoman isn't an ethnic group but it would resemble mostly a cast of people. Therefore you would have the Ottoman Rums as well who were greek-speaking Christians.
Now regarding the term "Hellene" it was indeed a symbol of ancient paganism. But the Europeans called the Byzantines Greeks many times. We have references such as the Greek Empire or the Empire of Greeks (due to the language), but we all know today that this is nonsensical, since the Byzantines called themselves Rhomaioi. Same as the Ottoman Empire. The people called themselves Ottomans. Including the Rum people, who also proudly claimed that they were Rum. But outsiders simply called them Turks. That also happened in modern Greece. When the refugees came from Minor Asia, even though they were avid Greek speakers and Orthodox Christians most of the people considered them as Turks. Mainly because before the population exchange those people didn't identify as Greeks but as Rum.
The problem is as many modern Rum have shown, that there is no word in any other language equivalent of Rum, in a way that signifies a specific group of people in the Turkish society. They are not Greek, but they are not purely Turkish as well.
Thus, I think it is really important to understand here that sometimes people consider themselves something different than what others deem them to be. No matter how hard Mehmed II tried to prove to everyone in Europe that he is a Roman Emperor, but nobody really believed him and called him a Turk.
So was he or was he not?

I have just one objection to your persperctive and interpretation , that Hellenistic culture brouhht republicanism and "progress" over oriental despotism. Personally I am open to the idea that Roman Empire ended in 1922 though not fully convinced.

Another Greek hater🎉🎉🎉
Don’t take these neo Nazi Greeks seriously.

@@goshlike76 You have an error. Mehmed II was a proud Turk and Muslim. His thinking was: 1. Roman Empire polytheistic and Latin, 2. Roman empire Christian and Hellenic. The third was why he could not be a Turk and a Muslim.

They were slaughtered 😢greek and armenian and assyrian Christian ottoman Muslims ☪️ 😢

I love this. Great explanation of the issues involved.
A little off topic (because I don't want it to take away from your overall comment, which is awesome), I think your thoughts at the end about my France analogy support my point in an interesting way.
I'm guessing you and I would probably agree that we COULD see the Ottomans as a continuation of the Roman empire, if we look at it from the Ottomans' point of view, recognizing that others at the time might well have disagreed with them.
When you say republican France is in continuity with the ancien regime, "organic," "integral to the French identity," aren't you doing the same thing? We COULD see the French Republic that way, if we look at it from the republicans' point of view. Would we see it that way if looking from the monarchists' point of view?
I'm not saying you're wrong, necessarily. But it seems you're adopting the republican narrative and assuming that opposing French narratives don't exist. It would be like taking the Ottoman definition of "Roman" at face value and ignoring the Byzantines who would have disagreed with them. To paraphrase the video, the French Republic happened, but to call it a continuation of pre-revolutionary France is an interpretation we project onto it.
Maybe a mistake in my video was taking for granted my own interpretation of the French Republic (one of rupture rather than continuity with what came before) and not explaining what I meant or why that comparison makes sense to me.
But anyway, thank you for summarizing your paper. I enjoyed reading it.

@@premodernist_history Thanks for the level headed reply. It's often rare to find one on KRplus. As to answer (some of the questions) to the best of my ability here's my shot:
_I'm guessing you and I would probably agree that we COULD see the Ottomans as a continuation of the Roman empire, if we look at it from the Ottomans' point of view, recognizing that others at the time might well have disagreed with them._
Yes. If you look at it from an exclusively legalistic point of view and even to an extent from a sanguinary one. I'm not refuting or fully agreeing with the thesis of the video, I'm just saying it depends on the perspective one looks at it. The curious and interesting thing about the Balkans and Anatolia is that (contrary to the narratives that the nationalists are fed) is that its history is _shades of grey_ .
_When you say republican France is in continuity with the ancien regime, "organic," "integral to the French identity," aren't you doing the same thing? We COULD see the French Republic that way, if we look at it from the republicans' point of view. Would we see it that way if looking from the monarchists' point of view?_
Here we have the peculiarities of history. Yes using said words I am implying the same thing regarding France. And many exiled nobles did think that, though it was more of "look at how France is going to the dogs" rather than "France will be wiped off the map and assimilated by someone foreign". It had more similarities of how the exiled white Russians thought of the Bolsheviks, malicious elements degrading their once utopian existence. The Ottomans do not fit in that mold. They came from the outside and brought to their Roman subjects laws and customs that were foreign to them. They also didn't follow any of the artistic or religious practices that their subjects did (though you can see the influence of Byzantine architecture on Ottoman mosques). I guess that the closest French experience to that would probably be Vichy France, an external foreign element with some aspects of Frenchness to justify its legality, though this is a very broad stroke because Ottoman history is very multifaceted.
Ultimately, it boils down to the concept of interruption disestablishment and reestablishment and how does the old reconcile with the new. Still interesting video. Keep up the good work.

@@premodernist_history Tocqueville (a French aristocrat, by the way) argued that the institutions of the ancien regine had survived the Revolution to a much greater degree than most people realised and, in fact, plenty of the reformations attributed to the revolution originated in the ancien regime (eliminating feudal privileges, for example). Furthermore, changes such as the one in the calendar were only temporary. Therefore, I do not think the two cases are even remotely comparable. The political structure and social fabric of the Eastern Roman and Ottoman Empires were very different.

@@premodernist_history This is common in history, Bolshevik Russia isn't legally a continuation of the Russian Empire and Russian Republic but we treat it as such, in a lot of revolutions they try to completely break away from the preceding state but will claim continuity for diplomatic reasons (especially for territorial claims).
The modern Kingdom of the Netherlands was established under the guise of continuing the Republic of the 7 United Netherlands, but its institutions are more similar to that of Revolutionary France than the old confederation.
The People's Republic of China has nothing in common with the Republic of China, but claims continuity, meanwhile nobody recognises the actual Republic of China as a continuation of itself seeing it rather as "Taiwan". This is despite all of its institutions and administrative culture surviving there to this day.
Legal continuity is always difficult to determine with revolutionary changes.

You have to do more research about Turkish/Ottoman culture and its similarities with the Eastern Roman culture.

I agree. If the Ottomans had adopted Roman language and customs and basically kept the empire the same except for the ruling dynasty I would consider them a continuation of the Roman empire. But they completely displaced the Romans and turned Anatolia into a Turkic country. It's why we consider all the different ethnic groups that ruled China but the populace remained Chinese and the ruling class became Chinese.

In Rome, which was pagan and Latin, Christian and Greek became a change. Of course, states such as the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Rome were not as Roman as the Byzantines. but it would not be right to exclude it completely from the system. For every nation in the Mediterranean basin, Rome symbolized absolute power, nothing more.

@@riowhi7 religion, yes slowly in 5 centuries, the language in the east was always predominantly Greek.

It really seems like our present understanding of nationhood is ethnic. France stayed France because it remained ethnically French. Rome fell in 1453 because it was conquered by another ethnicity. It really does expose the racism at the heart of human society if nothing else. Great vid

​@@abrahamcollierYeah nationhood has always been defined by ethnicity.

A paint job doesn't make a car an airplane. The Ottomans were about as Roman as the Yuan and Qing were Chinese and Victoria was empress of India. Legitimacy by conquest and geography are far more important factors than religion, language and culture.

​@@majungasaurusaaaa That's why the Greco Roman empire and Hellenistic period lasted about 1800 years and the Ottomans only 630 years.
The Ottomans were a cuckold culture living in the nest of others. Domination does not translate to high culture other than being a culture of conflict. Unless of course you include the bacteria found in yoghurt the culture found in the churning saddlebags of the Turks as they rode from the Mongolian Plateau to Anatolia or, of course the Ottoman footstool - I guess that was a contribution to culture.

@@majungasaurusaaaa Roman isn't an ethnicity it's a city. If we are to become truthful, early Romans were pagans therefore christians can't be true Romans by that logic.

Ok how about the change from Frankish barbarian kingdom to Latin French? The identity of a 6th century Frank and a 19th century French citizen is immensely different and the both lived in France/francia and the rulers even though they were a different religion would be considered franks.

Totally

Their culture and language also remained exactly the same. Its just ludicrous to compare the Ottoman transition to the Republic Transition.

@@edgargross2789 I mean you can still largely see Greek culture and influence in turkey and even ethnically, a large part of the anatolian gene pool is still greek. But yeah I do get your point about language and culture but the change was very gradual and took hundreds of years of assimilation.

@@googane7755 large part of anatolian gene pool is not greek but “greek speaking anatolians” which are descendants of hittites,luwians,karians,lycians and many more. There were many different peoples before greeks in anatolia but in time they became greek in terms of culture and language, after turks took anatolia they became turks in terms of same reasons.

One thing I know about history, dynasties have no bounds to their original ethnicity. They just care about themselves, their legacy. Ottoman dynasty was a sample. They didn't care about Turks. Even they minded Turks less than Greeks. They cared about Islam though.

That’s because the idea of the nation as we know is a recent phenomenon. For most of human history people did not identify with their “nation”

@@atakanbalaban3543 Indeed, though the best sultans regarded Islam as political tool rather than a ''way of being'' per se

That was the way it was in that era. The conjuncture of the system of the era. They didn't know otherwise. Many other countries did exactly the same.

​@@atakanbalaban3543Hayır. Osmanlı için İslam tamamen siyasaldı. Halifelik makamından bile ilk kez 1774'te bahsedildi. Osmanlı hukuku; Bazı şeriat hükümleri,Roma hukuku,Türk kültüründen oluşuyordu. Hiçbir zaman şeriat devleti olmadı. Aynı şekilde padişahların çoğu dindar bile değildi. İslam sadece siyasal statükoyu korumak için kullanılan bir meşruiyet kaynağıydı. Ancak Türklük çok daha ön plandaydı.

Well I would argue that internal conquests are diffirent from external once in principle. If a US General overthrew the American government and declared himself Emperor of America (Even if that General was say ethnically Hispanic of something) We would probably still see him as more of a legitimate representation of the US government, than if China Conquered it tomorrow and then called themselves the new US.

​@@ThatIcelandicDude United States of America is literally just a geographical name with the description of united states. so yeah if china somehow came over and made a puppet of our country, they could def name it "ruler of America" in some way or another.

​@@ThatIcelandicDude ​ it is a little complicated than that because right after being founded the Ottomans started marrying their princes to Roman/Greek and Turkic princesses to form alliances and it continued with Slavic slaves, no Ottoman sultan has a Turkish wife(after its first century). Besides if you look at the population in Turkey today, they don't even look like the Turkic-Mongolic people of Asia, there is a significant chunk of DNA that comes from people who resided in Anatolia and simply converted to Islam.
For your analogy to be similar, Chinese people who moved to reside in the land of the US should conquer the US gov. and then call themselves the new US, not the country China.

@@ThatIcelandicDude Could argue 1203 is the fall of Rome since Constantiople by that line of thought fell like it did to the Ottomans (external) but to the Latins (external) who establisted an Empire that was culturally and Religiously differenent from the past hundred years of Byzantine traditions. There were rump successor states but same as 1453. Saying the Empire of Nicaea is still the Eastern Roman Empire is a stretch. You can argue they restablished the Empire later but then you accept the Empire fell and for a time there was no Roman Empire. If a state can reestablish its Roman Empireness then does that also legitimise the idea of the Holy Roman Empire then giving 1806 as a date (or 1917 for Russia though that one Is a bad one IMO).

@@paul_5848 Well I'm an Icelander, I consider the modern state of Iceland to be a legitimate successor state to the Icelandic commonwealth and so does the modern Icelandic Government. Even though these two states are sepperated by 700 years of foreign rule.
Rome is a bit more difficult ofcourse for reasons im sure neither of us need to list. But I would argue that The modern Icelandic state would have even more of a legitimate claim if a small portion if it never fell under foreign rule and instead held on until it could re-take the rest of the country. Even if that portion was not a direct successor to the Icelandic commonwealth but a territory if it.
So I would argue that Empire of Nicea has much more of a legitimate claim to the Empire than the Ottomans ever did, they were a part of the Empire that survived on and ultimately reclaimed the throne. After all they never called themselves the Niceans.

Your claim that "The behavior at the ottoman Court changes a lot, compared to the courts at Edirne and Bursa." is extremely interesting. Do you have any resources to back it up ?

Rûm in Ottoman turkish

@@okami9558 well there are many Arabic/Hebrew lonewords in ottoman and modern Turkish tbf so would make sense as the early Muslim Caliphs interacted with the eastern Roman empire (dismantling it bit by bit) before the ottomans came onto the scene

Don't forget the region of Rumeli (Roman land).

No Yunan is the persian term for greeks

@@JananMD so probably after greek wars WE adopted this Term.

Teşekkür ederim! Interesting that there's a phrase "Muslim Rome".

They did use the title Roman Emperor and that was the casus belli for the campaign against the other Roman Empire (the HRE) resulting in the famous and dramatic but ultimately failed siege of Vienna. It was of course just another title along with Ottoman Sultan and Caliph, but they did use it all the way to the republic. Arguably Mehmed VI was the last Roman Emperor ever, as well as the last Caliph.

@@premodernist_history in Muslim prophesy the end times will see a Muslim ruler with Rome as the capital of the world and he ascended the throne in Rome wearing a toga

Rum does not mean greek. It means roman, and it is used to refer to greeks/christians as they used to call themselves roman. But it does not mean greek.

Christianity was a direct produce of the Roman Empire, whereas Islam was an external imposition.
The Ottomans were the sucessors of the old Caliphates, not Rome's.

Italy was an Eastern Roman protectorate at the time and its identity didn’t change. Its rulers did, but that’s another point. Rulers did change at that point in the west.

That's because of Ataturk erasing both the 'Caliphate' and 'Roman' identities from the former Ottoman state. It's why he changed the name of Constantinople to Istanbul.

settled in konya, you're right . Glory to🇬🇪 by the way. ☮️

Awesome find! Thanks for sharing! That gave me the idea of checking some other dictionaries on archive.org:
A New Hindustani-English Dictionary (London, 1879), page 717:
rumi, n.m. A Turk.
Vocabulary of the English and Malay Languages (London, 1887), page 94:
Rum (Ar.) Constantinople. Benua Rum--the Turkish Empire, or ancient Rome.
Looks like we have a pretty stark difference between how the phrases "Roman" and "Roman empire" were defined in the West and in the Islamic world.
That line in the Punjabi dictionary, "or as universally understood in India, a Turk" got me thinking. Maybe part of the stumbling block for a lot of the commenters on this video is that they don't realize that the Ottomans did not use the term "Turk" to describe themselves. For Europeans, "Turk" meant all Ottoman Muslims, and then later excluding the ones who spoke Arabic. But in the Ottoman empire, "Turk" meant a rural pastoralist.

Yeah, but Cemal Kafadar had already written about it twenty years ago, and he warned against conflating the Ottoman conception of "Rum" with any western notion of Rome.

There was an Anatolian Anatolian Seljuk state, but artificial sources said it was Greek.

The term "Sultanate of Rum" never actually appeared in the historical sources. It was a modern coinage by historians to designate the Seljuk presence in Anatolia.

Its funny because there was a historical figure (dont remember who) that said "the Holy Roman Empire wasnt holy, nor roman nor an empire"

@@mrcopycat2355 oh yeah, Voltaire's quote about the holy roman empire 'The Holy Roman Empire, An empire that is neither holy, roman or even an empire'

@@theculturedjinni There we go! Thanks

​@@theculturedjinniholy German empire Christian ✝️ devils 😈 romans😂

Exactly… finally someone who claims the same thing as I do. A lot of history is not convenient for modern day nation building. If they only left history for what it is and took other subjects to use for nation construction.

I'll second that. You have to remember that the "Byzantines" themselves were split into 2 vehemently opposed factions at the time of Mehmed II's conquest. The pro-Western faction (called pro-Latin) favoured the Frankish/Norman sphere of influence and was seen as hostile to true Roman(=Orthodox) interests. The pro-Eastern faction often thought that Ottoman rule might be more favourable to their interests.
A saying of the time went like this: "Better the turban of the Turk than the skullcap of the Pope". You have to remember that the Romans saw the Pope as a heretic,an enemy and an agent of the Devil. The Fourth Crusade had not really helped ease this point of view.
Mehmed II walked into Constantinople with the Patriarch of the Church at his side.

I think the most logical conclusion is that our modern collective Western civilization, encompassing the US and Western Europe is actually Rome. In China, the various kingdoms that have existed for thousands of years are seen as the same civilization. I think the kingdoms and empires of the various Indo-European speaking peoples should be viewed through the same lens, as one continuous civilization.

@@therealdarklizzy the germanic kings adopted a lot of romanness sure, but the germanic element was stronger. the actual laws of the land were germanic. succession laws were germanic. the system of loyality was germanic. the medieval parliaments were germanic. "western europe" is the combination of germanic tribal culture and customs with roman law and customs.

@@therealdarklizzy China has more cohesion in their communication from what I understand, Europe seems to have had a confusing cultural history compared to the rest of the world and continues to have identity and communication issues when confronted with each other's ideals and ideas of the future.

@@therealdarklizzy an interesting thought but this reeks of right wing propaganda, reframing history to their warped understanding of Roman, which usually comes down to being white, Christian, and masculine

@@therealdarklizzy - Western = Greco/Roman

I am a Greek, I respect the Ottoman Turks. I had to read foreign scholars to understand the lies we are taught here in school.

Another Historian here!! Between view and facts there's a big difference. Leave your hypotheses and look at the historian facts - they might have lived at the same place and had roman people living in their pathetic subdivision of a European country but they have NOTHING in common with the roman people even if they called themselves romans. The Romans are classes above them. Romans are people with wealthy culture and knowledge while the turks know only how to kill people and destroy towns and villages and that's not what the definition "roman" represents.

@@howtowindows8477 This is a pretty one-sided position itself. For one thing viewing any empire as "above" another already shows you're not really putting an effort into objective analysis(no one can be entirely but you need to at least try). And for another the Romans killed and destroy plenty of people and towns in their time. Carthage was literally destroyed, with most inhabitants killed and the survivors mostly enslaved in the third Punic war.

@@Joesolo13 ottomans did way more horrible things to the christians living in their "empire" , while after some time romans gave everyone rights in their empire. And what do you mean to put an effort over this laughing shock defining itself as an empire. I will place an empire over another one because there is a reason. Romans were classy people with many knowledge for architecture and law. The ottomans on the other hand were a people who had no idea what means to govern a whole country, they killed innocent men just because they were christians and not muslims, they were stealing christian babies, grow them and then turn them against their own people (this is called blood tax) and they took away the rights of the christians, this way they blackmailed them to become muslims. What i mean by all this is yes, all empire could be ruthless to people located in the territories they want to conquer BUT the romans and the byzantines (greek ) never did sth so cruel to the innocent people living in their empires.
That's why i'm comparing the Romans and the Turks because they have nothing in common. The turks were always cruel and ruthless to not only the christians but to other muslims too.

​@@howtowindows8477 I dont think you are historian . " turks know only how to kill people " does not sound like something which a historian could say, and does not sound like it is based on fact. I can smell your bias.

@@brrkbtl I’m a bias historian- I’m a Christian and this period of history is a very sensitive topic for me. Don’t put labels on people without knowing them.

What did Atatürk say about Hector? Hector from the Trojan War?
I'm glad I'm understandable! I know how rough it is trying to understand a foreign language when they talk fast.

@@premodernist_history Ataturk said simply" we got the revenge of Hector" trojan/anatolian hero, in this way he meant modern day turks have ancient anatolian genes due to intermixing in almost a millenia

In the ottoman times though, Greeks in mainland Greece were also called Rum. The south of Greece is still sometimes referred to as “Rumeli” and Greeks as Romioi. In the West, where they also claimed the title of “Holy Roman Empire”, they called the Byzantines (which was a term that was never used back then), “the empire of the Greeks”.

@@tiusernamenabalw That is incorrect. Only the Greeks in Anatolia were called"Rum" (Roman), the Greeks in the islands and present day Greece were always called "Yunan" (Ionian).

Ottomans did not claim, actually. They practically called themselves Kaizer, ceaser of romans. They didn't need to ask any permission to anyone. And, as mentioned in the video, the ottomans were maybe outsiders, but not the people. People have always been there, and still are. And how many were those outsider ottomans? 200? 300 maybe? While the people were 12 million. And today 85 million.

@@philharmony a claim is an assertion of fact, it’s not a question.
I also made note of the Ottomans in power versus the ppl they conquered, mainly to wonder if the direct descendants of Rome saw the ruling class (ottomans) as truly Roman or just leeching off the name for legitimacy purposes. So I am not sure why you are talking about the difference between the two groups as if I am talking like they are the same people?
Honestly, I have no idea what you are trying to say.

​@@papazataklaattiranimam usually(since Indians called themselves Bhartiya, not Hindustani). Some people call them Tulugu, a name which is sometimes synonymous with being Muslim.

The Ship of Theseus is an excellent analogy for the Roman empire. I might steal that.

@@premodernist_history another note concerning the byzantines the byzantines abandoned everything was it meant to be a Roman they were extremely pro Christian and anti Roman pagan.
The West and East went war with each other over religion.

That is too far fetched, you can literally do this with every nation and compare it to literally any other this way.

@@christos3280 Ok, do it with a nation in existence today.

@@edmundprice5276 Whats the difference between russia and England? Step one change the language, next step a different location, step three change religion. The ship of Theseus is an applicable analoge for anything you could do it even with a chair and a bed

Wow..this is impressive...

I am a Greek- like in the way you said, think and speak as such- who now lives in the US, and I can fully attest to feeling at home with Turkish people, at least those from the West Coast & Istanbul. Finding fellow Greeks around here is- to this point- impossible. However, I have met a few Turks and it is like a breath of fresh air. That is to say, I don't feel alienated when I speak to them, nor do I have to put effort into feeling like the other person understands what I am trying to convey. Of course culturally, we are not fully one and the same, however the similarities are like no other, I feel.

Im Turkish too. Think exactly like you. Its really surprising to see that kind of uniting, moderate and open-minded person in anywhere of the world, let alone Turkey.
Today we have bunch of losers that struggle with their inferiority complex. They feel bad because they are Turkish and try to become something else that they're not. They even bow down to imperialist powers agendas while trying to cure their complexes. And in the other hand we have ultra nationalists that see themselves and their nation so superior they can never be wrong nor evil. Always all the other nations are against us, planing and executing conspiracies always.
But the superior point is here that where we stand. Not hating and try to mask who we are. Exact opposite we love our people and love our culture and country that we want them to live good lives. And at the same time we dont see ourselves above every nation that were blind to our weaknesses. We embrace everything that contributed to our culture, Romans and even beyond them. This is how we pull our country out of the mess thats in. This is how we prosper and provide a good future to our next generations, that we couldn't get unfortunately. Sorry if I babbled too much but I couldn't help my patriotic feelings overflowing. Peace my brother.

​@@jasonb.9790in Turkey we say us Turks are Muslim Greeks and Greeks are Orthodox Turks. Similarities are like no other as you said indeed. Cheers to the day when our governments will not squabble with each other and love one another like us common folk do. Peace.

If you look at where the Turks originally came from, which is most modern day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan and surrounding areas (eg Mongolia, Russia, China), many Turkic peoples there look either Mongolic, Iranic (the Iranic peoples used to live far and wide, especially in Central Asia and Russia, Ukraine & Romania) or North Caucasian (eg Dagestan) in appearance. Whereas you don't find these people so much in modern day Türkiye.
I think Azerbaijan is a good example. As you likely know, the name "Azeri" comes from the people who lived there for millenia before Turkic invasions. It refers to the name of the language spoken, which was an Iranic language, close to the other Caspian Sea Iranic languages (same branch as Persian).
And yet, these people are Shia Muslims. The Turkic peoples did not change the Azeri people's religion, only their language, which obviously now they speak Azerbaijani, a language very close to Turkish.
So the people of Azerbaijan are basically still the same Azeri Iranians, but they speak a Turkic language.
This is similar to the Gaulic people of France. As you probably know, the Gauls had their own language in France, a Celtic language, until Caesar conquered Gaul for the Romans and Latin replaced Gaulic.
The Romans did not settle and colonize Gaul, they merely ruled over it. So the native French people, even though they are speaking a derivative of Latin, are still the same Gaulic Celtic people, mostly, although Italian, Spanish and Moorish immigration did happen to the South and Germanic immigration to the northeast and Britonic/Breton migration to the northwest.
So... sorry for it to take long to get hear, but dare I suggest that the Turkish people are still largely descended from the same Indigenous Hatti and Indo-European speaking Anatolian/Hittite, Greek, Armenian and others who have inhabited the land for thousands of years. Of course there is "Turkic blood" too, but even the Turkic invaders of Anatolia themselves were a highly nomadic people who had the afforementioned mix of Mongolian, Iranian and Caucasian blood.
Being Turkic is probably the least genetically dependent (or rather most genetically diverse) group of people in the world, so it is more based on language and culture than anything.

Yes, you're right. Each took over about half of the old Roman Empire, and they're both heirs of Greco-Roman culture.

@@premodernist_history I discovered your channel today and I watched a lot of your videos in one sitting. I love when historians help us understand history in a way that contradict great national narratives. Your work is a true gem from all the history youtubers that only read wikipedia.