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Little history meme :
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Well that's better xD
The (Eastern) Roman Empire survived it's "western" collapse. Technically, the Roman Empire survived up until 1453. Due to Hieronymus Wolf's inadequate scholarly approach, the historically inaccurate name "Byzantine" became all the rage. People back then used to call themselves "Romans" (and their enemies used to call those people either "Romans" or "Rum" as well). Nobody had ever heard of the word "byzantine" up until its invention almost 100 years later.Some sources:
https://www.academia.edu/1031466/Roman_identity_in_the_sixth_century
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269539274/download
Clifton R. Fox (Professor of History Tomball College, TX), article on Celator (Volume 10, Number 3: March 1996) (Author concludes that Byzantium is not a historically valid name)
Runciman Steven, The Eastern Schism: A Study of the Papacy and the Eastern Churches During the Xith and Xiith Centuries (Wipf & Stock Pub, 2005) (One can not only spot the differences between Eastern Romanity and Western Feudalism, but also realize the gravity of the historical continuation of the Roman Empire: It's always been the same Empire)
D. G. König, Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe, (Oxford, 2015) (Other political entities see "byzantium" as the same Roman Empire it's always been)
Also, sorry for providing a...reddit link as a "source" but this one is kinda accurate so:
SpoilerA super-short list of "byzantine" (sigh) inventions and stuff:
- The first ever state-sponsored institutions, including orphanages and hospitals (free of charge) the first university in the world
- medium literacy levels (nonexistent in the West at the time),
- relatively equal distribution of rights and job "opportunities" among men and women (agricultural, retail, manufacturing and hospitality industries), business ownership, property rights.
(Herrin 2009, Shephard 2009, Bagnall 2012, Gregory 2010, Mango 2002, Rosser 2001,)
Long story short:
>Be Roman
>Call yourself Roman
>Everyone near you calls you Roman
>Have capital and political power officially moved to Constantinople (Translatio Imperii)
>Live as a Roman
>Follow Roman traditions, but mostly speak Greek
>Invent a buttload of stuff, get credited for nothing.
>Ottomans attack, 1453 commences, high class and educated ppl move to Italy
>Spark Renaissance in Western Europe
>People in the West now know how to use forks (really)
>Random man baptizes you "Byzantine", western culture associates the word with "archaic", "obscure" and "out of fashion".
>People in Anatolia STILL call themselves "Rhomioi", "Rum" (Romans) to this day
>???
>PROFIT!TL;DR: WHO WILL WIN? HUGE EMPIRE WITH MORE THAN 1000 YEARS OF HISTORY, SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS, AND BIG CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOCIETY, OR RANDOM GERMAN MAN?