Lyceum & Book Club - Week 14 - The Aftermath

When Constantinople fell,there was a scramble by other locales to claim the title of successor to the Roman Empire. Mehmed claimed he now became the new Emperor of the Roman Empire and called himself Kayser-i-Rum - Caesar of Rome. The Tsar of Serbia and the Tsar of Bulgaria also made claims to being the legitimate heirs to the Roman Empire.

And of course, Moscow.

Moscow?!

Now how did that come about?

There were five Palaiologos brothers - the family that ruled the Bzyantine Empire. By the time of the Fall of Constantinople, only three were still alive. Besides Constantine who was emperor and died in the battle to defend Constantinople, there were his two younger brothers,Demetrius and Thomas, who together ruled the island/peninsula of Peloponnesia (the Despot in Morea) from the capital Mystras.

When the Ottomans invaded Morea, Thomas escaped to Rome where he and his family received financial support from the Pope and other western rulers as the Byzantine Emperor in exile. In order to ensure continued support from the Pope and the Catholic kings of the west,Thomas converted to Catholicism.

Pope Paul II hoped to reunite the Catholic Church and the Orthodox church (amid hopes that Russia would switch to Roman Catholicism). In 1472 a marriage was arranged with Thomas' daughter (Zoe-renamed Sophia) and Ivan III of Russia.(there is the Russian connection)

Constantine's brother Demetrius, who had been pro-Ottoman, thought he would rule Morea on his own now as a puppet state, but instead, ended up being imprisoned where he spent the rest of his life.

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When Emperor Constantine XI’s older brother, Emperor John VIII died, his two sons were taken in by Constantine XI. Under ordinary circumstances, they would have been named Emperor as Constantine XI had no heirs. But of course, the Byzantine Empire no longer existed, so there was no throne for them to succeed to.

But when Constantine was conquered and Constantine XI killed, Mehmed brought the two boys into his palace to be raised. Out of the kindness of his heart? Probably more out of the axiom, better to keep any future challengers under your nose, than out of your reach.

The eldest was close to Mehmed and served as the Governor-general of Rumeli (the Balkans) and the younger became Admiral of the Ottoman fleet and Governor of the Province of Gallipoli before serving twice as Grand Vizier to Mehmed's son, who succeeded Mehmed. So whatever it started out as, the arrangement and relationship served both the sons and Mehmed well.

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The east-west division of the Christian Church had reached a breaking point by 1453.

While Mehmet took the Saint Sophia church to be transformed into a mosque, he gave the second most important church to the Greek Orthodox patriarch and as a result of this isolated "protection," their eastern doctrine survived intact where it probably would have been absorbed by Rome just to survive the deep schism that had been developing.

The leaders and authority of the Orthodox Church that had resided in Constantinople now transferred to the Tsardom of Russia and Moscow inherited the title of "Third Rome".

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In 1396, a cultural exchange program was set up between Italy and Constantinople in which artists, scholars, musicians would visit each other's country as guest artists, teachers, etc. in the various institutions.

So when the Ottoman Turks took over Constantinople - both refugees and later immigrants went to Italy and brought with them both documents and knowledge of the Greco-Roman tradition of study.

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Because the trade route across the Black Sea and then on to the overland route to India was now closed off to Europe, they had to seek a new water route and that led to the Age of Exploration and discovery of the New World.

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Many of the people from Constantinople and it's environs escaped to Western Europe. In particular, the Greek scholars who fled to Italy created the European Humanism movement and brought about the Renaissance in Western Europe.

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Those ideas are the spiritual lodestone for the founders of the United States.

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All as a result of one event in history - the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.

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Capturing Constantinople finally gave the Ottoman Turks stability in the Balkans without worrying about an army at their back and now they were free to continue their campaign up the eastern side of Europe - they held southern Greece until 1832 and Bulgaria,Romania,Bosnia and Serbia until 1878. Their drive to conquer more lands was stopped at the Battle of Vienna,Austria in 1683, but they held the lands they had conquered for much longer.

The lands between central eastern Europe and southern Greece were not liberated from Ottoman rule until 1913. The isolated Muslim populations in Albania and Bosnia are the remnants of the long rule of the Ottomans in Europe.

Because of the Fall of Constantinople, there now emerged a rivalry between the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire that had not existed before because they had not been in each other's sphere. For the next 130 years, the Turks were engaged in repeated conflicts between themselves and the Russians and themselves and the Austrians.

The punishment for Turkey's alliance with Germany in WW1 was the break up of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, leaving Turkey with just a remnant of it's former Empire in the historical center of the original Turkish kingdom in Anatolia, but by 1922,Turkey had regained enough strength to push Greek troops out of Anatolia and take back her old heartland territory, wiping out centuries of Greek culture from the Anatolia plateau.

In 1974,Turkey invaded Cypress & took up occupation of the northern sector of the island where she continues to insist (against world opinion) that she has just as much right (or more she says) to claim Cypress as the Greek residents who have been there for centuries.

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If Constantinople had held, the chances are that Mehmed very well would have looked for an easier target upon which to earn his credentials as a young ruler.

Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire and a movement to maintain Christian outposts in the Holy Land would have died a natural death as the world centers moved west, but you would not have had the massive campaign by the Ottomans into eastern Europe.

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This location and event in history matters today.

The national memory of these events retains its emotional potency to this day in the Balkans. We see this in their fear of an Ottoman repeat and the absolute vehement anti-Muslim sentiment you see in this region caused by over a century of two nations contesting the same area.

This sea passage from the Black Sea to the warm Mediterranean Sea retains the same absolute value for Russia as it did from Russia's founding. Russia would love to own both sides of the Bosporus and Dardanelles and ensure control over that vital choke point.

The Greeks would love to kick the Turks off the European side of the Sea of Marmara, while Turkey would love to kick the Greeks off the island of Cyprus that lies far from Greece, but right off the coast of Turkey and contains valuable gas fields. And neither will budge because both are vitally important.

And then there is the mythology of Constantinople as both the center of Christendom and the continuation of the Roman Empire. When Orthodox clerics fled to Moscow, they took with them the mythology the Roman Empire representing Western Civilization and the Center from which Christendom would spread, with Russia now assuming the mantle and crown representing the rise of the Third Roman Empire.

Since that time, that mythology has remained alive for Russia and Putin has used that mythology to boost Russia's sphere of influence.

Many who look to Russia in our current environment, do so because they think Russia will usher in the rise of the third Roman Empire and get back to what some consider a more pure form of orthodox Christianity than Roman Catholicism. (you have a lot of westerners who know nothing about the Orthodox faith and don't see it as a religious institution complete in its own right. But they know they hate the Catholic Church or they hate the liberalism they think is developing in the Catholic Church, so they think the Orthodox faith will get back to a more conservative interpretation. (and then the more ignorant think of it as a form of protestantism, just as they view Judaism as a branch of Christianity that just needs to be brought back into line and not a separate faith)

All Russia is missing is ownership of Constantinople, which has been a long time desire of Russians.

Along that same line, these right-wingers see a continuation of the Crusades by way of Russia returning to the Middle East supposedly bringing the Christian faith back as start up colonies where ever Russia puts in bases. Tie those into Israel and the End Times and these evangelicals see Russia connecting with Israel as closing the circle to a fulfillment of biblical lore.

You hear a lot of talk by these far-right religious groups about going back to the Roman Empire/ ancient Greek model where Europeans (white men) ruled the world rather than a liberal democracy where everyone is equal.

Its all mythology and a skewed reading of history - but that theme from almost 2,000 years ago still plays out affecting events and choices people make even today.

None of this is ever going to come to pass - but it doesn't matter - the ideas from the past are still fueling the choices and emotional mindset to this day.