h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dear Gnomon,
Your Byzantium entries interested me very much. Thank you - and may
I ask you a question?
I remember reading in a discussion following one of the entries (I'm sorry I am unable to find it now, but hope you will remember the context) a surprising point about the history of Byzantium not being part of the course you were taught at school.
In the history we were taught in schools under the communist government in the former USSR Byzantium was not mentioned, and we jumped straight from the fall of Rome to the history of The Middle Ages in Europe.
Well, in our case the reason of this omission seemed obvious, although I now think that it may be more complicated.
What, in your opinion, accounts for this lack of interest in this huge phenomenon on the part of European/English historians/educationalists?
Yours sincerely,
Elena

It's a very good question, Elena. Throughout western European history, there's been a habit of dismissing the Byzantines. They've been described as evil, corrupt, traitorous etc.

And yet the Empire was the guardian of civilisation and learning while Europe was overrun by people who could hardly read, and they certainly stood in the way of Asians invading Europe, effectively preventing Europe from becoming Muslim. Whether you consider this a good or a bad thing, it is certainly worth knowing about.

So I hope that my few entries have shed a little enlightenment on this forgotten Empire.

True, true, but the question persists, doesn't it?
Why this silence? OK, I'm afraid I'm bothering you, but I'll wait patiently. Hope to be around for some time.
with your research!
Elena

You're not bothering me, but I don't know the answer.

I suspect that there were three possible reasons for partly ignoring and presenting the Eastern Empire in a negative light.

The first, was possibly the desire by the intellectuals during the Enlightenment to be the true and only inheritors of Ancient Greece. They had fallen in love with the free spirit of Ancient Greece and could not contemplate a conservative Christian inermediatery such as Constantinople.

The second reason has to do with a certain feeling of envy inferiority and competitiveness. This had started before Charlemagne whose legitimacy may have been called into question as regards his title as Emperor. At a time when Rome had been sacked repeatedly by the barbarians, Ayia Sofia had been built by Justinian and art, philosophy, and architecture flourished in the East.

The third reason may be a feeling of guilt for the sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the fourth Crusade who found it profitable to attack their fellow Christians in their search for gold.


By the 12th Century Greek influence had practically disappeared in the West replaced not let it be said by "Romans" but by Franks Normans Lombards and previously by Huns Vandals Visigoths etc.

Venice's commercial expansion and the Roman Catholic Church's claim of supremacy over the Eastern Church created the right conditions for a Crusade against Constantinople. This needed some excuse such as the claim of treachery and lack of money to pay the Venitians.

The plunder, fire, rape and butchery had never been equalled at the time. Everything that could have been moved was taken and apparently more damage was caused than the eventual Ottoman conquest of the city.

We are told that the West obtained its knowledge of the ancient philosophers from the Arabs of Spain in the 11th Century. While the Arabs had to their credit adopted and adapted the works of the ancients, to say that the translations from Arabic to Latin were the source of the West's discovery of Plato and Aristotle is to deny the existence of the Latin and Greek works over the centuries.

In Constantinople, Italy, Sicily, Alexandria, Gaza, Athens and elsewhere westerners had been studying in philosophical schools long before the rise of the Arabs. Al ancient writings had been available in Greek and Latin. Saint Augustin himself was supposed to have been conversant with Platonism using Latin texts way before the coming of Islam.

It seems that the West wished to deny Constantinople's cultural heritage.

The architecture and culture of Constantinople initially had inspired the Arab world and later the Ottomans. While the name "Byzantine" was coined with a pejorative connotation during the Enlightenment to separate the Greeks from "true" Romans, the Ottomans considered that they had conquered the Roman Empire and the Sultans became the Emperors.

In the East, the Greeks retained their link to their ancestors and the Turks referred to them as Ionians.

All along this story denial seems to predominate and this raises questions on the veracity of certain versions of History.

But it seems odd that such anti-Byzantine feeling could have survived up to the 20th Century.

People are no longer anti, it is simply inertia now. People just repeat what they know and if they do not cover the period thoroughly at school then they do not know any better unless they take it on themselves to find out.

Looking at post 1 in this thread I think it is somewhat significant that the poster was asking about teaching of Byzantine history in the USSR.

After the 1453 Fall the mantle of the Eastern Church was taken up by Russia and others in eastern Europe and Moscow has been known to call itself 'The Third Rome' in history. Their emperors becam Tsars (a corruption of Caesar) - so Byzantine influence was strongly felt in Imperial Russia. Architecture of the Kremlin and other buildings in Russia is seen as what became of Byzantine architecture...

So I guess, the USSR, the successor state would likely have suppressed history of the Byzantines which was a progenitor state of their own in many ways. The Soviet government was fairly notorious for suppressing freedom of knowledge.

Thought that might be a nice addition to the conversation - hope someone's still reading.

Good point, Orcus.

'intertia-not-anti' is correct, I agree. Byzantium not available as MP3 download.