How can we make the Ostrogoth Kingdom survive until the present day? (Must be a direct successor state, with a noticeably Gothic culture and language, but can include as much Romance influence as necessary.)
How can we make the Ostrogoth Kingdom survive until the present day? (Must be a direct successor state, with a noticeably Gothic culture and language, but can include as much Romance influence as necessary.)
Does it have to be a kingdom as such? I do have a nice idea about a demi-Greek/Tatar Prince-Bishophoric surviving in the Crimea....How can we make the Ostrogoth Kingdom survive until the present day? (Must be a direct successor state, with a noticeably Gothic culture and language, but can include as much Romance influence as necessary.)
Keep 'em East, and don't send 'em West. Then have some huge super Gothic-barbaric kingdom in the Crimea and the Ukraine which eventually goes on to conquer the Moon.
Actually, if you have them convert to Catholicism early, and the Franks stayed Arian, then the Goths could be the power that the Franks were. Not, mind you, that modern France has a lot of visible connexion to the Franks aside from the name of the country.
Problem is the Huns are coming and if you manage to butterfly them away there will be later steppe invaders. Until the development of gunpowder and modern military organisation the steppe powers were always too great a threat for a major settled state in this region. Furthermore, if you don't have the Huns pushing westward and driving the Goths and others ahead of them what happens in Rome. If the empire survives because of less pressure it could also be a fatal threat to the Gothic state.
How about have Belisarius genuinely switch sides. He seems to have been far too honest for his own good and loyal to the paranoid Justinian. However if say he has a different wife or a trusted advisor who gains evidence that Justinian is about to sack him it might be possible. As Matthias says he was a genius and could well have maintained a powerful state, campaigning in the Balkans to protect Gothic lands there. Justinian will be enraged but having lost an army and his best general he could face problems both internally and in the east. Also, given the difference between the gallant and honourable Belisarius and Justinian's tax-gatherers you might well see revolt in Africa as well.
If the Vandals joined with the Ostrogoth kingdom and quickly rebuilt their naval dominance the two would be pretty safe and very wealthy. If you wanted you could have a later intervention against the Franks to aid their Visigoth cousins seeing Frankish power largely driven from the Med basin.
Difficult to say how much of a Gothic culture could survive since I think the vast majority of the population was still Italian and Roman culture still held in very high esteem. However a strong element could survive as a clear culture in the peninsula. [More difficult to see a continuous successor state given your talking about 1500 years in a pretty exposed area. However something should be possible].