[Poll]Is the Ottoman Empire a continuation of the Roman Empire?

Is the Ottoman Empire a continuation of the Roman Empire?

  • Yes

    Votes: 35 14.6%
  • No

    Votes: 204 85.4%

  • Total voters
    239
I am making this discussion here because I realize that debating this topic in the other thread is derailing it.
 
In my opinion, the Ottoman Empire wasn't and couldn't be the successor of the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire.
Nor was Castile the successor of Almohad Caliphate. Nor the Kingdom of Sicily the successor of the Emirate of Sicily. And so on...
 
I would consider the Vatican City to be the closest existing thing to a continuation of Rome. It has a more or less unbroken line of succession from the religious bureaucracy that the Romans set up, has Latin as it's official language and is based in Rome, so...Pope Francis uber alles?
 

trurle

Banned
San Marino is the last shard of Roman Empire.
It is the only modern state which was created by Roman Empire colonists and was never conquered.
 
It claimed to be, but from where I stand it's not a continuation of Rome: it was an invading force that just happened to conquer Constantinople. The Ottomans might have borrowed elements from Rome (Don't know enough about that) but so did the Barbarians that invaded the Western Empire and they're not considered to be continuations of the Roman Empire. This is especially true with the Franks: Charlemagne was crowned Emperor in the West but the Carolingian Empire isn't considered a continuation of the Roman Empire.

The only Empire that could claim to be a continuation of the Roman Empire was Byzantium... And that's because the Byzantine Empire originally was born as the Eastern Roman Empire.
 
Apparently some people disagree.They made a lot of arguments in the other thread which frankly I don't quite understand at all.
I read the tread and i think most of them agreed that it isnt. They just didnt like the arguments the other side brought up - like rejecting the idea out of hand. The more intellectual part was the question when does a state become a different polity and what are the requirements for that. But i suspect that at that point some of them just argued for arguments sake partly because of the offensive tone some of the people arguing against them used.
 
The Ottomans always preferred Islamic titles to that of Roman ones if I recall.
Minus that one time Mehmet the Conquerer called himself "Kaiser-in-Rum", but as someone pointed out that's analagous to Alexander the Great's "Lord of Asia" title.

Also, if you consider the Ottomans to be a continuation of the ERE then you have to accept Odoacer's fiefdom and the Ostrogothic Kingdom as continuations of the WRE given that Zeno and Anastasius considered themselves rulers of the whole the empire, with the Germans ruling Italy for them.
 
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Minus that one time Mehmet the Conquerer called himself "Kaiser-in-Rum", but as someone point out that's analagous to Alexander the Great's "King of Asia" title.

Also, if you consider the Ottomans to be a continuation of the ERE then you have to accept the Ostrogothic Kingdom as a continuation of the WRE given that Zeno and Anastasius considered themselves rulers of the whole the empire, with the Germans ruling Italy for them.

Agreed. Of course he referred to himself as Qaysar of Rum, however that means little essentially because the going theme of that time was Rum was not a political entity but referred to the land of Europe or the people therein. Only now has it become a political designation as words like Euroba are used for Europe now.
 
It doesn't matter whether they were Romans or not, it mattered that they were ruled by the Roman Empire. If the Greeks could be the dominant ethnicity in and rule the Roman Empire, why not Turks?
The Greeks (and other ethnicities) had been officially full Romans since at least 212 CE. If you asked a Greek speaking resident of the empire what did he identify as, he would not say "Greek", he would instinctively say "Roman".
 
And the Russian one is the weakest....
Not so sure: the Russians Czars did have familial links to the Paleologos dynasty thanks to Ivan III's marriage to Sophia Paleologa. Even the Romanovs were descendants of the last dynasty to rule the Byzantine Empire thanks to that. Plus, Russia is an Orthodox country, just like Byzantium had been. Sure, dynasty and religion didn't guarantee succession in Rome and Byzantium but I'd argue this makes it a stronger claim than the other, even if that doesn't make the Russian Empire a continuation of Rome from my personnal POV.
 
Not so sure: the Russians Czars did have familial links to the Paleologos dynasty thanks to Ivan III's marriage to Sophia Paleologa. Even the Romanovs were descendants of the last dynasty to rule the Byzantine Empire thanks to that. Plus, Russia is an Orthodox country, just like Byzantium had been. Sure, dynasty and religion didn't guarantee succession in Rome and Byzantium but I'd argue this makes it a stronger claim than the other, even if that doesn't make the Russian Empire a continuation of Rome from my personnal POV.
No.The Romanovs themselves actually didn't have any blood relations to Sophia.Sophia's line died out with the Rurikids.Iirc,the closest relatives to the Palaeologos dynasty right now is actually the Spanish Royal family.
 
No. This should not be a question.

But Sov, how else are we going to convince people that Turks are Europeans like Ataturk wanted?

Seriously, the Greeks were conquered and assimilated into Romanity; the Turks conquered the Roman state and imposed their own -- using it to claim the Seljuks as much as they claimed the Byzantines. The HRE was more Roman than the Ottomans, and we all know they weren't Romans.
 
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