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No, "Survival of the Byzantines" will definitely NOT be the title of that timeline - I'd have to think more on that.

What I want to do is write a timeline that will lead up to a modern day world where a) the Byzantine Empire survives; b) it is a wealthy centre of civilisation; c) has a constitutional and pretty much libertarian political regime; d) Persia has been conquered by Greek-speakers and is ruled by them; e) there are other Greek-speaking countries in the World; f) Koine Greek is a major international language on par with English; g) Orthodox Christianity is more widespread than in our timeline.

Now, when I say Koine Greek, I mean literary, more or less Atticised Greek in official use during Byzantine times, to be clear. If you think that's not possible, just remember that for a very long time it HAS actually been a lingua franca and that, given a strong enough navy, army and economy, any language can become a lingua franca.

So basically today there would be 2 major states that would have Greek as an official language: The Empire of the Romans, where Koine Greek is the only NATIONAL official language, and the Persian Empire, where Persian is the lingua franca, but Koine is the most learnt foreign language. I also plan on having an independent Hellenised Bactria (where most people are Buddhists) speaking a language descended from Greek. There too Koine is the most learnt foreign language. Then I'll also have probably a Koine-speaking independent Cyrenaica, but there the majority religion would be... I don't know something Hellenistic like the Cult of Serapis or something to that effect.

There will also be an independent County of Tripoli (majority Catholic, majority French speaking), Kingdom of Jerusalem (majority Orthodox, haven't thought about the language), and an independant Coptic Lower Egypt (again, majority Orthodox, majority Coptic speaking) that are traditional allies of the Byzantines and therefore Koine is the most learnt foreign language there as well.

Ok just a little about how Greek-speakers came to rule Persia. Basically after the 15th century, the Byzantine Empire pretty much takes on the role of the Ottomans in history so there will be a conflict with Persia. In the 1700's the Byzantines will conquer all of Persia. But shortly afterwards in the original territories of the Byzantine empire political changes occur that will finally establish a constitutional regime. The part of aristocracy and middle class that strongly disagrees with this and would like an autocratic regime sets up their own little Empire in Persia. They rule it by encouraging Persian nationalism and the proselytism of Zoroastrianism among the ethnic Persian. The Turkish speakers of Persia are already majority Christians as a result of a more Christian and longer lived Ilkhanate and of the fact that Timur Lenk's life will be tragically cut short. Despite all this, Muslims are still a plurality in Persia (something like 40% or 45% or along those lines).

Now, you'll say, this is a very Greek world. Wrong! This is a very Hellenised world. The Byzantines don't consider themselves Greeks but civically Romans (Rhomaioi) and ethnically Rhomees (Rhomioi). And adding a twist to that the many, many Turkish-speakers of the Byzantine Empire (who are also majority Orthodox) also consider themselves ethnically Rhomioi. On the other hand the Greek speakers in Persia have come to consider themselves "Macedonians" basically buying into their own propaganda of how, stepping into the steps of Alexander, they have saved Persian civilisation from the evil "Arabs" - read "Muslims".

Also on this point: I've done quite some research on the evolution of Alexander's perception in Persian culture and it appears that though he was viewed as an evil conqueror in Sassanian times, after the Muslim conquest of Persia, his image changed fundamentally, and he was viewed as a good conqueror, with Persian ancestry (sic!) who delivered Persia from a tyrant and ineffective Shah. Did you know that medieval Muslim Persian actually viewed Islam as the final realisation of Alexander's oikoumeni?! I mean, how wierd is that!? Given this facts, I don't think that after the Byzantine conquest of Persia, portraying the Ancinet Helleninc and Persian civilisations as sister cultures that indeed have been engaged in honourable warfare with each other would have been so hard. The image of Alexander as a positive character was already there. From this to "the Hellenes have come to deliever Persia from Arabs" is but a simple small step. Especially if you think about this: in our timeline, TODAY, Persians have a very bad opinion of the Muslim conquest of Persia, not that they don't like the end result - they do quite like the fact that they're Muslims. But they resent the fact that for a long time Arabs ruled Persia.

Ok, now I've mentioned Rhomees (Rhomaioi) as the central Nation of the Byzantine Empire. There is a very clear sense that the Rhomees are a Hellenistic people and the descendants of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman civilisations. However, they do not consider themselves to be quite Greeks. Greek heritage is just of the elements of their identity (albeit one of the most important elements).

Initially, I have envisioned that there are 4 kinds of Rhomees: the Ellinikoi (speaking natively Modern Greek, something like 24%), the Anatolikoi (speaking natively Turkish, something like 51%), the Vlakhoi (speaking natively Vlach languages) and the Vyzantinikoi (speaking natively Koine Greek, about 8% of the population). My purpose in this was to have the Turkish-speaking part of the population be dominant. But this doesn't work because this demographic model makes Koine as a lingua franca unsustainable. It's not unheard of that a minority language gets to be the lingua franca as a neutral solution, BUT, in order for it to truly be an international language there have to be enough native speakers to sustain it. Otherwise no one will really speak it correctly.

So I've arrived at a different scenario. My Rhomee nation will be comprised of Ellinistoi (Koine Greek speakers, a plurality of Roman citizens and majority, probably, of Rhomees), Anatolikoi (Turkish speakers, a very significant minority) and other MUCH smaller minorities: Vlakhoi (Vlach speakers), Elladikoi (modern Greek speakers in Greece proper), Pontikoi (Pontic Greek speakers in Pontus and Crimea), Kappadokikoi (Kappadokian Greek speakers in Kapadokya). These all, despite being different ethnically, they would all have a very strong common identity as Rhomees (Rhomioi).
But there are other non-Rhomaic minoritis in the Empire like... Armenians and Georgians and Syriacs and Serbians and Albanians and Arabs and Jews.

Anyway this is what I've thought I need to arrive at. Now, as you might have noticed there is nothing short of intervention by Holy God Himself that would bring about such a scenario... But stranger things have happened in real history so I won't get too worked up about that.

However, what I do recognise is that I need to make this as logical and as plausible as possible. And in order to do that, I have to have multiple points of divergence. I know that there are people who believe that such a device would lead to uncontrollable butterflies, but I believe that there is a sense of ... destiny in the greater scheme of things, that History has a tendency to stick to is current timeline as much as possible. In other words if you change something, 2 things can happen as a result: one, time can turn out radically different, or two, you will end up with somebody else doing exactly the same thing as was done in our timeline. Actors may be different, circumstances may be different, but the same phenomena keep happening. So I guess I believe in the ciclicity of history. Therefore, in the big scheme or things, I will keep history having a tendency to stick to the phenomena of our timeline. So for example we won't have the particular event of the 4th Crusade. But animosity and outright enmity between the Latin West and the Byzantines will still be there, as this is such a big phenomenon that one little event can't really derail its course, not completely anyway.

Now having said that, I am not going to discuss for the moment the POD's that have anything to do with the survival of the Greco-Bactrians. They are isolated enough that their survival will not affect history too much. But the idea is that they Hellenise the Tocharians and the Kushan Empire speaks some form of Greek and is Hellenistic. But they still get to be conquered by Arabs in the 7th and 8th centuries. Then they will survive as a people and re-emerge later, kind of how the Poles re emerged after the First World War.

But the real history altering POD's will have to do with the Byzantines themselves.

First of all, for the creation of a true Byzantine commonwealth so to say, I need to do something that I don't really want to do: I need to unify the Eastern Orthodox Church with the Nestorian Church of the East and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. I will though leave the Armenian Church as out of communion with the Byzantines and fully Miaphysite.

So, A) I will have Barsauma, the Nestorian Metropolitan Archbishop of Nisibis trip and fall and hit his head on a rock and die... or something to that effect. Without his political machinations, Nestorianism would have probably died out in the Church of Persia, as the Council of Chalcedon would have probably come to be viewed as enough of a compromise between the School of Antioch and the School of Alexandria.
Now, the Church of Persia, will eventually get Persian state support and will, most certainly become shortly very hostile to the Byzantine Church, BUT, they will probably keep the same faith and for the most part they will keep communion. This little detail WILL create huge, huge butterflies later on as now the brand of Chrisitianity spread throughout Asia is not Nestorianism, but Orthodox Christianity and that will be the faith of those Mongols who are Christians in this timeline

B) Somehow, after the Arab conquest of the Middle east and before the end of the 9th centruy I need the Coptic and Syriac churches to accept the decisions of Chalcedon. I have absolutely no idea how to do that. If you think about the history of Miaphysite doctrine though, it started when said churches embraced Monophysitism for political reasons. But then they did anathematised all the radical Monophysites and Monophysitism itself and their current doctrine, Miaphysitism is built on the basis of terminology differences between the Coptic and Greek language. If, after the Arab conquest of the Middle East, someone or some organisation would have worked to clear up those differences in philosophival terminology (basically it's a problem of translation) I do not see a union so far fetched.
But I DO need a Monophysite controversy and I DO need a Monothelite controversy: Byzantine culture would simply not be the same without St. Maksimos the Confessor.


Ok till this point none of these POD's actually modify history in any radical way so by the year 1043 history would be pretty much the same as in our timeline. Only in this timeline some things start happening in 1043.

1) Georgios Maniakis, during the battle in which he was defeating Constantine IX Monomakhos's forces, will not get fatally wounded and will not die. As a result he will become Empreror as Georgios I.

2) During his reign he will stop the downturn of the economy by stopping the Imperial entitlements and gifts, he will not devalue the Byzantine coin and, most importantly, he will not destroy the military themes of Anatolia, especially the frontier Armenian themes as the Monomach did.
[Ok if it seems a bit far fetched that Maniakis becomes Emperor, he will just kill the Monomach and force Zoe to name him Megas Domestikos or Megas Logothetis or Mesazon or something to that effect and he'll rule in Zoe's and afterwards in her sister Theodora's name.]

3) However, the political situation remains as crappy as in our timeline, and in the times of Roman Diogenis, though the economy is in a bit of a better shape and the Army is in a much better shape, politically the Empire is on a road to disintegration.

4) The battle of Manzikert is still lost, due to the betrayal of the Doukas family. However, instead of the disaster it was in our timeline, it is just a tactical defeat and the Byzantine Army gets to retreat without being destoryed. The Army will also survive the following devastating civil war.

5) Taking advantage of the civil war the Turks do invade Anatolia but now the situation is a bit better for the Byzantines than in our timeline. The Byzantine Army has survived and though because of the political chaos the Turks manage to conquer Nicaea and most of Anatolia there is still a lot of land in Western and South Western Anatolia still in Byzantine hands.

6) In our timeline about 15% of the Turks that entered anatolia converted to Orthodoxy. There are multiple reasons for that not the least of which is that the conversion of Turks from Tengriism/Shamanism to Islam was not at all already completed by the time of Manzikert, but more like underway. Actually tradition would have us believe that Alp Arslan was the one that finally made the turn towards Islam. Of course I think that's kind of an oversimplification, but still there were Turks that did convert to Orthodoxy. Now, in my timeline, with Byzantine society in a better shape, I expect that initial amount of conversion to Orthodoxy to be somewhere at 25% to maximum 35%.

7) When Alexios Komninos came to the throne he DID have his Byzantine Army at his disposal and he did also have Orthodox Turkish troops. The problem was all these were troops he did not believe he could rely on. He was not of the Macedonian Dynasty and there were intrigues every day: many sought to overthrow him and the loyalties of the Army were divided. So he did request mercenaries from the Pope and the Pope did call the Crusades.

8) Alexios did help the Crusaders in the siege of Antioch, but despite that relations between Latins and Byzantines will eventually sour.

9) At Myriokephalon Manuel Komninos vanquishes the forces of the Turkish Sultanate of Rum conquering the whole of Anatolia.


And here are the consequences:

1. The Angeloi were as disastrous as in our timeline and by 1210 there is a huge Muslim revolt underway in Anatolia that establishes a new state (or new stateS). [Although I would think that there is a very small Orthodox majority in Anatolia by this time.] Also Latins grab lands in the Balcans and in Greece, and the Vlach-Bulgarian revolt results in a new Bulgarian Tsardom.

2. When the Mongols come they crush the Muslims in Anatolia and the Byzantines as all Christians view them as saviours. By this time the Laskarids are on the throne of Byzantium.

3. But then the Laskarids are toppled by Michael Palaiologos, which creates a huge political crisis and is met by stiff opposition. The political agenda of the Palaiologoi includes Union with the Catholic Church.

4. There is a civil war and the Laskarids' supporters invite the Mongols of the Ilkhanate to help them, promising them the throne of Byzantium (since the actual members of the Laskaris family have been murdered by Michael Palaiologos).

5. The result is the Great Khanate of the Purple Horde.

6. The Khanate eventually splits the Persian side continuing its hsitory (albeit with a few differences compared to our timeline), and the Byzantine side remaining Byzantine. There are civil wars in this period between the Toluids (Mongols) the Palaiologoi and the Kantakouzenoi.

7. Eventually the House of Ertuğruloğlou comes to the thrones of Byzantium (Ertuğrul was the father of Osman I, the progenitor of the Ottomans. But now that they're Christian, his name wouldn't be Osman anymore but something like Davut or maybe Pavlo)

8. Byzantium is now competing with the Italian states economically and culturally in the Renaissance and with the German Empire (so called "Holy Roman Empire") politically. This would eventually lead them to do more or less the same things that the Ottomans did in our timeline.


This is the whole thing short. Of course IF I will write this timeline, I will do it properly: first I am going to write the chronological history, going, logically, from one event to the next from the times of Georgios Maniakis to the present day.
Then I shall write a detailed description of the various states that exist in the present day in my timeline as a result of what I've changed in history.

But I'm not really sure I'm on the right track. Some thoughts on this from you shall be most welcomed, especially if they're constructive.
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