Talk:Fall of Constantinople

From Academic Kids

An event mentioned in this article is a May 29 selected anniversary.

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About Greece and Constantinople: Adam, how do you define "Greeks" in 1453? Would you say the Franks of those times have nothing to do with the French? Would you say that the Germans of the middle ages are not the direct ancestors of today's Germans? The term "Greeks" did not exist then either. "Greeks" comes from a turkish term ("graikoi", pronounced "greki") to show their scorn to their non turkic subjects. "Hellenes" however is more like it. That's why you may think that the "Greeks" of today are not descendants of the "Byzantines". If you use the term "Hellenes" it will make more sense. If you are ready to accept the definition given by Isocrates in the 5th century BC (Hellenes are those educated the Hellenic way) then the Byzantines were most definitely Hellened or Greeks, starting from the early years. So, Constantinople was not in "Greece", but it was most definitely "Hellenic" in the full meaning of the word, as much as we, the Greeks, are "Hellenes". I am a Greek and live in Greece. I can read and understand (more or less) Niketas Choniatis, Prokopios and Georgios Plethon Gemistos in the original. Most Greeks can. As they did at their time, we study our ancient philosophers. The Greeks, uninterruptingly for several thousands of years, have shared the same language, even under the long years of the ottoman rule. We have also inherited tradition, faith, culture. So, they were as Greeks as the moderns are, and they most definitely realised it. In fact they were more Greeks than us, since modern Greeks have been heavily influenced by Western culture, which was not the case at those times.--Spryom 16:19, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, "Greek" comes from an ancient term for some colonists in Italy. It's not Turkish at all. But I'm not sure what specifically you are referring to (and are you even addressing me, or another Adam? :)) Adam Bishop 16:57, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

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I am puzzled by the conjunction of the assertion that the "Byzantine state" of Trebizond held out until several years after the fall of Constantinople, and the statement that by 1453 the Byzantine empire consisted only of the capital city itself. Don't these two statements contradict each other? Michael Hardy 01:49, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hmmm...well, Trebizond was one of the places that set up an empire-in-exile after the Fourth Crusade. While Nicaea eventually took over the other exile states, and took back Constantinople itself, Trebizond never rejoined the empire and existed on its own until 1461. it had a different dynasty of "emperors", who were culturally Byzantine, but no longer connected to the empire. From 1261 to 1453, "the empire" refers to Constantinople and any territory it held, which by 1453 was just the city. Does that make sense? Adam Bishop 02:16, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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About the past couple of changes - I don't think we can say Constantinople was in "Greece"; the Byzantines certainly would not have thought so, and Greece as in the modern country didn't exist like that back then anyway. Also, the bit about changing the name to Istanbul is not really relevant here. The part about it being the "old" name is just wrong and I don't know where that came from. The Ottomans continued to call the city Constantinople until the 20th century. That Istanbul comes from "towards the city" isn't true either, it's just the way the Turks eventually pronounced "Constantinople" (a discussion of that is in the Istanbul article). Adam Bishop 04:14, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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How can the cannon have fired for 7 weeks if it collapsed after 6?

I suppose that what is meant in the text is that the cannons (in general) bombarded the walls for seven weeks. The giant cannon collapsed after six. —The Phoenix 18:46, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

About historic accuracy.

The term Byzantine is a misnomer. The Empire was called Eastern Roman Empire. It was Christian in religion (with the exception of the Jews of course!) essentially Roman in its legislature and Hellenic in its literature/culture hence Hellenistic Greek was the official language. The term Byzantium was invented in late 17th century by Western Catholic priests/scholars(?) (i.e. Hieronymus Wolfe) who wanted (and to a certain degree succeeded) in erasing the terms Christian-Roman-Greek/Hellenic for purely political reasons.

One thing that really is pathetic is that the capture of "the Polis" sparked the Rennaisance. Now the Turks can safely take this and by the method of "historical extension" argue that Europe is their creation! Well done you "author".

Finally, "Istanbul" is the way the Ottomans/Turks understood the term "EES TEEN POLEEN" (phonetically) - "Εις την Πόλιν" (Greek - need greek encoding to view), which means "at" or "to the City" (observe the capitalization of City=Polis=Πόλις which is short for "Konstantinoupolis" the City of Konstantine (with "K" according to the correct Greek spelling).

"Keep reading and correcting, history is simply revisable!"

Dimitrios G.P. Historian

The Empire is called the Byzantine Empire by modern historians, because it is simply too confusing to continue to call it the Roman Empire, especially in the 15th century when it clearly has almost nothing to do with the ancient Roman Empire (they didn't call it "eastern" anyway, they just called it Roman). The creation of the term Byzantine is dealt with in the Byzantine Empire article, and is irrelevant here.

Is your second point a disagreement? I suppose by extension you could argue that the Turks helped spark the Renaissance. Surely you are not simply a stereotypical anti-Turk Greek?

Thirdly, as far as I am aware, the etymology of "to the city" is erroneous, and Istanbul is just a Turkish pronunciation of Constantinople. But that is dealt with in other articles as well. Adam Bishop 01:05, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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To be honest, I don't like the idea that the Fall of Constantiniople was the "end" of the Roman Empire. I mean, the Ottoman Empire was essentially the Byzantine Empire Islamicized, and Mehmed II didn't consider himself the exterminator of the Roman Empire- he considered himself to be a Roman Emperor. Plus the Ottomans didn't really gain a "state" until they took a Byzantine city, Bursa, thus they could be seen as "rebels" of Byzantium.-RomeW

Well, dates assigned as "the end" of something were rarely seen that way at the time, but this is a convenient date and one that is very widely used in historiography. To say the Ottomans were the "Byzantine Empire Islamicized" is a little strange...the Byzantine Empire was nothing if not Christian (remember how opposed they were to becoming even another kind of Christian!). Mehmed was as much of a Roman Emperor as Constantine IX - they might have thought they were, but that doesn't mean much, the Byzantine Empire is clearly different from the Roman Empire by this point. And how would the Ottomans be rebels by conquering a Byzantine city? Seems like a simple case of conquest to me. Adam Bishop 07:19, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I know I'm probably one of the few- if not the *only* one- to think this way, but I do have my reasons. Technically speaking, the Ottomans didn't have a state until they took Bursa- a Byzantine city (also, technically speaking, the Byzantines were Romans- after all, they did come from the Eastern Roman Empire). They also targeted Constantinople, the Byzantine capital, and eventually made it their own capital. It's almost like they immigrated to Byzantium and immediately revolted. Certainly the Ottomans didn't think of themselves as the ones who ended the Roman state- in fact, Mehmed's invasion of Italy in 1480 was because he wanted to reunite the Roman Empire. He didn't succeed and probably would have not, but it's still interesting that he thought of himself that way.-RomeW

If I don't make mistake Ottoman Turks have lived inside Byzantine empire until Ottoman has make deal with commander of Byzantine fort near them and revolted. In XVI and XVII century in many state there have not been name Turkish but Byzantine empire. Nostradamus are not speaking about Turks but Byzantium.

What Day?

It came to my attention that the date the Fall of Constantinople happened, was May 29 according to Julian and not Gregorian calendar. It was a Tuesday. Should the date change to June 7 or note the different calendar? --geraki 20:21, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The date should be the Julian calendar date, since the Gregorian calendar did not exist in 1453. The Julian calendar became the Gregorian calendar in 1582. So Julian dates are still valid before the switch. (Now, after the switch is where questions sometimes arise, since many countries didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until many years later.) --JW1805 23:16, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

So it's a common practice to leave Julian dates as is. But in May 29, on top there is a note making it almost clear that dates shown are according Gregorian calendar. That can lead to a misunderstanding as May 29 1453 was a Sunday according to Gregorian calendar, although it is clear that Constantinople fell on a Tuesday. I'm not familiar in this, and we had this little problem in greek wikipedia, so do we or not mention the different calendar on this or other dates? --geraki 15:17, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is a bit confusing, but no changes are necessary on this or the May 29 page. May 29, 1453 was, in fact, a Tuesday. It is not necessary to specify which calendar was used. The Julian calendar ended in 1582, and the Gregorian calendar began. Ten days were deleted from the calendar, but the days of the week were not interrupted. Your confusion may arise because you have a day-of-week calculation algorithm where you input May 29, 1453, and the answer comes out as "Sunday", which is incorrect. Probably, your algorithm is blindly using the Gregorian calendar before 1582, which will result in an incorrect day of the week.--JW1805 16:25, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)