#ask: ottoman empire

[jeannereames]

Hello Professor Reames! How has the Macedonian Question influenced the historiography around Alexander?

The Macedonian Question & Ancient Macedonian Studies

(or, Come study ancient Macedonia! We cause riots!)

I’ll begin by explaining, for those unfamiliar, the “Macedonian Question” centers on who gets to lay claim to the name “Macedonia” and (originally) the geographical region, which is ethnically diverse but majority Slavic. It arose during the First and Second Balkan Wars of 1912-13, then returned after the breakup of Yugoslavia, from 1989 on.

I’ve been a bit chary about replying to this simply because it is (still) a hot topic, if not what it used to be even 10 years ago. Also…expect maps. Let me lead with three points:

1) The ancient Macedonians certainly weren’t Slavic. Slavs didn’t arrive in the area until the 6th century CE (AD), a millennia after Alexander lived. No ancient historian claimed they were Slavs, although some Slavic Nationalists used carefully edited quotes from ancient historians to support their own claims to the ancient Macedonians.

2) A lot of different peoples have passed through the Balkans and northern Greece (and even southern Greece) between now and 2300+ years ago. The Balkans have continued to be an ethnically contested area from antiquity to modernity, and who was “in charge” depended on what century it was.

3) Ancient concepts of Greek ethnicity didn’t ossify until around the Greco-Persian Wars. Prior to that, Greeks were more aware of/concerned with their citizenship/ethnicity in specific city-states (poleis) and/or language family groupings (Ionic-Attic, Doric, Aeolic).

Furthermore, these views were based on MYTH. To be Greek (Hellenic) meant to be descended from the mythical forerunner, Hellen, son of the equally mythical Dukalion (who survived the Flood…e.g., Greek Noah). There were other children of Dukalion, including a daughter Thyia. Thyia became the mother of Makedon, the mythical progenitor of the Macedonians.

So, by ancient criteria, Macedonians weren’t Hellenes (Greek). But they were kissing cousins. The ancients took these things seriously. That’s why I wanted to explain, so when the ancient Greeks said Macedonians weren’t Greeks, it didn’t mean what we’d consider it to mean today.

Back to the Macedonian Question … the issue of the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians got tied up in modern politics when Yugoslavia fell apart. During the First Balkan War and the division of Macedonia in 1913, “Macedonian Studies” didn’t exist yet. By the Third Balkan War (collapse of Yugoslavia), they did. And history was suddenly being pressed into the service of modern political agendas.

Now, let me back up and explain—as briefly as I can (so expect some judicious epitomizing)—the emergence of modern Greece and the First and Second Balkan Wars.

The Ottoman Empire began to collapse (not just decline) in the 1800s, and was essentially kicked out of Europe entirely by the First Balkan War and World War I. The last of it fell apart with the rise of Attaturk and the Young Turk Revolution, so Modern Turkey emerged in 1923.

Greece was part of that. The Greek War of Independence started in 1821, and Greece secured statehood in 1829/30, then became the Kingdom of Greece in 1832/3, which lasted until the military junta abolished it in 1973, after which it became the [Third] Hellenic Republic. From independence until the end of WWII, Greek borders expanded (see map below). Fun detail, the late Prince Philip, Elizabeth II’s husband, was a Greek (and Danish) prince.

The First Balkan War began in 1912, which was the Ottoman’s last gasp in Europe. The Austro-Hungarians wanted to make the Balkans a subject state, Russia wanted more control over the Black Sea, and Greece wanted to push north towards Thessaloniki and “Constantinople” (Istanbul). Ignoring Austro-Hungary, Serbia wanted to reconstitute “Greater Serbia” (14th Century Serbian empire)—which included a good chunk of Greece. And Bulgaria, with the strongest regional army, was eying the whole area south to the sea.

Oh, and let’s add in a dose of religious difference (Muslim vs. Orthodox Christian) just for snorts and giggles.

But this was basically about SEA TRADE access. So, for the three allies against the Ottomans, e.g., Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia, Thessaloniki, Jewel of the Aegean, was the prize.

The war began October 8th, and by November 8th (1912), the three Balkan allies all hurried their armies to converge on Thessaloniki as the Ottomans withdrew. The Greeks got there mere hours ahead of the Bulgarians.

"Θεσσαλονίκη με κάθε κόστος!" (Thessaloniki, at all costs!) E. Venizelos

The war itself ended the next year (in part thanks to the Greek fleet in Thessaloniki), and Greece kept the city, and with it, still controls a lot of shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean. Shipping remains Greece’s second most profitable industry (after tourism).

Following the war’s conclusion, several issues arose, including how to partition the land—particularly the geographical region of Macedonia. The 1913 Treaty of London split it up between Bulgaria (smallest part), Greece, and Serbia (biggest part). Again, Greece and Serbia wanted to keep Bulgaria, with the most powerful army, from gaining substantially more land.

World War I intervened, and then the rise of Attaturk in Turkey and the “Megali Idea” in Greece. The Megali Idea, proposed at the Paris Peace Conference after WWI (map below), got Greece in trouble. It would have involved retaking not just the islands off Turkey’s coast, but chunks of the Turkish mainland, to match ancient Greek land claims. All THAT led to showdowns, with ongoing human rights abuses on both sides (including the Armenian Genocide earlier, which wasn’t related to Greece).

In 1923, Greece/Hellas and the new Republic of Türkiye agreed to an exchange of populations. So, Ottoman Turks/Muslims in Greece retreated to Turkey (were kicked out), and Greeks in Turkey retreated into Greece (were kicked out). About half those Greek refugees landed in Athens, whose population exploded overnight, creating an economic crisis. Many of the rest ended up in areas of northern Greece, where land from fleeing Muslims was to be had. Ergo, many new immigrants had very strong pro-Hellenic, anti-Muslim/anyone else feeling, and hadn’t been living for ages next to their (Macedonian) Slavic neighbors, who began to feel unwelcome. It also had negative effects on their Jewish neighbors, too. (The loss of Jewish life in WWII in northern Greece, especially Thessaloniki, is both shocking and heartbreaking.)

Keep in mind that the refugees on both sides had been living in their original countries not for a few decades, but for a couple centuries, or even longer in the case of the Greeks in Anatolia/Turkey. The first Greek colonies there date to the 700s/600s… BCE. There’s a good reason the Greeks and Turks hate each other, and it’s not just Cyprus. The atrocities at the beginning of the 20th Century were awful. Neither side has clean hands.

Anyway, there was a second Balkan War in 1913, which I’m ignoring, except for the map below. It amounts to Bulgaria getting pissy about their short shrift in the earlier Macedonian land division.

Then came fallout from World War II, when Greece got the Dodecanese from Italy, et al. But I want to fast forward to the collapse of The Berlin Wall in Eastern Europe, November 9, 1989, and Yugoslavia’s dissolution shortly after. That ushered in the Third Balkan War, or Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s.

Compared to the Bosnian Genocide and other shit going down with Milosevic, the return of the Macedonian Question seems minor. It involved the Yugoslavian province of Macedonia asking to be called “Macedonia” and Greece having a very public, international melt-down.

The entire dust-up confused much of the rest of the world. The number of times I’ve had to explain it to (non-Greek, non-Slavic) people, who just boggled…. I’ve also seen tourists stand in polite perplexity while Greeks went on a hand-waving tear about how Macedonia has been Greek for 4000 years!!! [I’ve got a t-shirt with that on it.] Btw, 4000 years dates before the first Helladic peoples even migrated into the peninsula. Anyway….

Greeks consider the name Macedonia theirs, on historical grounds. They didn’t object to the new country, but wanted it called Skopje, after the capital, or something, anything not “Macedonia.” Meanwhile, the (Slavic) Macedonians were enormously insulted and pointed to the fact they lived in a region called Macedonia, and their ancestors had been living there for centuries, so why couldn’t they call their new country by the name of the region it occupied? Stated fears of actual territorial expansion by either side were largely scare tactics and fringe rhetoric. It really was all about the name. But increasingly, that began to include claims on the ancient Macedonians, or cultural appropriation. The new Macedonian state (FYROM, then) didn’t do itself any favors with their choice of the (ancient) Macedonian sunburst for their flag and naming their airport after Alexander, et al.

That’s how ancient history got sucked into all of this in a way it didn’t the first time.

Now, let me repeat. The ancient Macedonians were not Slavs. The Thracians were not Slavs either, nor the Paionians, nor the Illyrians, nor the Celts north of them. You won’t find the Thracians called “Slavic” in Bulgarian Museums, even while they take very good care of their regional history.

By the 1990s, Macedonian history had emerged as something more than just “Alexander the Great and Philip,” and questions arose about who these people may have been. Were they Greeks like the Thessalians and Epirotes to their south and west? Or were they non-Greeks like the Thracians, Paionians, and Illyrians to their north? This was an academic (not modern political) question, and involved: 1) what did Makedoniste (“to speak in the Macedonian manner”) mean? Was that a dialect or a different language?; and 2) to what degree did ancient Greeks really consider them non-Greeks (e.g., barbarians)? The fact we had so little epigraphy from the area complicated the language question. And ancient Greek politics complicated the second question. Were the angry repudiations by Demosthenes & Friends a real, widely held sentiment…or just ancient Athenian nationalism and anti-Philip propaganda?

This was mostly nerdy stuff that should have remained safely ensconced at dull specialist panels at academic conferences.

Except …. Manolis Andronikos had found the Royal Tombs at Vergina in 1978, and Greece was bursting with pride (as they should have been). Macedonia was back on the map! Tourists still largely stuck to the Greek south, but The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sport saw an opportunity, even back then, to capitalize on tourism, so you can begin to see why it was important for “Macedonia” to remain Greek. Can’t have a country calling itself Macedonia and maybe confusing people about who Alexander and Philip had been, and where they’d lived (and syphoning off possible tourism dollars).

That may sound unduly cynical, but I’m actually with the Greeks on this, even if I’ve always rolled my eyes over the name thing. And, as noted above “Macedonia” was laying active claim to Philip and Alexander as if there was direct continuity between the ancient Macedonians and the modern ones. See below, the giant Alexander statue erected in Skopje (2011), the biggest in the whole city. It’s formal name these days is “Great Warrior,” by agreement with Greece in order to get to call themselves “Northern Macedonia” in NATO. But it’s Alexander.

Like I said, they weren’t doing themselves any favors, although those arguing in their defense liked to point out that Greece had started it, over the name.

Of course the increasingly heated rhetoric around the name, and ownership of Alexander and Philip, enveloped ancient history like the ash cloud from Vesuvius smothered Pompeii and Herculaneum. By the mid-1990s, “middle ground” wasn’t allowed. If one expressed any doubt about the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians, that was heard as, “You’re siding with the Skopjans!” This dispute was still going strong to the point there were riots and protests at the Balkan Studies’ 7th International Symposium on Ancient Macedon in Thessaloniki on October 16, 2002. These protests erupted over the presence of Kate Mortensen, Ernst Badian, and Daniel Ogden, albeit the protests involved different objections for each scholar. Badian, along with Peter Green and Gene Borza (not present), had long been in the crosshairs of the vehement “Macedonia was Greek!” crowd. But poor Kate got targeted because of her paper, “Homosexuality at the Macedonian Court,” and Daniel had the temerity to present about witchcraft at Philip’s court (UnChristian things!). There were some 40 police called in to protect the presenters. You cannot make up this shit.

Btw, by no means were all Greeks, especially not all Greek scholars, hostile to the (largely Anglophone) Macedoniasts who questioned the ethnicity of the ancient Macedonians. Olga Palagia and Gene Borza remained friends and even wrote articles together, but Olga was retired and had a certain freedom from pressure. Manolis Andronikos and Gene also remained friends until Manolis’s death in 1992. But there was an Official Party Line that had to be maintained, or risk losing an academic job or other position in the Ministry. This also got tied into the identity of the occupants of Royal Tombs I and II at Vergina. Greece’s official position is that these are Amyntas III and Philip II, respectively. This is far from a settled matter, however, especially outside Greece.

For more detail from somebody right in the middle of especially the early parts of the quarrel over who’s buried in “Philip’s Tomb” and the ethnicity of the Macedonians, check out Peter Green’s chapter 10, “The Macedonian Connection,” in Classical Bearings.

To return to the question about how it’s affected historiography, other than resulting in hostility towards non-compliant ancient historians (having their work essentially banned in Greece) and the occasional riot at an academic conference (!!), it also resulted in the production of TWO quasi-competing “Companions” to ancient Macedonia at the end of the first decade of the 2000s.

The original proposal (A Companion to Ancient Macedonia, Roisman and Worthington, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) had meant to include a number of high-profile scholars of both Greek and non-Greek background. But one of those was Loring Danforth (The Macedonian Conflict). When it came out that he was writing the chapter on modern Macedonia, the Greek contributors revolted en masse. (Some were genuinely furious, others had to, to keep their jobs.) Another Companion was put together with Robin Lane Fox at the editorial helm (Brill’s Companion to Ancient Macedon, Brill, 2011), and the Greeks (and a few others) jumped ship. That was a nice break for some younger Macedonian scholars, incidentally, who were then tapped to write chapters for the Roisman/Worthington volume—and very good chapters, I might add. But the end result is one heavily archaeological Companion (Lane Fox) and one heavily historical one (Roisman/Worthington), and which still has Danforth.

Between the arguments of the 1990s and now, however, one important shift has occurred: enough epigraphical data has emerged, and not just later [Hellenistic], to argue the ancient Macedonians did speak a form of Doric Greek. Many/most of us are now a lot more comfortable agreeing that the ancient Macedonians can be called “Greek” without feeling as if we’re selling our academic souls--even if we may still argue that’s not Philip in Royal Tomb II...an identification that some of the younger Greeks also aren’t sold on. And Philip in Tomb II was never the highly charged political issue that the Greekness of the ancient Macedonians was. It just got tied up in it for coming up around the same time. One Greek friend put it succinctly (paraphrased), “It felt like the non-Greeks, especially the Americans and Aussies, were trying to take away Philip and Alexander from us. Tomb II wasn’t Philip, and the Macedonians weren’t even Greeks.”

That may be a bit hyperbolic, but feelings don’t necessarily respond to logic, and Greece would like to have their bona fides.

So, a chunk of the tension from the 1990s has subsided. The Greekness of the ancient Macedonians is largely a non-topic in Macedonian studies today. We’re more interested in new and exciting things like revelations from recent archaeology regarding the sophistication of the Macedonian kingdom well back into the Archaic Age, the real impact of Persia and how early, and what exactly was going on up there before (and after) the Greco-Persian Wars. Or at least, those are certainly my burning questions about the Argead Kingdom up to Philip and Alexander.

[madame-fear]

What if daemon and Otto walked into the brothel together for some sexy time and they ran into Aemond

That would be a problem...

But it would only be a problem, because Aemond would see his beloved Daemon HANGING OUT WITH HIS GRANDSIRE!!!! I personally think that would feel like a betrayal frfr

[sulfies]

can you spill more abt that self insert of yours? 👁️👁️

Oh boy oh boy can I? (big yapping incoming) (typo and grammar massaccare of 2024)

He is a self insert OC Assassin from the Ottoman brotherhood (bc Im Turkish) and he is 23 (bc I am)

not a secret mentor or anything lol I was just joking in the first post making a mary sue.

I imagine he is similar or one above than whatever Yusuf’s rank is (I have yet to play Revelations :,p ) tho I do not know what time he should be in, Realistically if no time travel happened he would be in same time as Yusuf but I dont want Gilf Ezio (sorry) but if its Ezio, Alt and Desmon togather timeline probobly he is in around AC2 Brotherhood time. (maybe he came by Italy to do a mission and dropped by the hideout)

He is ethnically Balkan or/and Greek (bc I am) which probobly means he was taken to Constantinople as a teen or kid to eighter be sent to Jenniserrie training or the male-harem.

Small history lesson:

- Devşirme was the name of the practice where Ottoman empire basically enslaved young Greek,Balkan,Ukranian,etc etc boys and inserted them into an Elite military (Janniserries) even the Sultans themselves were scared of bc they were known to start coups and kill Sultans(they got a salary and are socially above the commonfolk but… military slaves non the less)

-Male-harems existed, again Balkan, Romanian, Slavic and greek etc people were often the main people in the harems (fun fact nearly no Sultan is Turkish due to this lmao they are all mixed), once again their status were above the common folk and they were well taken care of (the older males could even become gov officals after) but slavery non the less.

Idk if I want him to escape the harem or Jenniserrie for his edgy backgrund but maybe he did few years of training, cought the eye of the Sultan and escaped the moment someone was like “you have been promoted to an elite employeeee, u won harem lotterry” . Probobly wandered the streets a bit, got into hella fights till an Assassin picked him up escaping a group of soliders. Maybe it was an older dude who saw him when they were both in training

He is basically based off my own ethnicity and its context to the time and sociatal goings of that era lol (which was hella gay… very gay… too gay almost)

He probobly has some traditional slavic leg,hand and arm tattoos (bc I have em but also) mostly bc around those times (nearly always women) used to tattoo themselves in those motifs to remember their christian roots and their culture (that Ottoman tried to erease) and also to make themselves less appealing to Ottoman Harem/ Devşirme recuiters :,D

For his name, Maybe to be on the nose… Adem? (Turkish ver of Adam) so he is tied to the apples in a fun way? Or Poyraz (means a northern wind) since the meaning is similar to my own name?

He doesnt grow much facial hair (bc I am also stuck w a weak beard) but he refuses to get rid of it no matter how much others tease him bc he is like “I aint getting courted by random crazy men ew” (I dont irl also bc I desperetly believe it looks good…I refuse to open my eyes)

History lesson 2:

-facial hair was important in Ottoman times, It LİTTERALLY determined your gender and how you were approached.

-Socially and in Litriture Ottoman almost had 3 gender roles; Men, Boys (Oğlan) and Women. Once a man grew a beard he would “transition” from being a boy.

-Romantically having a beard versus not determined if you were to be courted or court. Bearded man were called “Lovers” while NON-bearded were called “Beloveds” (yes more often the boys were underage :/ for the sake of history lesson lets…. try to ignore that like ancient greeks)

there is many gay ass poems ^

He got all the mentall illness coctails that I got bc why not make it worse fr him. I imagine him sarcastic and catty, Claudia prob loves taking him to shop around bc he always got something to fckn say about everyone. Big gossipper. Hides the fact that he hates being as short as he is very well (im like… 165? 5’5-4?). If in Yusuf time, nearly BFFS (if im not inserting myself into the throuple (bc Its my self insert and I CAN BE AS CRINGY AS I WANT) he would end up w Yusuf)

Him about others:

Ezio: will never stop calling him de la la la,likes him a lot, loves pranking and teasing him. Enjoys fake flirting with him till he takes it so far Ezio has to throw in the towel. Probobly teached him how to Oil wrestle and Ezio was like “Are you sure this is a real sport…” and all he did was sigh and say “I am so glad it actually is” as he admired Oiled up Ezio

Altaïr: loves mocking whatever big words he uses all the time. calls him “Big boss” just to see his eye twitch with cringe. Knows he can get away with shit if he acts stupid enough. Altair knows he is not that stupid but is impressed(deragotory, fondly) how low he is willing to go.

Desmond: clearly his favorite (im biased sue me) obvious by how much softer he acts around Des. Ezİo falls he laughs, Des falls “My leige, hop on my back”. Is facinated by his piercings and begs him to help him get some. Desmond desperetly wishes he could invent some ADHD Meds for him. Des also finds him strangely comforting, can imagine himself back in 2010s almost…

————-

Idk im not rlly a self insert person so thinking about him was hard and I also dont wanna make my oc “the main character” in this au so I dont really wanna give him any secret powers or anything.

Maybe some edgy gnarly scars on his back from a past mission where he came in contact with an apple? Maybe when he touched the apple he was supplied that canonly he doesnt exist and he is just a fan created being and has a whole issue about it? I can imagine a sad scene of him crying like “You dont understand, You exist! even as some damn video game you do and people know you they cannot deny you exist. ME? all I am is some weirdos self writing, not even enough to be in canon. Does anything I do matter?” lololol

Thats all I got for him for now lol but feel free to ask more:p Im also open to ideas for him.

sorry for the yapping and history lesson… here is some more fun facts:

-Oğlancılık (male prostitution) was pretty respected they were seen like any other tradesperson in some parts

-a Paşa tried to ban under 30 males from being washers in Turkish Hamams due to them also being sex workers and litterally everyone was so mad he got replaced

-dancers in coffeehouses wore the same fit no matter the gender so boys and girls looked the same (once again they were also sex workers)

-one time a jewish boy caused such a big fight between janniserries the sultan had to threathen to kill 40 man from each side if they didnt stop

-Draculas are real people and RADU the beutyfull (his OFFİCİAL NAME) had a full on recorded relationship with Sultan Mehmet2 :p

- Gay shit was legalized in 1853 mostly bc they never rlly punished it….

for the girlies

-in harems the girls couldnt order things like cucumbers or carrots to their rooms w out it being cut up :p

[lady-phasma]

How will alicent and rhaenyra react when they find out about the ottomon affair?

How will alicent react when she finds out Aemond isn’t her child but instead the love child of daemon and Otto?

Is viserys rolling in his grave?

I don't think Alicent will be that surprised by the love affair. @madame-fear surely has thoughts about it. Alicent would probably be mortified that it was discovered. After all, she would have been the only other person to know the secret that Aemond wasn't hers! But she loved him enough to raise him as her own to keep Ottomon's secret. Ultimately, she wants her father to be happy since he has been alone for so long, but she would rather all of Westeros not know. I'm curious to know when the three of them decided to tell Aemond who his biological parents are.

Rhaenyra, on the other hand, would probably find it quite amusing and predictable. Not much about her kepus surprises her. As I said in another post, perhaps this frees her to marry for love and not for duty. So she might be thrilled with the arrangement. Surely Otto is less grumpy with Daemon's affection now on public display, that must make everyone a bit happier!

Poor Vizzy... he just wanted his family to be happy, but Ottomon? Maybe he would be glad that his brother is happy. However, in the afterlife, would he know that Otto is no longer scheming and plotting and is just supporting his beloved King Daemon? We can only hope that Viserys knows how much Otto cares for Daemon and he can rest in peace.

[autumnmobile12]

This line is probably just a random direction the writers chose, but geographically speaking, it was the Ottoman Empire that lay south of Wallachia.  At the time Castlevania takes place, the Ottomans (chiefly Islam) were very open and tolerant of other religions compared to their European neighbors and granted asylum to cultural minorities.  So not only is Trevor’s suggestion of heading south a means of escaping Dracula’s Horde, it’s also a means for Sypha’s people to escape religious persecution.

Sypha’s grandfather refers to their people as the Codrii Speakers.  The Romanian word codru means ‘forest’ and codrii means ‘woods.’  So Sypha’s people are woodland Speakers.

By the time Vlad III Dracula ascended the throne for the second time in August 1456, a comet had been sighted over Wallachia.  Based on the description by observing astronomers at the time and the calculations of moving celestial bodies, it is believed this was Halley’s Comet.  The historical Dracula interpreted the sighting as a good omen and later incorporated the famous comet in coins minted during his reign.  (Google searches show me none of the historical Dracula’s coins survive today, if he minted any specific to his reign at all.  My source for this one is a book published in 1989: Dracula, Prince of Many Faces by Florescu and McNally, pg. 83.  So make of this one what you will.)

The capital of Wallachia moved around a few times.  When the principality was first founded in 1310, it was located at Curtea de Argeș.  During the majority of Vlad III Dracula’s lifetime, it was at Târgoviște.  In the autumn of 1476, it is believed he moved the capital to Bucharest for economic and military purposes and it remains to be the capital of Romania today.  (Plus, in the context of the series, Târgoviște was a ruined city by 1476, so no wonder the ruling government cleared out.)

[coffeewithcutcaffeine]

Not sure if it's a classical ask per say: I have this crack idea that Dimitrie would be like a "battlefield wife" to Vlad - always nagging him and telling him to be careful/reconsider/wear more armor/etc in his round gremlin way and Vlad would be wasting more time to get Dimitrie off his back than handling Turks :)))) What do you think?

Oh I agree I agree I a g r e e.

It just makes perfect sense, especially when his prince comes up with the craziest, borderline suicidal ideas. Dimitrie is devoted to his mission and supports his most daring dreams (most of the time), but he also needs to ensure that Vlad is well-fed, hydrated, and not at risk of jumping into plans that sound too insane. Vlad is the man of action; Dimitrie makes sure he is not butchered while executing those actions skdjdksldks. 🤭 Anastasia move, the real wife is on his way.

And it is canon somewhat. Dimitrie definitely looks after Vlad throughout the series. You can feel that he cares about him on a deeper level -- like you would care for a dear friend or a brother, not your sovereign.

No one asked, but I consider this an actual historical fact. That man was restless, always turning his visions into reality. There was definitely someone who tried to stir him away from visions that might have been a bit too bold for their current predicament. 🤔 This also makes me think about the fact that we need a Vlad Dracula mockumentary. The young voievod looking at the camera exasperatedly while an elder boyar runs up to him with a cup of water and pleads with him not to rush into yet another battle with the Saxons.

[breitzbachbea]

Herakles gets a bulky letter but it's just a page by Michele asking him to hand the other pages to Sadık, his sister-in-law wants to make inquiries. And it's like "Hi, one quastion". And is decidedly NOT one quastion.

[anethara]

seeing a lot of goyim making idiots of themselves this week and it's only tuesday.

[noovva]

Tuba Büyüküstün in Maison Valentino - Le Club Couture 💫

[scorpion-flower]

the reason why Daniel even played Vlad was because there were some people at Netflix who insisted on having a Romanian do the job

they messed up a lot in the series with the given information, those foreign historians are wrong, but the series is told from the turkish perspective, I am bitter but I am also thankful for giving a Romanian the chance to portray one of the heaviest names in history, as he should've been from day 1.

Daniel was a monster, in the best way possible, on screen

Loooool, so it wasn't even because the guys making the show were trying to be accurate this time around?

Yes, I am totally expecting to see a lot of propaganda in s2 too, how Vlad was a monster who had a pathological hate against the Ottomans, but nothing about how that monster was created and why he hated them.

I am rolling my eyes everytime I see someone calling the series unbiased, when it's crystal clear to me that they only care, as you said, for the Turkish POV.

Anyway, the only thing we can hope, is that one day, other countries (especially under-represented countries) will be given the chance to show their history on such large platforms as well. Casting a Romanian to play Romania's most well-known historical personality was a good move.

[evilelitest2]

Would it be fair to consider Turkey a settler colonial country built on the stolen Greek, Armenian and Kurdish land?

No, settler colonies tend to be a group who had no contact with an area and then suddenly show up and take over, the Turks have lived in the region since the middle ages, the genocides done under the Young Turks are much more like old school imperalism mix with ethnic nationalism, kind of like the Balkans write large.

[bijoumikhawal]

Mmmmm writing this story has just made me repeatedly run around the fact that there's no such thing as a pre-colonization way of writing about Copts even in fantasy

[lady-phasma]

Do you think we’ll have any ottomon content in season 2?

Maybe daemon comforting Otto after aegon fires him as hand?

They kiss a little

Things escalate

Then BOOM season 2 finale ends with the birth of daeron, the lovechild of Otto/daemon

This is how Daeron’s character will be introduced

Yes! 100% the writers told @madame-fear and myself that's how they plan to introduce Daeron!

I can only imagine how happy they would be with Daeron in their lives. Assuming this falls in line with our previous Ottomon theories, they may even be able to raise him as their own, unlike Aemond. Which has me thinking... they probably wouldn't live anywhere near The Red Keep. I wonder where their love nest would be.

[autumnmobile12]

In 1462, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed the Conqueror, decided to try his luck expanding his lands into Europe, invading through Wallachia.  In the past, many of Vlad III Dracula’s predecessors would have either stood aside and let the Ottoman forces pass through their land unhindered, or they might have committed Wallachian soldiers to the invasion force out of self-preservation.  Dracula instead chose to resist and, in the face of the Ottoman’s significantly larger and better trained army, he conscripted every able-bodied citizen he could.  This included men, women, and children aged twelve and older.  Making use of terrain they knew better than their enemies, the Wallachians resorted to guerrilla war tactics, scorched earth, and even early germ warfare.  When Wallachian soldiers became ill, they were often sent into enemy camps in an attempt to spread the disease and weaken the Ottoman forces.

In the brief glimpse we have of Isaac’s past, we see his tormentor wears a white tunic with a red cross, the Cross of St. George, which is famously associated with Europe’s Crusades against Islam.  As if his life wasn’t miserable enough, Isaac was likely born in a frontline Ottoman province and was captured/enslaved, and possibly orphaned, by Christian soldiers.  Yikes.

The ruler of Wallachia was known as a voivode, which we often translate as ‘prince,’ but a more accurate meaning is military governor or warlord.  Serving under him was a council of boyar lords and advisors known as the princely council, or sfatful domnesc.  These officials, the dregători, managed everything from court logistics to military endeavors to lawmaking.  Whether or not the Judge was a direct member of the council or an assistant to one of the members is up for interpretation.  As for his reference to ‘doing just well enough that he was sent back to Lindenfeld,’ the Judge maybe, on account of the voivode and other claimants to Wallachia’s throne consistently overthrowing/murdering the shit out of each other, found himself on the wrong end of a regime change and found it prudent to skip town while the going was good.  Or, you know, before somebody important found out about his ‘little pleasures.’

Straying into headcanon territory with this one, but a lot of it is backed up by historically accurate presentations of how a medieval household was generally managed.  Firstly, a medieval household was huge, and an estate of this size would have been maintained by a large staff, including but not limited to:  the steward, a stable master, one or more groundskeepers, a cook, laundresses, personal attendants of family members, page boys running messages all over the estate, and one or more nursemaids watching over the infants and younger children.  This is broad speculation, but I will point out that in England around the same time, it was common for high-ranking nobles to employ an average of 240 to 500 people.

In a Wallachian household, the education of a boyar’s son would have been handled largely by the women of the house, as well as the occasional tutor for more specified subjects.  This would have included etiquette, penmanship, arithmetic, politics, history, etc.  So Trevor’s domestic education likely would have been overseen by his mother, aunts, and possibly his grandmother.  Combat training would have been supervised by his father and uncles.

In short, I like to imagine some of the people from Dănești were survivors from his family’s estate and knew him as a child.

[calandrinon]

Let's be honest, if you were canonised it would be after a holy war against the ottoman empire...

Maybe you'll become the patron Saint of cartographers then?

i mean

why wait until afterwards? if I were going to die for my faith (such as it is), being absolutely annihilated in the first five seconds of battle against the ottomans would certainly be on brand :)

I would gladly patronise cartographers though! We have already thoroughly established the coolness of maps in tags, so obviously it follows that mapmakers must also be cool 0:)

[aceofspaces16]

I had a thought what if yami spoke Arabic, this btw would change the whole backstory

Yes I am going to rewrite it, and yes atem will be called Muhammad, he probably doesn’t have to be a king/pharaoh just someone important

Yes this will change everything