After 1453: The Romans of the Ottoman Empire and the Origins of Neo-Hellenism
2026 Annual Stavros Niarchos Foundation Lecture by Anthony Kaldellis, the Gaylord Donnelly Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Classics and the College at the University of Chicago
Historians of Byzantium are learning not to dismiss the Roman identity claims of the people they study, the Romaioi. But what does acceptance mean for their descendants, the Romans of the Ottoman empire? Prominent schools of thought want them to be Hellenes by another name, or Orthodox people regardless of ethnicity, which are contradictory views. In this talk, a leading historian of the east Roman empire looks at its successor and tries to make sense of its Romans, or Romioi. What did this name mean to them, now that the Ottoman “millet” system has been shown to be a later myth? How and why did some of these Romans take on a Hellenic identity, especially in the eighteenth century? These questions point to a new model for the emergence of modern Greek national narratives.
Bio: Anthony Kaldellis is the Gaylord Donnelly Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Classics and the College at the University of Chicago. He has published many books and articles on the history, culture, and literature of Byzantium, ranging from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries. These include a new, comprehensive history of the eastern Roman empire: "The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium" (Oxford, 2023). Most recently he has published a new history of the fall of Constantinple in 1453 and a study of western perceptions of Byzantium from late antiquity to World War II ("Phantom Byzantium"). He has translated many medieval Greek authors, expecially historians such as Prokopios, Attaleiates, and Laonikos Chalkokondyles, and is also the host of the academic podcast “Byzantium & Friends,” still going strong since 2019.
The activities of the Hellenic Studies Program are generously funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Center for Hellenic Studies at Yale University
