Byzantine history is one of the most fascinating topics that one could write about. There is a great narrative of a pagan empire transforming into a Christian one and all the chaos resulting from that. It is an engaging and beautiful journey to read about. However, there are some drawbacks to it. First of all, Byzantine history does not have much in the way of video presence on the internet. Most of the video material that is available is not very interesting to the unwashed masses. Generally, it involves lots of maps and graphs and while that may be interesting to a person like me, alot of people are just not interested in something like this without it being a visual feast that showcases the latest graphics. This is one of the conundrums of being a someone who is interested in Byzantine history.
The Byzantine history that we talk about is generally found in books and scholarly podcasts. It is all very obscure and not avaliable to the ordinary person. For me in particular, my task is pretty difficult when it comes to actually writing about Byzantine history. How much of Byzantine history can we write about really? It’s not like we have video footage of the Battle of Kleidon and see the Byzantine army using knifes to blind thousands of Bulgarian soldiers.
That’s the great challenge of trying to talk about Byzantine history. We simply do not have the materials available to get the public interested in the topic. So Byzantine history remains the realm of 19th century standards, where history is entirely in books and literary pursuits. In some ways, I like this. As I stated before, I like that Byzantine history is mysterious and obscure. It makes it feel like we are researchers of something that is out of reach of the ordinary public. However, history is often strongest when it is public and accessible to those who might not otherwise be interested in it.
How do we reach the public? It is not easy, considering that the Byzantine Empire is one of the most obscure concepts out there when it comes to Roman history. People think that the Roman Empire fell in 476 AD and that’s it. Of course, we medievalists and amateur historians know that is not the whole story.
That’s why Byzantine history is so interesting and intriguing, with all the emperors and the passing of history. We get to see an empire evolve and change through the ages. To me, Roman history has always been fascinating with its long intervals of transitions from one emperor to the next. Byzantine history is even more fascinating with the transition from Paganism to Christianity. We get to see the Roman Empire survive many tribulations and thrive in a new environment. That is something that should be worth studying and passing on that information to others.
So how does one write about it? I think what’s important is the ability to speak to the ordinary audience. We need to be able to talk to audiences without alienating them. You need to write in a manner that is able to reach the right people. Academic writing is okay, but it needs to be composed in a way that appeals to the ordinary person. Trying to avoid using overly complicated language and creating a narrative around the history that creates a story.
Byzantine history can be impersonal at times. What we need to do as amateur historians and lovers of history is to get people to enjoy history as a story that makes people learn about their ancestors in a new light that provides new perspectives that they may not otherwise have learned from their textbooks.
Byzantine-Empire.com 