Talk:Byzantine Greeks#First sentence

Who calls Greek-speaking East Romans Byzantine Greeks?

Anthony Kaldellis is very explicit about this:

[https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674986510 Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (2019)] by Anthony Kaldellis

p. 12:

{{tq2|Naturally, the eastern Romans disliked being called Greeks. ...}}

pp 16-17:

{{tq2|Thus, as the west was moving away from the paradigm of the “Greek empire” and toward the ethnically vague notion of Byzantium, nationalist historiography in Greece ensconced the old ethnic model in its official view of the past. While there is skepticism about this model in Greece today, the empire’s official Hellenization in national discourse was possible only because western historiography had already stripped it of its Romanness. Some Greek national historians

still go through the same motions of dismissing the testimony of the sources and ridiculing the idea that Greek- speaking Orthodox people can “ really” be Romans. By stripping off that false label, they hope to expose the Greek underneath.43 These moves were pioneered by western medieval writers and are still with us. For different reasons, therefore, both western and national Greek historiography have an interest to engage in denialism.}}

p. 29:

{{tq2|With the exception of a tiny number of intellectuals in the later period, the Byzantines themselves did not think they were Greeks and resented the name, which was imposed on them by the Latins.}}

p. 271, Conclusion section:

{{tq2|The evidence is extensive and incontrovertible. What we call Byzantium was a Roman polity populated overwhelmingly by identifiable ethnic Romans and a number of ethnic minorities. “Roman” was not an elite court identity or a literary affect: it was a nationality that extended to most of the population regardless of its location, occupation, gender, and class (i.e., roughly to all who were Greek- speaking and Orthodox).}}

The 2022 [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429031373/routledge-handbook-identity-byzantium-david-parnell-michael-stewart-conor-whately The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium] is also clear on the view of most modern scholarship:

p. 10, intro chapter:

{{tq2|In most modern scholarship, provincial labels (Macedonian, Paphlagonian, Cappadocian, etc.) are seen to have functioned as ethnicities in Byzantium. In Chapter 14, however, Anthony Kaldellis maintains that they were not ethnicities, ...}}

Bogazicili (talk) 20:08, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

:With WP:CHERRY, one can make the case for almost anything. There are over 130 sources in the article. I suggest you familiarize yourself with them. It seems that you are opposed to the very existence of the article itself, but that is a non-starter. Khirurg (talk) 21:56, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

::{{u|Khirurg}} please provide page numbers and quotes from above sources if you think there is WP:Cherry. Otherwise, this might be considered WP:Aspersions. Bogazicili (talk) 19:53, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Literally every sentence in the article is sourced. There is no WP:OR whatsoever. There is even a section on regional identities, and one on revival of Hellenic identity. Again, all sourced. Making unfounded accusations is disruptive. Khirurg (talk) 21:13, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

::::{{u|Khirurg}}, Did you not claim I cherrypicked from above sources? Please provide proof that I misrepresented above sources: [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674986510 Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (2019)] and [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429031373/routledge-handbook-identity-byzantium-david-parnell-michael-stewart-conor-whately The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium] Bogazicili (talk) 23:19, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::I did not accuse you of misrepresenting the above sources, WP:CHERRY refers to something different. Such as, ignoring the vast number of sources used in this article, as well as the many sources that refer to "Byzantine Greeks" [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22byzantine+greeks%22&sca_esv=c01db97a3680db60&udm=36&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:2000,cd_max:2099&sxsrf=AHTn8zr6zaMW07oslpMO9RRqoJFHiOBWWw:1741231449481&source=lnt&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYmJLQwPSLAxW7j4kEHcOSDgAQpwV6BAgCECk&biw=1792&bih=906&dpr=2.14]. On the other hand, tagging a WP:GA as having a WP:OR, problem, that is not a good thing. Khirurg (talk) 03:28, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::You accused me about not being balanced about the subject, whereas I have a quote from The 2022 The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium about how most modern scholarship sees the issue.

::::::As for GA, the article will probably need GAR. Bogazicili (talk) 13:10, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

:You might have a point @Bogazicili. The scholarship I come across refers to them as Byzantine Romans. The actual term of the people this article is writing about is the Greek word for Roman. Rhomaioi. I rarely see now Greek attached to the Byzantine identity unless it’s in reference to the language. @Khirurg you are correct this is taking the view only of Anthony Kaldellis, and slightly confuses issues, but this is also supported by Ioannis Stouraitis. I’d support an article title name change. Biz (talk) 17:22, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

::To be honest, I'm not particulalry sure about that. This article is mostly about the medieval Greeks as a people, who for the most part inhabited within the Byzantine Empire, and not so much about the emperial identity itself and everything that this entails, which, if the 'identity' section of this article is not enough, could have its own focus and scholarly analysis somewhere separetly. Piccco (talk) 17:48, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

:::For example, I noticed that User:Itisme3248 recently created the Draft:Byzantine Roman identity which I believe discusses exactly that topic. Initially, I thought that it would probably be merged into somehwere else, but if there is actually enough material to expand upon, it can form its own article. It would however require more work, because it is currently based on a single source. Piccco (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

:This article is clearly not about all Eastern Roman subjects in general, for which topic there is a separate article (population of the Byzantine Empire), but specifically for the medieval Greek-speaking people, as mentioned in the first line; the same way there is, for example, an article for the Armenians in the Byzantine Empire and for the Byzantine Jewry.

:The identification of medieval Greek-speakers as Romaioi (Romans) is unambiguously mentioned in the article, like in the introduction or the 'terminology' section. The topic of their identity is further analyzed in the respective section. Additionally, even if the average people did not call themselves Greeks, this is how they were mostly called by Slavic-, Romance-, and Germanic-language speakers in the middle ages. After all, if we were to go by medieval self-perception alone, most medieval people tended to identify with smaller communities and did not really have a fixed idea of their own nation, the same way their modern descendents do anyway. In any case, medieval Greek people are still referred to as just 'Greek' in many instances in modern scholarship. Piccco (talk) 17:36, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

::Ok thank you. This is a complex topic and I appreciate efforts to create some light on this topic. My comment was with regards to what I see in the sources of late. Turns out this has been extensively debated in Talk before, and Kaldellis and Stouraitis were used in those debates which may have shaped my perception with an undue influence.

::My view is I agree this article should only be of the people who were citizens of the Byzantine Empire that spoke Greek and were Chalcedonian-Orthodox Christian, but I also associate the name for these people as Ῥωμαῖοι (Romaioi), and which is a subset of Roman people and that Roman people incorporates citizens of the Byzantine Empire who were Jewish, Armenian, and other identities that spoke different languages and followed a different creed (and hence not Byzantine Greeks or Ῥωμαῖοι). We have Byzantines disambiguating to this page as the ruling class that dominated and to population of the Byzantine Empire which allows us to cover everyone else (even though the article needs more work and people of the Byzantine Empire would be more appropriate).

::I don't have confidence in either Byzantine Greek or Ῥωμαῖοι is the consensus of what to call these people, based on the recent scholarship, but not something I'm concerned about. The article covers this anyway so there is no big problem. Biz (talk) 20:24, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Just FYI, this is some of the terminology in [https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/29470 The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies]

:::* p. 271: {{tq2|... and ethnic tension between Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians and subject populations: Slavs in Bulgaria, ...}}

:::* p.291: {{tq2|A majority of the Greek-speaking, Orthodox population lived under foreign occupation, whether Venetian, Genoese, Serbian, or, increasingly, Ottoman.}}

:::"Byzantine Greek" seems to be used in a language sense, p. 652 {{tq|Yet there was no specific word for 'family' in Byzantine Greek. It is indicative ...}}, p. 909 {{tq|Byzantine Greek also absorbed many words from other languages, such as Slavic (laisa), Arabic ...}} Bogazicili (talk) 23:36, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Great! So with p271 and p291 we can confirm we are talking about Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox Christians as a functional definition and not anyone else. Known as Ῥωμαῖοι in Greek, but in English, convention is not clear still.

::::Based off this, that's a neutral phrase that we can use for our ongoing discussion on Byzantine Empire but for this article, not helpful other than clarifying the specific people and not a reason to change this article's name. Biz (talk) 00:10, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Given my OR tag for the entire article was reverted, lets start with the first sentence.

{{tq|The Byzantine Greeks were the Greek-speaking Eastern Romans throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.[1]}}

There are three sources:

• [https://doi.org/10.1515%2Fbz-2014-0009 Stouraitis 2014 pp. 176, 177]

:{{tq2|The premise that “Byzantium around the year 1000 had become a medieval Greek Empire”⁵ has been refuted with the plausible argument that the Byzantine élite did not identify itself as Greek, whereas Arabs, Armenians, Bulgars, Slavs and other ethno-cultural collectivities resided within the borders of the Empire in this period, the members of which were regarded as Roman subjects.⁶ This plausible thesis has been complemented by a comprehensive statement on the self-identification of the Byzantines, according to which “the average Byzantine understood him/herself beyond any doubt as Roman, their language and literature was Roman (i. e. Greek), their cultural and religious centre was also beyond doubt New Rome, namely Constantinople”.⁷
This preponderant view on Byzantine society as a multi-ethnic society in which Roman self-identification was, nevertheless, predominant, raises some questions.}}

• [https://www.medievalworlds.net/0xc1aa5576%200x00369e4b.pdf Stouraitis 2017 p. 70]

:{{tq2|Departing from an established consensus in the field, which does not question the self-designation of the so-called Byzantines as Rhomaioi (Romans), almost all of these recent publications focus on the development of the form and content of Byzantine Romanness. Here, two basic approaches can be discerned: the first points to the configuration of a dominant Roman ethnicity within the framework of the medieval eastern Roman imperial community– at the latest from the twelfth century onwards2; the second suggests that Romanness had already taken the form of a civic ...}}

• [https://books.google.com/books?id=iWs0Lh57NvwC Kaldellis 2007, p. 113]. This is what it actually says on p.113:

:{{tq2|Likewise, the Byzantines were Romans who happened to speak Greek and not Greeks who happened to call themselves Romans. ... Many Byzantine practices were inherited from Greek antiquity, but this does not entitle us to call them Greek when the Byzantines understood them as Roman.}}

How can the first sentence be justified based on these sources? Is there any reliable source that use Byzantine Greeks in a sentence? Bogazicili (talk) 17:25, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

:I suppose, removing the citations would be a way to avoid any direct wp:OR.

:As Biz noted yesterday, the focus of this article (medieval Greek-speaking Calchedonian-Orthodox Romaioi) has no unambiguous English-language conventional name. The name for the subjects of the Byzantine Empire, most of whom -but not all- would be Greek-speaking, is 'Byzantines'; a disambiguation page which links to both Byzantine Greeks and the other Byzantine people. 'Eastern Roman' is a less common synonym of Byzantine, although equally vague, as this is also a political identity, like the Roman people, per Biz's comment again. But even if, despite all that, we compare them, 'Byzantine Greeks' is still a wp:common name in the literature https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Byzantine+Greeks%2CEastern+Romans%2CRhomaioi&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 1. Several examples can appear in google books https://www.google.com/search?q=byzantine+greeks&sca_esv=d21e7987b22b15fd&rlz=1C1KNTJ_elGR981GR981&udm=36&ei=Y_XJZ-uaCrKpxc8PtouD4AI&start=10&sa=N&sstk=Af40H4X-F8F5Cd-vVvDUBwNuFPtu41reJjaUC74Pibjst3Ugny03zP9AHsydA9aJxDo4Wdtsl-Wr3S50jtgeTonHg7zVkbhbTY9aIA&ved=2ahUKEwir2MGklvaLAxWyVPEDHbbFACwQ8tMDegQIARAE&biw=1366&bih=641&dpr=1 2

:Besides that, medieval Greek-speakers as a people are also called simply 'Greeks'; I've encountered several instances of both in Byzantine-history books, for example, in the works of J.Norwich, Fine Jr, D.Nicol, W.Treadgold, [https://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/dimiter-angelov D.Angelov] etc. a random example from J.Harris https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/5qXWP0qsAWMC?hl=el&gbpv=0 3 {{tq|Outside the cities, Byzantine Greeks and Turks were neighbours...}}, or elsewhere {{tq|although a considerable number of Greeks and Jews also lived in the town.}} (I don't bring more examples to save space, but I assume you believe me)

:I was recently reading Byzantine identity: territory and language p.14, where it says {{tq|The Greek citizens of the Roman Empire always felt at home as subjects of the Roman state, either in Italy or in Crimea [...] Byzantine (i.e. Roman) Greeks felt somehow like [...] a nation or a people without a territory.}} or in [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Innovation_in_Byzantine_Medicine/usXLDwAAQBAJ?hl=el&gbpv=0 another book] p.161 {{tq|The distinction between Greeks (Hellenes) or Byzantine Greeks (Rhomaioi) and those living outside the Empire, i.e. 'barbarians' (barbaroi) was common-place...}}

:A title in style of {{tq|x in the Byzantine Empire}} (like for the Armenians) might not be necessary either, per wp:concise, especially since the article name is not an originally-coined term in Wikipeida but it is in fact, besides language, used to refer to people as well. Piccco (talk) 21:21, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

::So you agree that even the first sentence is WP:OR as the sources don't support.

::The first sentence needs to be able to be sourced.

::Being Verifiable with no original research is Wikipedia:Good article criteria Bogazicili (talk) 12:59, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I removed these citation to avoid any concerns. Although I haven't looked much, I don't know if there is a direct dictionary-like definition for this group, but I've read the following;

:::In the Identities and Allegiances in the Eastern Mediterranean..., chapter The Oriental Margins of the Byzantine World, p.180 {{tq| The concept of Rum/Ρωμαίος, that is, a Greek-speaking Orthodox Roman, did not coincide with political allegiance at that time. The Ρωμαίοι, Romans, might live both inside the empire and outside it. Factually, the notion of Ρωμαίος denoted mainly ethnic (Greek), confessional (Orthodox) and cultural (Byzantine) affiliation.}} and in p.181 {{tq|Political affiliation, on the part of Rum/Ρωμαίος, was secondary and incidental, in contrast to the (...) characteristic of belonging by birth to the Greek-speaking Orthodox Roman nation.}} So the author clearly identifies Romaioi as Greek-speaking/Orthodox/(Eastern) Romans, whom otherwise in the same work calls simply {{tq|Greeks}}.

:::Alternatively, in the Greeks and their Heritages, p.80, where "Byzantine Greeks" is used extensively and in the chapter titles, {{tq|The Greeks' captivation of their Roman conquerors was complete when they took to calling themselves Romans (Rhomaioi) instead of Hellenes (...) In Byzantine Greek parlance, 'Rhomaioi' came to mean, not Latin-speaking Romans, but Greeks who were Eastern Orthodox Christians, in contrast to outsiders extinct or extant. The extinct outsiders were the Hellenes; the extant ... were the inextinguishable barbarians beyond the East Roman Empire's frontiers, and, in Byzantine Greek eyes, these...}}. I'm using this mostly because it defines "Byzantine Greeks" (sic) as Greek-speaking, Orthodox, Romaioi or Eastern Romans. Piccco (talk) 22:07, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

::::The first sentence needs to be verifiable and neutral, per WP:V and WP:NPOV.

::::I have already provided sources above that conflict the current first sentence, and you removed those sources.

::::I would suggest changing the wording to something like:

::::"The Byzantine Greeks or Greek-speaking Eastern Romans are some of the terms scholars use to refer to the Greek-speaking Orthodox population in Byzantine Empire" Bogazicili (talk) 13:18, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

The three schools of thought seem to be given equal weight. However, The 2022 [https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429031373/routledge-handbook-identity-byzantium-david-parnell-michael-stewart-conor-whately The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium] is clear on the view of most modern scholarship:

p. 10, intro chapter:

{{tq2|In most modern scholarship, provincial labels (Macedonian, Paphlagonian, Cappadocian, etc.) are seen to have functioned as ethnicities in Byzantium. In Chapter 14, however, Anthony Kaldellis maintains that they were not ethnicities, ...}}

I am adding a NPOV tag in that section.

The first point says {{tq|though they knew that they were ethnically Greeks}}. This seems to be the Greek nationalist explanation, per the quote by Anthony Kaldellis above.

Majority of Greek-speakers did not have Greek ancestry:

[https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/concise-history-of-byzantium-9781352009873/ A Concise History of Byzantium] p. 80:

{{tq2|The central part consisted of Greece, Thrace, and Anatolia, which later were to form the whole of the Byzantine Empire and were already becoming its core. Almost all the inhabitants of this region came to speak Greek by the end of the sixth century, though fewer than half of their ancestors had been Greeks. The only significant linguistic minorities to remain were Armenians in the far eastern sector, Latin speakers in the north, and some Illyrians (Albanians) in the west who had escaped Hellenization and Latinization by being isolated in the mountains between the two linguistic zones.}} Bogazicili (talk) 13:18, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

:The article is strictly about the Greek people during the entire Byzantine period. It is not about the inhabitants of the Byzantine empire as a whole, or specifically for the sixth century. The regional aspect is mentioned in the "Regional Identity" section: {{tq|Often one's local (geographic) identity could outweigh one's identity as a Rhōmaios.}} There is absolutely no valid reason to add a POV tag. Khirurg (talk) 14:43, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

::Regarding the "ethnically Greek", this is directly quoted from the source, and it is unambiguously mentioned within the context of the view that developed under the influence of modern nationalisms. Regarding the provincial identifications, I believe it wouldn't be bad if a little more content was added in the "regional identity" section. Piccco (talk) 15:30, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I'm not challenging the source. I'm just saying it might be a minority viewpoint given the quote in 2022 The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium.

:::The sources in the citation are dated, from 2001, 2003, and 2012.

:::Actually it says "Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum 2003", but the google books link is from 1935: [https://books.google.com/books?id=LeYkAQAAIAAJ]

:::This quote {{tq|p. 482: "As heirs to the Greeks and Romans of old, the Byzantines thought of themselves as Rhomaioi, or Romans, though they knew full well that they were ethnically Greeks."}} seems to be from a 1935 book. Bogazicili (talk) 17:05, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

::::If that's the problem, it's not hard to find other sources. Routledge history of Byzantium, page 2: {{tq|As we will observe in Leonora Neville's, Michael Stewart's, and Sviatoslav Dmitrev's contήbutions, many Byzantines saw themselves as the proud heirs and continuers of a Hellenic intellectual and cultural tradition. Moreover, in the modern Greek nation-state, what is interpreted as the Byzantines's essentially Greek identity, which serves as a vital waystation to Greece's classical past, has and continues to play a crtical part in Greek self-identification.}} and again page 323 {{tq|Cosmography ensured that Byzantine orthodox Chήstians recognised their place within the created world and, in some cases, were comfortable with some of their Hellenic roots.}}. Now, unless there is anything else, I don't see a reason for a POV tag and it will be removed. Khirurg (talk) 18:26, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::See WP:NPOV. The whole section needs to re-written. Rephrasing and adding "many Byzantines saw themselves..." part and citing that source is fine, but it doesn't fix the problem. Bogazicili (talk) 13:02, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Okay, I also added a paragraph on the regional identities. Piccco (talk) 18:38, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::We need to give due weight to each viewpoint. There are 3 viewpoints mentioned in Byzantine_Greeks#Self-perception.

:::::None of these are correct. The closest is the 2nd one, but even that seems incomplete and inaccurate. Bogazicili (talk) 13:48, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::No viewpoint is "correct", and that's not how wikipedia works. Each viewpoint should be given due weight, and I furthermore see no evidence that Viewpoint 1 is given undue weight. Can you please point to concrete examples of text in the article that suggests that viewpoint 1 is given undue weight? And please don't just keep citing that single citation to page 10 of the Routledge Handbook, or repeating that "majority of Greek speakers did not have Greek ethnicity" in the sixth century AD. If you claim a particular viewpoint is given undue weight in the article, it is on you to provide concrete evidence of that. Khirurg (talk) 16:29, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::The concrete proof is in above quotes, per 2022 The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium: {{tq|In most modern scholarship, provincial labels (Macedonian, Paphlagonian, Cappadocian, etc.) are seen to have functioned as ethnicities in Byzantium}}. If these were ethnicities, how can there be a Greek ethnicity?

:::::::In Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (2019) by Anthony Kaldellis pp 16-17, it also says Greek ethnicity in Byzantium is mainly the viewpoint of Greek nationalist sources. See above quote.

:::::::Kaldellis explicitly says there was no Greek ethnic consciousness in Byzantine times:

:::::::[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hellenism-in-byzantium/B77476C811D5878B52EF88FD88A1CB19 Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition] pp 13-14:

:::::::{{tq2|The fact that Hellenic identity was in fact reconstituted in modern times – roughly two centuries ago, and very successfully at that – complicates inquiries into its historical evolution. Interest in the history of Hellenism among historians today is usually inspired by a fascination with classical culture or a concern with the national identity of modern Greece, which is usually a personal concern. As it happens, however, only in those two relatively brief periods – namely before the international diffusion of Greek culture in the fourth century BC and then after the foundation of the modern Greek state in the 1830s – do we find what may be called a national Greek consciousness, namely the belief that being Greek entails sharing a common language, religion, way of life, and ethnic descent. ...}}

:::::::Bogazicili (talk) 13:51, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::The categorization itself, and most of the text, is derived from Stouraitis (2014). I don't think that, by the way we are presenting them, we imply that each one of them is supposed to be entirely correct, although the 2nd is indeed explicitly mentioned as the "preponderant". I reworked the first based on the quote you both seemed to agree above and removed the old source entirely. Generally, I believe that each bullet should have no more than just a few lines of text. Piccco (talk) 18:28, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Stouraitis (2014) also says: {{tq|This preponderant view on Byzantine society as a multi-ethnic society in which Roman self-identification was, nevertheless, predominant,}}

:::::::Ignoring the majority view per Stouraitis (2014) is WP:OR. Ignoring other sources like The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium is against WP:NPOV.

:::::::The whole section needs to be re-written, starting with the majority view and then going into various theories. There can be in-text attribution, such as "According to Stouraitis ..." or "Kaldellis argues ..." as opposed to everything being in WP:VOICE. Bogazicili (talk) 13:23, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

{{od}}

{{Comment}} The so-called 1935 source is actually, after all, a 2003 source. Specifically, it is a 2003 review of the book Introducing Byzantine History: A Manual for Beginners (2001) by Alexios G. C. Savvides and Benjamin Hendrickx, written by Edward G. Farrugia, and published in the journal Orientalia Christiana Periodica 69 (2), under a section that deals with publications on history; the year 1935 pertains to the establishment of the journal. I have full access to the aforementioned 2001 book, and it gives more relevant details on pages 9 and 23–27; if anyone wants a copy, feel free to contact me. – Demetrios1993 (talk) 17:22, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

The article seems to fail the following GA criteria:

{{tq2|2. Verifiable with no original research
4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.}}

The reasons are mentioned in above talk sections. The article also passed GA review back in 2009. It's been a long time and I see many changes: [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Byzantine_Greeks&diff=1279260787&oldid=329237115]

Is there anyone willing to work on these issues, or should I request Wikipedia:Good article reassessment? Bogazicili (talk) 13:44, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

:You are raising valid concerns and this recent discussion is mostly proving the issues are being worked on. It would be more productive to give feedback to guide a quality improvement. Raising a reassessment is what we do when the original editors and community around an article has disappeared or is dysfunctional, not as a threat which along with tagging can be seen as an example of dysfunctional talk behaviour. I see it alive and healthy right now so let’s continue these discussions to their natural end before requesting reassessment. We should keep the tags until they are met to your satisfaction of being addressed. Biz (talk) 15:01, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

::I agree with that. Piccco (talk) 18:29, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Likewise. There is no original research, practically every single sentence is sourced. As for due weight, no concrete example of undue weight have been provided. Khirurg (talk) 20:05, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Even the first sentence had WP:OR, Piccco removed the sources. See above discussion. Bogazicili (talk) 13:52, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

{{od}} {{u|Biz}}, Good article reassessment was not supposed to be a threat, but was supposed to be a notification to give time to editors to work on the issues. I'm currently tagging, since I'm new to the article and didn't feel comfortable enough making changes in the text. I can be more directly involved though. Bogazicili (talk) 13:53, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

:@Bogazicili For reasons of neutrality, and my read of the scholarship about Byzantine ethnicity this last decade, I now agree with you that the name “Byzantine Greeks” is problematic and we should not be using what the majority of sources say. The Greek conventional name for these people is Ῥωμαῖοι which is Roman and so to distinguish them from other Romans, the Greek convention is romanized as Rhōmaîoi and we should use a variant most similar to that.

:Aside from the name, sentences which imply any ethnicity are problematic for NPOV as well and the more neutral term of identities is required. That said, the topic of Ῥωμαῖοι ethnicity is a debated topic that deserves coverage in this article. I am happy to contribute as part of removing this NPOV tag you put on the article and now that I am across the scholarship once we resolve this issue in Byzantine Empire. Biz (talk) 15:49, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

::As seen in Talk:Byzantine_Greeks#First_sentence, the first sentence contained WP:OR and {{u|Piccco}} removed the sources.

::Now looking at another sentence in the lead: {{tq|It increasingly transformed into an ethnic identity, marked by Greek language and Orthodoxy, shaping modern Greek identity.}}

::One of the sources is Kaldellis 2007, pp. 42–43. But Kaldellis 2007 makes the opposite argument that there was no "national Greek consciousness" during Byzantine times (see the quote below, pp 13-14).

::Even in Kaldellis 2007, pp. 42–43:

::{{tq2|And yet this most indisputable and central fact, that the Byzantines firmly believed themselves to be Romans, has not received in scholarship the attention and emphasis that it deserves. That is because both Greek and western European scholars have had an interest in downplaying it, the former, as we will see at the end of this chapter, because they desire to find a core of national ‘‘Greekness’’ behind what they take to be only a Roman facade, ...}}

::This is yet another example of WP:OR. Every time I check a source there seems to be Text–source integrity issues.

::This is another reason why I believe the article needs Good article reassessment. The entire article needs a through check for text–source integrity. Bogazicili (talk) 18:56, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Oh, that sentence wasn't supposed to be about the Byzantine times, but the Ottoman times; maybe it wasn't accurately phrased. I wrote "'After' the fall of the empire," to make it clearer what the following part refers to. Piccco (talk) 16:01, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

There seems to be lots of dated sources in the article, such as:

• Angold 1975
• Earl 1968
• Meyendorff 1982
• Kazhdan & Constable 1982
• Runciman 1985
• Browning 1989
• Ostrogorsky 1969
• Vryonis 1971

As I explained in Talk:Byzantine_Greeks#Outdated_or_Greek_nationalist_POV_in_the_article, the age of some of these sources could be a neutrality issue. I'll be tagging some of the sentences with these sources Bogazicili (talk) 15:17, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

This sentence is an example of the neutrality problems of the article:

{{tq|At first, the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character, but following the loss of the non-Greek speaking provinces with the 7th century Muslim conquests it came to be dominated by the Byzantine Greeks, who inhabited the heartland of the later empire: modern Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, and Sicily, and portions of southern Bulgaria, Crimea, and Albania.[citation needed]}}

While they were Greek speakers, following cultural Hellenization, the ethnic background of these people are debated. See above talk page sections.

Hellenization was also in the first sentence of the GA promotion version of the article, [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Byzantine_Greeks&oldid=329237115 2 December 2009]: {{tq2|Byzantine Greeks or Byzantines (Template:Lang-el) is a conventional term used by modern historians to refer to the medieval Greek or Hellenised citizens of the Byzantine Empire}}

Hellenization seems to have been completely removed from the article.

It's in overview sources about Byzantine Empire:

[https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/concise-history-of-byzantium-9781352009873/ A Concise History of Byzantium], p.37

{{tq2|The rest of the Prefecture of Illyricum, the Diocese of Macedonia, was the old Greek homeland. Its glorious past notwithstanding, the prolonged effort of colonizing and Hellenizing the whole eastern Mediterranean basin had left Greece depopulated, and recent barbarian raids had not helped. Yet neither of these dioceses was much worse off in the mid-fifth century

than it had been in the mid-third. Both remained joined to the Western Empire under the ecclesiastical authority of the Pope, and Dacia was still partly Latin-speaking.
Within the huge Prefecture of the East, the Diocese of Thrace and the dioceses of Asiana and Pontica in Anatolia made up the core of the new Byzantine Empire. They formed the empire’s geographical and political center and the natural hinterlands of its new capital of Constantinople, which as it grew in population and wealth was already becoming the hub of the empire’s trade routes. With the decline of the native Thracian and Anatolian languages and the spread of Greek, Anatolia and Thrace had also become the real center of the Greek world, richer and more populous than Greece itself and linked to the Hellenized coastlands of Syria and Egypt. All three dioceses fell under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople.}}

It's also in a source, that can be considered an overview source for this article [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hellenism-in-byzantium/B77476C811D5878B52EF88FD88A1CB19 Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition] p.84:

{{tq2|The process was well underway in late antiquity. As provincials became Romans, regional, tribal, and ethnic identities gradually disappeared from the record or were converted into purely geographic labels. Looking at the regions that would later form the core of the Byzantine empire, we see that neither their languages nor regional identities survived the Hellenization of their cultures and the Romanization of their societies.}}

Even the first sentence of the article is not neutral, see Talk:Byzantine_Greeks#First_sentence. I think the lead needs a significant re-write. Hellenization and Romanization needs be added. Instead of saying "Byzantine Greeks", parts of the lead should say "Greek-speaking citizens" or something like that.

I can make a concrete suggestion later. For now, I'm adding a general NPOV tag into the article. Please do not remove it. If you think it's redundant, we can also proceed to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard Bogazicili (talk) 14:09, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

:The overall POV I'm seeing in the article is trying to present a Greek-ethnicity in places like modern-day Turkey during Byzantine times. This is not backed by majority of the sources above. Some of the specifically say:

:[https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674986510 Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (2019)] by Anthony Kaldellis pp 16-17:

:{{tq2|Thus, as the west was moving away from the paradigm of the “Greek empire” and toward the ethnically vague notion of Byzantium, nationalist historiography in Greece ensconced the old ethnic model in its official view of the past. While there is skepticism about this model in Greece today, the empire’s official Hellenization in national discourse was possible only because western historiography had already stripped it of its Romanness. Some Greek national historians still go through the same motions of dismissing the testimony of the sources and ridiculing the idea that Greek- speaking Orthodox people can “ really” be Romans. By stripping off that false label, they hope to expose the Greek underneath.43 These moves were pioneered by western medieval writers and are still with us. For different reasons, therefore, both western and national Greek historiography have an interest to engage in denialism.}}

:[https://books.google.com/books?id=iWs0Lh57NvwC Kaldellis 2007, p. 113]:

:{{tq2|Likewise, the Byzantines were Romans who happened to speak Greek and not Greeks who happened to call themselves Romans. ... Many Byzantine practices were inherited from Greek antiquity, but this does not entitle us to call them Greek when the Byzantines understood them as Roman.}}

:[https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/concise-history-of-byzantium-9781352009873/ A Concise History of Byzantium] p. 80:

:{{tq2|The central part consisted of Greece, Thrace, and Anatolia, which later were to form the whole of the Byzantine Empire and were already becoming its core. Almost all the inhabitants of this region came to speak Greek by the end of the sixth century, though fewer than half of their ancestors had been Greeks. The only significant linguistic minorities to remain were Armenians in the far eastern sector, Latin speakers in the north, and some Illyrians (Albanians) in the west who had escaped Hellenization and Latinization by being isolated in the mountains between the two linguistic zones.}}

:[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hellenism-in-byzantium/B77476C811D5878B52EF88FD88A1CB19 Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition] pp 13-14:

:{{tq2|The fact that Hellenic identity was in fact reconstituted in modern times – roughly two centuries ago, and very successfully at that – complicates inquiries into its historical evolution. Interest in the history of Hellenism among historians today is usually inspired by a fascination with classical culture or a concern with the national identity of modern Greece, which is usually a personal concern. As it happens, however, only in those two relatively brief periods – namely before the international diffusion of Greek culture in the fourth century BC and then after the foundation of the modern Greek state in the 1830s – do we find what may be called a national Greek consciousness, namely the belief that being Greek entails sharing a common language, religion, way of life, and ethnic descent. ...}} Bogazicili (talk) 14:27, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

::So is your primary concern that the article implies that all Greek speakers were of Greek ancestry? Or do you object to the very term "Byzantine Greeks" itself. You state that {{tq|Hellenization and Romanization needs be added.}}, but this is already explicitly mentioned in the article, in the second paragraph of the lede in fact: {{tq|while Anatolia had also been hellenized by early Byzantine times.}}. I don't see how anyone reading this article can come under the impression that all medieval Greek-speakers were of Greek ancestry. I don't think anyone objects to mentioning Hellenization, and more can be added in that regard, but there is also the question of why ancestry is so important. Even if most Byzantine Greeks had been Hellenized in past centuries, why does it matter so much? After several centuries of Hellenization, does the population's distant ancestry matter all that much, if their culture was Hellenic? Khirurg (talk) 02:46, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

:::To be honest, parts like the first sentence that Bogazicili mentioned above can easily be more appropriately worded, that's why I mentioned that the population became "overwelmingly Greek-speaking," instead of "came to be dominated by..." I equally don't mind mentioning the hellenization of Anatolia in the lead (that was added by me yesterday), and I explicitly removed mentions of the words "ethnic/-ity", including from the section of "self-perception", the latter of which can be further reworded, especially if there is a proposed vision of how that section could be structured. Piccco (talk) 16:11, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Thanks Piccco. Those are big improvements. I'll make a suggestion for the first paragraph when I have time.

::::Sentences like this are very problematic:

::::{{tq|Throughout their history, the Byzantine Greeks self-identified as Romans (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, romanized: Rhōmaîoi).}}

::::Who's calling them "Byzantine Greeks"?

::::Scholars don't call them that. Some explicitly say we can't call them Greeks (quotes above). The population at the time didn't consider themselves Greek. This is very poor wording.

::::The POV here "Byzantine Greeks" is the correct identification but they "self-identified" as something else. That misrepresents the scholarship. Bogazicili (talk) 18:27, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::Regarding the first paragraph, I rewrote it simply as "they self-identified as"; I was actually going to make some trims there last time, but I didn't the last minute, having also seen your reply above:

:::::"{{tq| I would suggest changing the wording to something like: "The Byzantine Greeks or Greek-speaking Eastern Romans are some of the terms scholars use to refer to the Greek-speaking Orthodox population in Byzantine Empire}}"

:::::What if, instead of trying to define the group following an "the x is/were y" format, we open the paragraph immediately as: {{tq|Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians, conventionally called/referred to as Byzantine Greeks}} [give an example] {{tq|or Eastern Romans}} [give an example], {{tq|inhabited the lands of the Byzantine Empire during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were concentrated mainly at portions of Southern Balkans, Asia Minor, etc. [...] they self-identified as Romans.}} In this way, the 1st paragraph defines the group by its characteristics, gives two of the most [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Byzantine+Greeks%2CEastern+Romans%2CRhomaioi&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=false common names] and clarifies their conventional usage, and is unambiguous about their Roman self-identification.

:::::Now when it comes to the article wikivoice, as I believe I made clear, I don't care to overuse a certain name, that's why I myself reworded several instances using other descriptive ways to refer to that group. In any case, hopefully, some middle ground agreement will easily be reached, given that so far all raised concerns appear easily fixable. Piccco (talk) 17:20, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::What you said as "conventionally called/referred" is outdated per sources. Are you going to add that as well?

::::::This article shouldn't be called Byzantine Greeks to begin with. But academic correctness is not the only criteria per Wikipedia:Article titles.

::::::But the opening sentence should be neutral.

::::::I would suggest:

::::::{{tq|The Byzantine Greeks or Greek-speaking Eastern Romans are some of the terms scholars use to refer to the Greek-speaking Orthodox population in Byzantine Empire. These people self identified as Romans. Greek-speaking Orthodox was the dominant culture in Byzantine Empire}}

::::::Then I would add the part about Hellenization and list regions that were Greek-speaking, using A Concise History of Byzantium, p.37 and p. 80. And Horrocks 2010, pp. 207–298. Bogazicili (talk) 19:15, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::I could very much live with something like that too, yes.

:::::::Personally, before discussing with you, I imagined the 1st paragraph being a bit shorter, mostly for overview facts, with the other paragraphs maintaining more details (2nd par: language-related, 3rd: society, military, etc.)

:::::::However, I keep in mind that you may have envisioned the structure a little differently than me, so I remain open for your suggestions, and we'll see. Piccco (talk) 21:51, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::This does not conform with MOS:REFERS. Also, the entire Greek-speaking world in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages were citizens of the Byzantine empire, until the Crusades and the Frankokratia, which is relevant only for a few hundreds years. 'Identifying as Romans' is redundant, as is the mention of East Romans. Pick one.

:::::::I propose the following first sentence: The Byzantine Greeks (Greek: Ῥωμαῖοι, romanized: Rhōmaîoi) were the Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox Romans throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Biz (talk) 23:33, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

{{od}}

{{ping|Biz}} I agree with your proposal for the lead sentence. – Demetrios1993 (talk) 17:39, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

:I also agree with the above proposal. Khirurg (talk) 14:15, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

::@Bogazicili not withstanding the article name, a separate issue, do you agree on this as a first sentence? Biz (talk) 15:43, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

:::No, it is not WP:NPOV.

:::It's also a probably a WP:SYNTH. Romans are Byzantine Greeks now? You merged different schools of thought in a way the sources do not.

:::You yourself agreed above that {{tq|the name “Byzantine Greeks” is problematic and we should not be using what the majority of sources say}}.

:::The first sentence of the article should be neutral.

:::From your suggestion, a neutral first sentence could be something like:

:::The Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox, sometimes called Byzantine Greeks or Romans, represented the dominant culture in Byzantine Empire. Bogazicili (talk) 20:25, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Ok so we agree it's a Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox people. We have to include Byzantine Greeks as it's the article title. I don't believe we have a dispute they are the people of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages To distinguish the Romans elsewhere during this period, we could say Eastern Romans? This means for people that are not Eastern Romans, they are Byzantines. I'm proposing this due to Anthony Kaldellis's latest book The Case for East Roman Studies.

::::Also, "Sometimes called" looks weird, do you know if other GA articles format the sentence like that?

::::Here's an alternative proposal though not sure if this aligns with all conventions: A Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox people, also called the Byzantine Greeks, Greeks, or East Romans, throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Then in the subsequent sentence we can explain the relevance of the Byzantine Empire. Biz (talk) 21:54, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::MOS:LEADSENTENCE should introduce the topic. The topic here is as what you called "Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox people".

:::::Of course the article title is not that, since that would be too long. Wikipedia:Article titles have additional criteria other than academic correctness.

:::::Or is the topic here the term "Byzantine Greeks"? Then it would be a different article going over the evolution and usage of that term.

:::::The reason I suggested "sometimes" is because of what Kaldellis says above about Western scholarship: {{tq|Thus, as the west was moving away from the paradigm of the “Greek empire” and toward the ethnically vague notion of Byzantium,...}}

:::::And as you noticed in The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, it says things like {{tq|and ethnic tension between Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians and subject populations}}. I think they intentionally left it vague. They do not say "and ethnic tension between Byzantine Greeks and subject populations"

:::::You said "people" but others might consider them "peoples", if you go to the sources here and in Byzantine Empire talk page.

:::::By the way, your suggestion is not a full sentence. Bogazicili (talk) 22:11, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::Biz's new suggestion also seems interesting, as it appears to list several commonly used names, and introduces them using "called ", without directly defining the group like "The Byzantine Greeks are...". I understand that the introduction should indeed form a sentence, so if something along the lines of Biz's proposal became a sentence with a few tweaks, like if we avoided to say "a people", would it be considered? For example, {{tq|Greek-speaking (Chalcedonian-)Orthodox Christians, variously called Byzantine Greeks, Greeks, or Eastern Romans, inhabited the lands of the Byzantine Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.}}

::::::I know that this group was not strictly confined within the empire's borders, and were still considered Rhomaioi even when they happened to be outside of it, but I suggested the above wording for the sake of convenience.

::::::Btw, I added 'Chalcedonian' in a parenthesis only because, in this suggestion, we would have three words for religion in the 1st sentence (with 'Orthodox Christians' being the other 2), so perhaps the fact that Chalcedonian Orthodoxy was their dominant branch is a detail that could be mentioned in a following paragraph(?) However, if others think it is important there, I accept it. Piccco (talk) 23:11, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::@Bogazicili I understand your concern. Maybe we solve this by Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox Roman people? The intention here is to say Romans who spoke Greek, not Greeks who were Romans. Another way this solve this is to explicitly say people that are in the 7th-15th centuries. Also "people" is already plural in this context so no need to say peoples.

:::::::@Piccco The three words are a mouthful. I believe all the non-Chalcedonian Christians had their own language, so it's overkill, and you're right we can say Orthodox Christians as this differentiates the Roman people in the west, whereas the mention of Greek-speaking differentiates the Orthodox Christians to the east. This also means that in the cases of Armenian emperors, this can still apply as we keep it ambiguous.

:::::::Reflecting on the above comments, here is my new proposal with some additional sentences that could become the new lead. There's a lot being introduced here, so please reflect on it before we break this apart.

:::::::A Greek speaking Christian people, also called the Byzantine Greeks, medieval Greeks, or East Romans, that inhabited southern Europe and Western Asia throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were the main subjects and citizens of the east Roman state, also known as the Byzantine Empire, and which they called Romanía. They identified as Ῥωμαῖοι in Greek (romanized: Rhōmaîoi) or by Latin speakers as Romaei.

:::::::* Used just Christian as it's enough with the link

:::::::* added broad geography to cater to current lead and to match the broad periodisation

:::::::* distinguished usage of Greeks as medieval to not confuse it with other periods

:::::::* clarified they were the main subjects and citizens and making this the focus of the definition, even though in future people called themselves this when outside of the state

:::::::* Gave balanced treatment to all three main names of this state which helps make sense of the different names (building on the first sentence which also uses all names of these people)

:::::::* Ended with their self-identification since we did not include it in the first sentence with different variants per current lead

:::::::Biz (talk) 16:44, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::{{replyto|Biz}} We've been over and over and over this so many times already.

::::::::[https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429031373/routledge-handbook-identity-byzantium-david-parnell-michael-stewart-conor-whately 2022 The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium p.10], summarizing current scholarship

::::::::{{tq2|In most modern scholarship, provincial labels (Macedonian, Paphlagonian, Cappadocian, etc.) are seen to have functioned as ethnicities in Byzantium}}

::::::::That means it's not WP:NPOV to call them A people. Your suggestion is not even a complete sentence.

::::::::{{u|Piccco}}'s suggestion is actually neutral. Bogazicili (talk) 21:32, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::So you want the subject to be “the Greek-speaking Christians”? Implying a type of Christian? And to confirm your previous objections: you don’t want them called Romans, or a type of Roman, or a people, or a type of people, in the empire? Biz (talk) 22:22, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::What I want is a neutral first sentence that is a complete sentence. Subject and the article title are not the same thing.

::::::::::The problem here is there is no consensus term what to call them or if they were a singular people.

::::::::::Piccco's suggestion solves all these issues.

::::::::::In the rest of the article you can explain what they called themselves, who called them Roman, who called them Greek etc. You can explain Kaldellis Roman ethnicity theory etc.

::::::::::But the first sentence should be neutral. Bogazicili (talk) 22:28, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::If the issue is "Implying a type of Christian", just say something like:

:::::::::::"Greek-speaking Byzantines inhabited the lands of the Byzantine Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They have been called a variety of terms such as Byzantine Greeks, Greeks, or Romans."

:::::::::::I leave it up to you when to mention Orthodox. Bogazicili (talk) 22:43, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::: "Greek-speaking Orthodox-Christian" people we agree. We also agree they are citizens and subjects of the Byzantine empire. But this same definition needs to incorporate people in southern Italy and Sicily, the Crusader States, under Arab and Turkish Rule, the Despotate of Epirus, the Empire of Nicaea, and the Empire of Trebizond, and Venetian and Genoese Territories. "Byzantine Empire" doesn't cover all of those use cases and by definition, they are not "Byzantines" anymore. What other words will you support to cover those use cases? Biz (talk) 23:03, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::Looking at this again, @Bogazicili am I correct this is what you would support:

::::::::::::{{blue|The Greek-speaking Christians of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, variously known as Byzantine Greeks, medieval Greeks, or East Romans, who inhabited Southern Europe and Western Asia.}}

::::::::::::We can then follow with distinguishing Orthodox-Chalcedonian per @Piccco's suggestion (as that only applies progressively not the entire time). Followed by they were the main subjects and citizens of the empire, other polities and regions in the late era, and end with the self identification names in Greek and those used by Latin speakers. Biz (talk) 18:06, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

{{replyto|Biz}} regarding your earlier edit [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AByzantine_Greeks&diff=1281205376&oldid=1281200343], you said: {{tq|we both agree we need to ignore the sources now to resolve this}}

What do you mean? Was that a typo? I have never said we need to ignore the sources. Why and where did you think I supported this?

On the contrary, I'm saying we need to follow the sources.

I was actually not planning to spend so much time on this article, and I wanted the regulars on this article to take the lead. That's why I tried rephrasing your suggestions in a more neutral way.

Now that I am looking at more sources, I think we also need to change the article title.

I thought there was a Byzantines article, but there is only Population of the Byzantine Empire article.

Here are the sources (bolding is mine). Many sources such as Kaldellis explicitly reject calling Greek-speaking citizens Greek. But they do use the term Byzantines:

• [https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hellenism-in-byzantium/B77476C811D5878B52EF88FD88A1CB19 Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition]
• p. ix:{{tq2|This book offers them a study of how the Byzantines coped with many of the same problems that the modern Greeks would face (and still do), ...}}
• pp 13-14: {{tq2|The fact that Hellenic identity was in fact reconstituted in modern times – roughly two centuries ago, and very successfully at that – complicates inquiries into its historical evolution. Interest in the history of Hellenism among historians today is usually inspired by a fascination with classical culture or a concern with the national identity of modern Greece, which is usually a personal concern. As it happens, however, only in those two relatively brief periods – namely before the international diffusion of Greek culture in the fourth century BC and then after the foundation of the modern Greek state in the 1830s – do we find what may be called a national Greek consciousness, namely the belief that being Greek entails sharing a common language, religion, way of life, and ethnic descent. ...}}
• p. 113: {{tq2|Likewise, the Byzantines were Romans who happened to speak Greek and not Greeks who happened to call themselves Romans. ... Many Byzantine practices were inherited from Greek antiquity, but this does not entitle us to call them Greek when the Byzantines understood them as Roman.}}

• [https://doi.org/10.1515%2Fbz-2014-0009 Stouraitis 2014 pp. 176, 177]: {{tq2|The premise that “Byzantium around the year 1000 had become a medieval Greek Empire”⁵ has been refuted with the plausible argument that the Byzantine élite did not identify itself as Greek, whereas Arabs, Armenians, Bulgars, Slavs and other ethno-cultural collectivities resided within the borders of the Empire in this period, the members of which were regarded as Roman subjects.⁶ This plausible thesis has been complemented by a comprehensive statement on the self-identification of the Byzantines, according to which “the average Byzantine understood him/herself beyond any doubt as Roman, their language and literature was Roman (i. e. Greek), their cultural and religious centre was also beyond doubt New Rome, namely Constantinople”.⁷
  This preponderant view on Byzantine society as a multi-ethnic society in which Roman self-identification was, nevertheless, predominant, raises some questions.}}

• [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444320015 A Companion to Byzantium] [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444320015.ch6 Insiders and Outsiders chapter] p. 67: {{tq2|Who were the Byzantines? The Byzantines were people who lived in the eastern Mediterranean region, who spoke Greek, called themselves “ Romans, ” lived on top of pillars, stole other people ’ s relics, and poked people ’ s eyes out.}}

• As I explained before, [https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/29470 The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies] seems to use "Byzantine Greek" in a language sense [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AByzantine_Greeks&diff=1279008393&oldid=1279006512], but they use "Byzantines" to refer to the people. p. 643:{{tq2|In the late 1980s and 1990s, emphasis shifted to considering the ideologies surrounding women, what it meant to be a woman in Byzantium and what the Byzantines thought of women}}

{{u|Biz}}, I now think maybe we should change the article title from Byzantine Greeks to Byzantines, and write the first sentence after that? What do you think? I think Byzantines would comply with WP:Article title. And it is academically correct.

Or do you think the scope of this article should be restricted to Greek-speaking Byzantines only? If we change the title to Byzantines, the article scope might change too. Bogazicili (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

:From the beginning of the discussion, it was clarified what the scope of the article was; which is not merely all subjects of the Byzantine empire, for which there is, as noted, a separate article and a disambiguation page, the former of which could potentially be expanded, if someone is willing spend more time on it. (let's also not forget the separate articles for the Armenians and Jews in the empire)

:Generally, both "Byzantine" and even Rhomaios can have two meanings; one as an "ethno-cultural" identity (Greek-speaking Rhomaioi - this article's subject) and one as a merely "political identity" (all subjects under Byzantine rule); I'm quoting this dichotomy in the meaning of the term from Stouraitis. In many cases, indeed, people use "Byzantines" which is -perhaps intentionally- vague, as this can also refer to all Byzantine subjects as an emperial or political identity: for example in Treadgold, [https://books.google.com/books?id=nYbnr5XVbzUC&printsec=frontcover&hl=el&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false A History of the Byzantine State and Society] .804-805: {{tq|Byzantines and Greeks: Being a Roman (Rhomaios), as the Byzantines still called it, was mostly a matter of culture and religion [...] Byzantium had always had Slavic, Vlach, Albanian, or other subjects who spoke little or no Greek, but were Byzantines nontheless. If an Armenian, Italian, or Turk settled in the empire, joined the Byzantine church, and adapted to native ways, he passed for a Byzantine}}... This definition of a 'Byzantine' clearly corresponds to the article of the Population of the Byzantine Empire and even distinguishes between the subject of the latter article and this one.

:In any case, Bogazicili, thank you for saying that my suggestion was neutral; I personally thought Biz's yesterday's suggestion was also good, and I believe your concerns with it are easily fixable; essentially instead of "a people" we can say "population", or if not, we can follow my wording and say "Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians [...] inhabited...". I don't have a strong preference, whatever you both want. That seems to have been the whole issue. Besides that, I would make the locations a little more specific; instead of Southern Europe and West Asia (arguably, a bit too wide), I'd say "in parts of Southeast Europe and Asia Minor" (essentially, that was for the most part the core of the Byznatine Empire and the medieval Greek-speaking population).

:Finally, Bogazicili, to be honest, I also didnt want to spend so much time on this article either, and I personally expected this to be over by this week the latest. So, if we apply my suggested tweaks to Biz's yesterday's suggestion I believe we'd be fine for the first paragraph. Other than that, I would only keep that "medieval Europeans typically called them 'Greeks' in their languages", a contemporary exonym not only by Latin, but also by Slavic and Germanic speakers. Piccco (talk) 21:27, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

:It makes more sense to change Population of the Byzantine Empire, which is a stub, rather than modifying this article, which has already reached GA status. I would support renaming that article instead.

:The challenge with changing the title of this article to Greek-speaking Byzantines is that it lacks precision. Greek was the language of government and business, meaning that, as Piccco pointed out, Armenians and Jews—who were also Byzantines but distinct—spoke it as well. The same applies to other groups listed in Population of the Byzantine Empire. To accurately define the people discussed in this article, we need to go beyond language and incorporate religion as a distinguishing factor.

:Academic sources often describe them as Greek-speaking Orthodox subjects of the empire, as seen in the Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies and the current short description of the article: {{green|Greek-speaking Eastern Romans of Orthodox Christianity}}. However, while this is a precise definition, it is not a practical article title.

:Given these considerations:

:1. We cannot use Byzantines to describe this group, as we have already agreed that the term should reflect the total population.

:2, Byzantines is best suited as a disambiguation page which is what it currently is

:3. Byzantine Greeks is problematic because its usage has raised neutrality concerns, overriding source-based terminology in this specific case.

:So, what alternatives do we have? My preference is to use Byzantine as an adjective rather than a noun, like how the current article does. For instance, Byzantine Roman clearly periodises Roman, which aligns with its intended meaning and is precise about who we are talking about (people of the east Roman state that later kept it as an identifier once they were under the rule of Catholic or Islamic rulers). Modern Greeks no longer use the term Roman so it also helps your goal in these discussions which is detaching this history (and prospective ethnicity) from the modern nation and make it neutral. For what it's worth, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.15684189 Kaldellis proposes “East Romans”] in his latest book. I also agree with Piccco—it felt like we were close to a resolution, and now it seems like we are starting over. I appreciate a holistic approach, but perhaps we should focus on solidifying the progress we've made in this discussion before expanding the debate further. I've asked questions and you are not answering them directly. Perhaps you can take Piccco's or my versions and propose a new lead and matching article title as a next step? Biz (talk) 22:09, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

::I agree that a compromization is not far to be reached, and I think most concerns were actually not hard to fix. I would personally not favor a rename, however, because Byzantine Greeks, combined with the other names that prioritize the Greek part, including 'medieval...' and mainly 'Greek' alone, have been clearly prevalent in this context, and as Bogazicili said academic correctness is not the only criteria per Wikipedia:Article titles. This is also why I didn't actually raise any other objections throughout this process, but focused mostly on tweaking the suggestions to reach a faster compromise. Now, having said all that, I will give another suggestion on the basis of Biz's latest proposal, and with all that was discussed above so far in mind:

::{{tq|Greek speaking Orthodox Christians,* variously called Byzantine Greeks, [medieval] Greeks, or East Romans, inhabited Southeast Europe and Asia Minor throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They were the main subjects and citizens of the east Roman state, also known as the Byzantine Empire, which they called Romanía (Ρωμανία). They identified as Rhomaioi (Ῥωμαῖοι) in Greek; medieval Europeans typically called them Greeks in their languages, while in the Islamic world they were referred to as Rum.}}

:: *or Christian Orthodox population. I don't know if another subject should have a mention in the introductory paragraph; I included what seemed to be some very general overview facts. Piccco (talk) 00:49, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::I support this version, but three minor tweaks

:::* "Greek speaking Orthodox Christians" could apply to any period in history after the 6th century (ie, this could apply to the Ottoman Greeks and the modern Greeks. So its important to mention this with context to the period, which we currently have as "throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages".

:::* add "that" before inhabited Southeast Europe and Asia Minor

:::* Hyphenate Greek-speaking and Orthodox-Christians to make it clear what they relate to

:::Biz (talk) 04:29, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::Okay! The only concern for not adding "that" is because then the sentence "that inhabited..." becomes a subordinate clause and as such this text would be an incomplete independent sentence. Two options that fix this could be:

::::* {{tq|Greek-speaking Orthodox-Christians of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, variously called Byzantine Greeks, [medieval] Greeks, or East Romans, inhabited Southeast Europe and Asia Minor.}}

::::This one expands the definition of this article's subject by incorporating their 1) language, 2) religion, plus 3) time period, so as to distinguish, as noted, from other Greek-speaking Christians of other periods. or

::::* {{tq|Greek-speaking Orthodox-Christians that inhabited Southeast Europe and Asia Minor throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages are variously called Byzantine Greeks, [medieval] Greeks, or East Romans.}}

::::This one, although slightly close to breaching MOS:REFERS by using "they are called", is nevertheles a stand-alone sentence and could still work. Piccco (talk) 13:15, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::Perhaps we move the geography to another sentence. If we put the names up front it flows much better as well.

:::::* Byzantine Greeks, also known as medieval Greeks or East Romans, were Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians who lived throughout Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

:::::Biz (talk) 18:47, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::This is a POV sentence. Again, calling "Byzantines" Greeks or Byzantine Greeks seem to prioritize the Greek nationalistic POV, per Kaldellis above: {{tq|nationalist historiography in Greece ensconced the old ethnic model in its official view of the past}}

::::::The first sentence needs to be:

::::::* Sourced

::::::* Neutral

::::::* No Synth

::::::Those three are actually core policies of Wikipedia: WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR. Do you think your suggestion complies with those policies?

::::::The article title has the same POV too, and that's why it needs to be changed.

::::::As for the article scope, it already seems to be about Byzantine society as a whole. For example:

::::::* Byzantine_Greeks#Society section. The first source in this section is: [https://books.google.com/books?id=FJDRx6FAi0EC The Byzantines].

::::::* "Second, the view which could be regarded as preponderant in the field considers "Romanity" the mode of self-identification of the subjects of a multi-ethnic empire at least up to the 12th century, where the average subject identified as Roman"

::::::Bogazicili (talk) 19:27, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::Bogazicili, given that the previous sentences I had suggested appeared more neutral to you, I would be open for one of those; for the most part they were also in line with Biz's suggestion, and also complied to your concerns.

:::::::Regardig the other part, given that the main population of the Byzantine empire was predominantly Greek-speaking, it makes sense that the 'society' of this article would largely represent 'Byzantine society' as a whole. For example, the Armenians also have a section about their place in society. Regarding the self-perception section, which you brought up, more work can be done there too. The thing is now to finally agree on one first sentence/paragraph. Piccco (talk) 19:57, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::Byzantine empire was predominantly Greek-speaking, but it wasn't Greek according to multiple sources. Some sources might be saying that it is Greek, but modern academic consensus seems to be against it, per quotes above. Do you contest this?

::::::::And quality sources are using "Byzantines". In addition to quotes above:

::::::::* [https://books.google.com/books?id=59c6PSa5JCAC The Byzantines], John Wiley & Sons

::::::::* [https://books.google.com/books?id=FJDRx6FAi0EC The Byzantines], University of Chicago Pres

::::::::* [https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/publication/430716/manual Byzantines, Latins, and Turks in the Eastern Mediterranean World After 1150]

::::::::Is there even any high quality source titled "Byzantine Greeks", such as books from academic presses?

::::::::As for the scope, it might make sense to you, but using sources about Byzantine society as whole and portraying them as entirely Greek-speaking might be WP:OR.

::::::::The solution for article scope would be adding another section to this article about non-Greek speaking Byzantines.

::::::::If you want to specifically talk about Hellenism in Byzantine Empire, you can create a separate article for that, and title it accordingly. Bogazicili (talk) 20:10, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::If you want an article covering all Byzantine subjects under the title 'Byzantines,' using those sources, please raise the issue in Byzantines, not here.

:::::::::If you are proposing to change the article's title and lead to specifically represent people who followed the Roman emperor of the Byzantine Empire between the 7th and 15th centuries—who were Greek-speaking and with hindsight now recognisd as Chalcedonian-Orthodox Christians—then that is the topic currently under discussion. I ask you to stay focussed on that.

:::::::::Please respond not with more sources that you keep repeating, but with actual text that we can try to align with. Biz (talk) 20:51, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::I am saying this article should be moved to Byzantines. When you make article move request, both this article and Byzantines article would be tagged. This subsection I created was about article title and scope specifically. Bogazicili (talk) 21:00, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::You are proposing to change the article title, lead and move the content of an GA article to something that is a disambiguation page. That's more of a lift than coming to consensus with Piccco and myself right now on a few words.

:::::::::::This article specifically talks about the Byzantine Empire's dominant people, which is not the same as all "Byzantines" who were not all Greek-speaking and not all Chalcedonian-Orthodox Christian. The Talk discussion over the years, the fact it's a GA article, the main article content, not to mention my understanding of the history, means I am against this and advise you to try to find some consensus on our current discussions otherwise we're in for a long waste of time to get to the same outcome. If you're trying to match the article title and lead to the people being discussed this would be a more productive use of our time. As I said, propose text. But as for this specific direction you are proposing, I do not support it. Biz (talk) 21:09, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::Can you provide overview sources for "The Byzantine Empire's dominant people" similar to overview sources you said I repeated? Bogazicili (talk) 21:12, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::Bogazicili, as Biz said, I feel like we are suddenly largely regressing back, and instead of finding one solution for the wording of one sentence, we are faced with a nuber of new issues, when we couldn't solve one little thing these past weeks. Piccco (talk) 21:51, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::But to assess things like what is WP:DUE or not in this article, we need overview sources.

::::::::::::::Is there an overview source for "The Byzantine Empire's dominant people"?

::::::::::::::This talk page section I created was about the overall neutrality of the article. And the subsection is about article title and scope.

::::::::::::::I think asking for an overview source is relevant to those.

::::::::::::::You are welcome to discuss the first sentence with Biz, but maybe a new talk page section would be best.

::::::::::::::I only used the first sentence of the article as an example to highlight the issues in the article. During our lengthy discussion about the first sentence, I consulted more sources and now I don't think the article title and scope makes sense. Bogazicili (talk) 21:59, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::You're now implying that these "people" were not notable using the argument that the only tertiary source (2008) we keep referring to for Byzantine Empire doesn't have a dedicated secondary source chapter on them (or anyone for that matter). We use tertiary to determine the completeness of an article's coverage, and balanced coverage against other information, not to say lack of a chapter means we can't have an article on it.

:::::::::::::::The New Cambridge Medieval History. Chapter 4 - The Eastern Empire in the sixth century. Given our other discussions about homogenisation after this, this is a good point to check in. And it describes the empire, in the sixth century, as Greek language principal and characterises the empire as increasingly Greek Orthodox Christian. Maybe dominant is not the right word, but it's not wrong.

:::::::::::::::p116 {{blue|"The idea of an Orthodox Christian empire did cause both divisions between Christians in the East, and tensions between the increasingly Greek Christianity of the Empire and the Latin Christianity of Rome and the West}}

:::::::::::::::p100 {{blue|Whereas the main body of Tribonian’s work was in Latin, most of the Novellae are in Greek, for the reign of Justinian marks a watershed between the Roman Empire with Latin as the official language and the so-called ‘Byzantine’ Empire, in which Greek was the principal, and eventually the sole, language.}}

:::::::::::::::As an aside, Justinian forced the conversions of everyone (I imagine this applied to citizens not subjects or slaves) which is why it's valid from this century we can say Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox Christians became predominant in the empire. Biz (talk) 22:09, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::Besides what Biz mentioned above, the scope of this article is the Greek-speaking population of the empire, which was the majority population, just like we have separate articles for the Armenian and Jewish people of the empire. I really don't understand what the concern appears to be here now. Piccco (talk) 22:18, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::We could rename this article "Byzantine citizens" which is what Gugliemo Cavallo in his "overview" [https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Byzantines/FJDRx6FAi0EC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA3&printsec=frontcover&dq=orthodox predominant introduction] uses in the book "The Byzantines". This addresses Bogazicili's Greek nationalist historiographical concern and also acts as a tertiary source to give us a neutral term. Presumably, we all agree a Byzantine citizen is a Greek-speaking Chalcedonian-Orthodox Christian but I'm now starting to doubt this despite what the sources say. Biz (talk) 22:54, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::@Bogazicili, @Biz, so let's sum up and see what we can agree on and see if we can find a common ground, and potentially an agreement that would save us from more lenghty discussions.

::::::::::::::::1) As we had been agreeing so far, the scope of this article was the majority population of the Byzantine Empire, which in fact happened to be Greek-speaking.

::::::::::::::::2) Many sources that use 'Byzantines' refer by default to the majority Greek-speaking population, for example, the 'Society' section of this article is full of Greek terminology, which in turn derives from Cavallo (1997) The Byzantines, which is widely used in the article; this source in particular appears to give numerous Greek terms that the Byzantines used in their everyday life, like the poor (ptochos and penes), the hospitals (iatreia), the clergy (papas), the education (paideia) etc. etc.

::::::::::::::::3) There is no rule that forbids from using a larger, more descriptive title, if this appears more fitting. For example, we don't say Byzantine Armenians, but use Armenians in the Byzantine Empire, and the even larger History of the Jews in the Byzantine Empire. If we can't fit a shorter name for the article, we could go for something longer and discriptive; like, I don't know, Greek speakers in the Byzantine Empire and the lead (and body) could adjust accordingly; no possible controversy could arise from here; as it just states the mere fact. Piccco (talk) 23:26, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::::Just a note that there are plenty of sources that mention "Byzantine Greeks", or describe the Greek-speakers of the Empire as "Byzantine Greeks" [https://books.google.com/books?id=UBsBAwAAQBAJ&newbks=0&hl=en&source=newbks_fb] [https://www.google.com/books/edition/Greeks_And_Barbarians/1aUxEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22byzantine+greeks%22&pg=PA232&printsec=frontcover] [https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_the_Byzantine_Jews/r-9qJRP20MIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22byzantine+greeks%22&pg=PA217&printsec=frontcover]. There are also sources that describe the Empire as a distinctly "Greek" civilization: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Khirurg/Sources]. This is just what I've been able to grab with a quick search. I am very pressed for time but will search some more. I doubt a move to "Byzantines" would succeed because of the vague nature of the term (WP:PRECISION). The term is variously used to describe the state itself, the ruling elite, the Greeks and non-Greeks, etc. Khirurg (talk) 04:48, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::The article is about the Greeks and Greek speakers in the Byzantine Empire, there are similar articles about Armenians, Arabs, Varangians and so on and so forth, same goes to Ottoman Turks and Ottoman Greeks etc. backed with many sources. There is an article as mentioned previously about the population of the Byzantine Empire. Anyone can edit this article and stop disrupting this one with arguments of ignorance. Byzantine Greeks is the exonym of the Rhomaioi as seen in sources in the article which calling them Grikkr, Greeks, Greci etc. it’s the same for Germans which is the exonym and the endonym is Deutsch, should we change that with the same logic? Should we also change the Ottoman Turks to Osmanli to reflect the actual endonym? Please refer from bursting to us nationalistic propaganda. I would not, and I will insist to not endorse such changes that only reflect hidden agenda. Best Othon I (talk) 15:37, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::Multiple sources such as Anthony Kaldellis is saying Greek-speaking Byzantines can't be called Greeks. See quotes above. This is why the article is not neutral. Bogazicili (talk) 15:44, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::::Kaldellis calls them Romans, which you are also disputing we use. Greek-speaking Orthodox Romans are who "these" Byzantines are. However, you are now changing the discussion to say this article needs to be of "all" Byzantines, despite the article content saying otherwise, and which has already passed a GA and been stable for years. Piccco and I have tried to engage in a solution, but this is not going anyway. There are several editors watching this conversation, and so far, no one supports what you've said. Biz (talk) 17:28, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

::::::::::::::::::The claim that not all Greek speakers were not self-called Hellenes and instead Romans is not a valid argument for a move considering that this article is dedicated to the ethnic Greek population of themedieval era. Using 'Romans' in a modern context is largely misleading. Also when using 'Byzantines' we refer to all citizens of the Empire irrespective of ethnicity: like claiming that Ottomans equals to Ottoman Turks. Alexikoua (talk) 18:19, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

:::::::::::::::::This is inconsistent, Kaldellis calls them Rhomaioi as it is extensively explained in the article and also refers to their exonym as Greeks by Norse (they even called Byzantine Empire as Grikkland), Germanic, Latin and Slavic people. You can see Greece Runestones for example. On the contrary the nomadic Gokturks even from their Tengrism years before convert to Islam called them Rum. Othon I (talk) 18:55, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

{{od}}

The current title, Byzantine Greeks, is a common name (doesn't have to be neutral) used for the Greek-speaking (as in mother tongue) population of the Byzantine Empire; regardless of the – debated – nature of that group's identity. Furthermore, the suggested Byzantines, doesn't unambiguously define the topical scope of the article; it is simply not precise enough, as already argued by other editors above. Lastly, this page falls outside the scope of the WikiProjects that were recently added (and removed), and would better fit in Talk:Population of the Byzantine Empire; see WP:OVERBANNER. – Demetrios1993 (talk) 18:55, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

In continuation to the above discussions, I wanted to note that Stouraitis (2014) does make mentions throughout his work of the Greek speakers as a separate group of subjects of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, in contrast to other groups, and refers to them on several instances as "{{tq|Greek ethno-linguistic group}}" or "{{tq|collectivity}}" (as I had said I was willing to avoid terms like 'ethnicity' and the abuse of the term "Byzantine Greeks" in wikivoice for the sake of compromise and avoiding disputes). Some examples are:

p.189 {{tq|The issues to pose pertain to [...] 2) whether the Eastern Roman ruling élite sought to attach its Roman identity discourse to the Greek ethno-linguistic group within the empire.}}

p.214 {{tq|The Roman imperial rule was thereafter (...) confined to a much smaller number of subjects, the major-ity of whom belonged to the Greek ethno-linguistic group.}}

And he even notes how such distinction of Byzantine subjects under east Roman rule on the basis of their "ethno-linguistic/cultural" identity was present in medieval times as well. p.208-209

{{tq|After the Christianization of the empire the ethnonym Hellene was gradually substituted by the semantic equivalent Graikos in denot-ing the member of the ethno-cultural collectivity due to the religious discourse that identified Hellenism with paganism. The fact that Graikos is translated as Hellene in the lexica of the Byzantine period leaves little doubt that the literate Eastern Roman élite was well aware of the historic-cultural signification of the employed ethnonym. Moreover, the post-seventh century evidence demonstrates that the ethnonyms Graikos or Hellene, the second being a classicizing recurrence in the writings of the intellectual élite in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, were employed by Byzantine authors equally to other ethnonyms when these authors contradistinguished Roman subjects in an ethno-linguis-tic/ethno-cultural manner.}}

{{tq|For instance, Constantine VII reports in De administrando imperio that ... the Slavs in the theme of Pelo-ponnese ... begun to sack the houses of their Greek (Graikoi) neighbours”.¹²⁵ This statement refers to the use of ethnonyms for an ethno-cultural categorization of Roman subjects from within, from the Roman élite. [...] From the point of view of the Roman ruling élite both the Slavs and the Greeks were Roman subjects and their ethno-cultural categorization was not intended to distinguish the Romans (Greeks) from the non-Romans (Slavs), but rather two collectivities with certain cultural differences within the imperial power’s realm.}}

{{tq|the Greeks remained a named population in contradistinction to other named populations (e.g. Armenians,Bulgars) within the top-down homogenizing Roman discourse of the post-seventh century Greek-speaking Roman ruling élite.}} and

{{tq|Within the framework of the dominant Roman regnal discourse, the social function of the ethnonym referred to the contradistinction between members of the Greek ethno-linguistic collectivity and members of other ethno-linguistic collectivities in the empire.}}

The group in question is unambigiously a distinct group of Byzantine subjects, distinguished in both modern and contemporary sources and in historical context, being also the predominant group of Byzantine subjects (p.198-9 {{tq|...the Greek-speaking Roman subjects of her times that made up the largest part of the imperial state’s masses}} and {{tq|...the predominant Greek ethno-linguistic collectivity}}) So far, I have been the most willing to make compromises and changes and I am still open for many more tweaks in parts of the article that may require improvement, like I did in the lead. Additionally, I also considered the possibility of avoiding any bold names in the lead altogether (since we had trouble putting them in a sentence), and instead following the logic of the Armenians in the Byzantine Empire by simply writing a sentence, perhaps the one we were preparing with Biz, without trying to fit modern names into it. Piccco (talk) 20:12, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

:{{replyto|Piccco}} I am not necessarily opposed to a more narrow scope for this article, for Greek-speaking Byzantines only. But where are the overview sources? For example, for Byzantine Empire, we have an overview source such as The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies. Based on the overview source people have commented that some coverage is missing.

:What is the overview source for this article? How do we know appropriate WP:PROPORTION were given to Byzantine_Greeks#Society, Byzantine_Greeks#Culture, and Byzantine_Greeks#Identity sections?

:My position depends entirely on the sources. I found books about Byzantines in general, but where is a book or chapter about "Byzantine Greeks"? And if such a source is found, the article might still need restructuring based on WP:PROPORTION.

:I also don't think "Byzantine Greeks" is a WP:COMMONNAME. Even a book about Hellenism in Byzantium (Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition, Kaldellis 2007) do not use the term "Byzantine Greek" to refer to people. Actually, when I do a keyword search, the only match for "Byzantine Greek" is in page 30, and refers to language. Kaldellis does use the term "Byzantines" to refer to Greek-speaking people only.

:If we look at Google Books Ngram Viewer, the frequency of "Byzantines" is far higher than "Byzantine Greeks" [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Byzantines%2C+Byzantine+Greeks&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3] Bogazicili (talk) 15:56, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

::Yes, I am aware of the wide usage of the -arguably vague- name "Byzantines". Byzantine can refer to any aspect of the empire, and while in most cases, when scholars use the name, they refer by default to Greek speaking people, this is not its only use, especially in the empire's earlier periods when the "Byzantines" could come from many different cultures, as the sources say. For example, there is an adundance of scholarship dedicated to the Arab-Byzantine wars in North Africa and West Asia, where a large number of "Byzantines" wouldn't have been Greek speakers. Byzantine Greeks is still a name that is used, being for example more common than "Eastern Romans", which itself is an alternative to "Byzantines" https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Eastern+Romans%2CByzantine+Greeks%2CRhomaioi&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 1, and is also precise enough (WP:PRECISION) for this article's scope. The name far from implies any national consciousness for that matter (something that most medieval people in general did not really have anyway), nor in fact anything else, other than merely referencing all people belonging to this cultural and linguistic group.

::Regarding the first part, this more narrow scope, the Greek speaking Byzantines, has actually always been the scope of this article, as this was the very purpose of its creation. There are articles dedicated to populations that repressented minority cultures within the empire, such as Armenians and Jews; thus the notability of the population that represents the predominant culture within the empire is self-evident. Due to this very reason, the sources that cover Byzantine society and culture refer by default almost entirely to the society and culture of its Greek speaking people. For example, I have noted above how the sections in question are full of native Greek terminology, which in turn derives from Cavallo (1997), it is clear that this section is unambiguously dedicated to a Greek-speaking society. There aren't actually any strict rules that forbid usage of sources in an article, if they are releveant enough to be used. Now if someone deems that the GA status of the article is not warranted, it's not the first time that GA status is lost. There are, additionally, books dedicated to the 'history of Greeks' and 'of Greek speakers' that also cover the medieval / Byzantine periods, which I could potentially use as sources as well, if they would be more relevant for this article. Piccco (talk) 21:46, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

I have given these quotes above, I am repeating them to focus the discussion. Bolding is mine

• [https://doi.org/10.1515%2Fbz-2014-0009 Roman identity in Byzantium: a critical approach, Stouraitis 2014]:

:{{tq2|The premise that “Byzantium around the year 1000 had become a medieval Greek Empire”⁵ has been refuted with the plausible argument that the Byzantine élite did not identify itself as Greek, whereas Arabs, Armenians, Bulgars, Slavs and other ethno-cultural collectivities resided within the borders of the Empire in this period, the members of which were regarded as Roman subjects.⁶ This plausible thesis has been complemented by a comprehensive statement on the self-identification of the Byzantines, according to which “the average Byzantine understood him/herself beyond any doubt as Roman, their language and literature was Roman (i. e. Greek), their cultural and religious centre was also beyond doubt New Rome, namely Constantinople”.⁷
This preponderant view on Byzantine society as a multi-ethnic society in which Roman self-identification was, nevertheless, predominant, raises some questions.}}

• [https://books.google.com/books?id=iWs0Lh57NvwC Hellenism in Byzantium: The Transformations of Greek Identity and the Reception of the Classical Tradition, Kaldellis 2007], p.113:

:{{tq2|Likewise, the Byzantines were Romans who happened to speak Greek and not Greeks who happened to call themselves Romans. ... Many Byzantine practices were inherited from Greek antiquity, but this does not entitle us to call them Greek when the Byzantines understood them as Roman.}}

• [https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674986510 Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (2019)] by Anthony Kaldellis, pp 16-17:

:{{tq2|Thus, as the west was moving away from the paradigm of the “Greek empire” and toward the ethnically vague notion of Byzantium, nationalist historiography in Greece ensconced the old ethnic model in its official view of the past. While there is skepticism about this model in Greece today, the empire’s official Hellenization in national discourse was possible only because western historiography had already stripped it of its Romanness. Some Greek national historians still go through the same motions of dismissing the testimony of the sources and ridiculing the idea that Greek- speaking Orthodox people can “ really” be Romans. By stripping off that false label, they hope to expose the Greek underneath.43 These moves were pioneered by western medieval writers and are still with us. For different reasons, therefore, both western and national Greek historiography have an interest to engage in denialism.}}

[https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429031373/routledge-handbook-identity-byzantium-david-parnell-michael-stewart-conor-whately 2022 The Routledge Handbook on Identity in Byzantium] p. 10, intro chapter:

:{{tq2|In most modern scholarship, provincial labels (Macedonian, Paphlagonian, Cappadocian, etc.) are seen to have functioned as ethnicities in Byzantium. In Chapter 14, however, Anthony Kaldellis maintains that they were not ethnicities, ...}}

Sources like above seem mostly ignored in the article. There are lots of references to "Byzantine Greeks" throughout the article.

Some of them seem to come from sources that do not use "Byzantine Greeks":

• Cavallo 1997, p. 43: {{tq|There are no reliable figures as to the numbers of the peasantry, yet it is widely assumed that the vast majority of Byzantine Greeks lived in rural and agrarian areas}}. The source is the book the Byzantines, and do not talk about "Byzantine Greeks" specifically. Is the term "Byzantine Greek" even used in this source?
• Cavallo 1997, p. 119: {{tq|The life of a Byzantine Greek woman could be divided into three phases: girlhood, motherhood, and widowhood}}. Same issue as above.

Some of these are from sources that are quite old, such as:

• Vryonis 1971: {{tq|Other Byzantine Greeks, particularly in Anatolia, converted to Islam and underwent Turkification over time}}

References to all "Byzantine Greeks" should be checked in the article and needs to be removed if the sources do not use it. Dated, 50 year old sources should be replaced with modern sources, as the view of scholarship seems to have changed.

The article has a POV title already, no need to repeat the POV title throughout the article. Use of "Byzantine Greeks" even when the sources are not using it seems against WP:NPOV. It is also probably WP:OR. If "Byzantine Greeks" is being used by a recent source, alternate viewpoints should also be added into that sentence or into a next sentence with due weight, where applicable, per WP:NPOV. Bogazicili (talk) 15:00, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

:Another example:

:* Ahrweiler & Aymard 2000, p. 150: {{tq|From an evolutionary standpoint, Byzantium was the multi-ethnic Roman state that conquered the Greek East, turned into a Christian empire, and ended in 1453, as a Greek Orthodox state; it had become a nation, almost by the modern meaning of the word}}

:This conflicts with what Stouraitis 2014 is saying, and is probably due to the age of the source. Bogazicili (talk) 16:13, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

::What you think that is OR is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Byzantine Greeks is the exonym of of the Rhomaioi this is what Kaldellis say, it’s the same with Hellenes, their prevailing exonym is Greeks (in some cases endonym) this article is for the Greeks of the Byzantine Empire. There is another article that you can check about the Byzantines as a whole which is called Population of the Byzantine Empire. Please refrain from disrupting a stable article just because you don’t feel comfortable with it. If you continue this I will place here a ton of sources from referring to Slavic, Germanic and Latin people call them Greeks. Even nomadic tribe like Huns, Pechenegs and of course Turks (including Bulgars) referred to them as Greeks in some cases. That’s final warning and please do not bother with irrelevant comments in talk page otherwise I will report for harassment. Best Othon I (talk) 17:53, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

:Generally, I think I have made it abundantly clear from previous replies so far that I am not opposed to adding or updating content in the article. There is also no need to repeat the same quotes in the replies multiple times; such as, for example, Stouraitis (2014) regarding "the notion of Byzantium around 1000 becoming a medieval Greek empire". I don't think I would care to promote this notion through the article, because it is overly simplistic anyway. Nor will I repeat the above quotes from Stouraitis regarding the "Greek ethno-linguistic group" within the empire, because in this talk we are looking for solutions, and not repetitions. I had also added a paragraph regarding the provincial identities in the article; I don't know what more you expect from repeating this quote. Additionally, I explicitly stated that we could avoid references to the name in wikivoive, if it doesn't happen to be in the source, as you mentioned above, since I myself had simply tweaked similar cases before. Finally, cases where you feel that the WP:PROPORTION of certain topic is questionable, can simply be discussed and a solution can be reached. Piccco (talk) 18:46, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

::{{replyto|Piccco}} I am glad we are in agreement in updating content in the article. Actually we seem to agree on several things.

::Sorry for the repetition. The quotes I used in this subsection were scattered. I wanted to bring them in one place and give specific examples from the article to show how parts of the article contradict newer sources. Also I had talked about general neutrality of the article, but I wanted to clarify on what I saw as an outdated or Greek nationalist POV throughout the article. There are also people newer to the discussion.

::But perhaps I should explain what I am doing. I am identifying the issues in the article. I don't have time to fix the entire article myself. Even the limited discussion we had on the first sentence of the article was lengthy.

::Once I finish identifying the issues, I'm going to give some time to editors to work on those issues, if they agree that those are legitimate issues. I'll check back in several months. If the issues persist, we can proceed to Wikipedia:Good article reassessment.

::In the mean time, feel free to ping me in the discussions, that is up to you. Bogazicili (talk) 20:36, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Alright. I wanted to let you know that, before your reply, I also thought of updating some parts of the article myself, because in such cases, I remind myself that it's best to reach middle ground consensus. With that sentiment, I don't think there will be any major of point of dispute. Although the article is within my interests, I tended to see it as low-visibility and I wouldn't bother editing to that extent, but I guess now will be the chance. Lastly, I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of taking time away from this article, and shifting the focus on other things in the meantime. Piccco (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Additional Wiki projects I added were recently removed [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AByzantine_Greeks&diff=1281823194&oldid=1281821254] by {{u|Othon I}}

I had copy and pasted country projects from Talk:Byzantine Empire.

This article notes Greek-speaking Byzantines {{tq|were the main inhabitants of the lands of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire), of Constantinople and Asia Minor (modern Turkey), the Greek islands, Cyprus, and portions of the southern Balkans, and formed large minorities, or pluralities, in the coastal urban centres of the Levant and northern Egypt.}}

Why are those additional Wiki projects removed, given the scope of the article? The scope of country Wiki projects includes history.

I am also concerned about WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, especially in a Wikipedia:Contentious topics such as this. This article seems to have an outdated or Greek nationalist POV as I explained above, so I don't think removing additional Wiki projects is helpful. Bogazicili (talk) 15:37, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

:When you making such edits you need consensus first. There is no need for more on this. Best Othon I (talk) 17:54, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

:To be honest, I also don't think that a collection of country Wikiprojects were appropriate for the subject of this article. As it was noted above, these projects more appropriately fit into the Talk:Population of the Byzantine Empire per WP:OVERBANNER. Piccco (talk) 18:57, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

::As I said, I am concerned about WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. How do you suggest we get more fresh eyes looking into this content? Bogazicili (talk) 20:37, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

:::If you have not already you can notify the WikiProjects on their notice boards. They may send someone to review wether or not it should be in their scope and they may be able to to help with the neutrality issues. Sheriff U3 16:23, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Just added an attention parameter to the WikiProject Christianity banner. It should help you get help. (According to documentation it is to be used when expert help is needed quickly.) I will remove it once the neutrality issues have been cleared up. Sheriff U3 17:29, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

::::{{u|Sheriff U3}}, how would WikiProject Christianity provide "expert help" when it comes to issues in this article? Bogazicili (talk) 15:14, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::What that does is it adds this page to a category of articles needing immediate attention. Anyone that wants may look at the current discussion and offer help. It just adds more eyes to this issue. Also most Christianity editors are familiar with these topics and contiguous topics polices some have been long term editors as well. Is help going to come, who knows, editors can make their own decisions about whether or not they want to get involved in this. I suggest that you send a notice to all WikiProjects that are in the banner, as even if they are dead some editors still watch them to help with topics they are interested in. Sheriff U3 22:31, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

::::::The POV concerns I have have nothing to do with Christianity though. So I still don't understand your suggestion. Bogazicili (talk) 18:06, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

:::::::You said you wanted more fresh eyes due to your concern about WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, this is one way to get more eyes. And some Christianity editors have studied the Greeks and Romans in addition to Christianity, (though I myself have not). Sheriff U3 19:18, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

:I am from WikiProject Christianity, I have added some parameters to our banner shell and moved the Eastern Orthodoxy banner to the parameter in WikiProject Christianity's banner. I just noticed this talk page section and decided that I should let you guys know what I did. If you have any questions about our banner or my edits to the banner shell then please ask me here, and make sure to ping me. Thank you Sheriff U3 16:18, 7 April 2025 (UTC)