Episode 289 - Kaloyan, Tsar of Bulgaria

How do you explain your strange interest in Byzantium to your friends and family? I argue that you can't understand the modern world without Byzantium.This is the last episode of the podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. 

I answer the final batch of questions which came in after 1453. They are mostly fun speculation or about me and the podcast. Our Constantine Acrostic Christianized the Roman state,Oldest offspring of the Great.Nearly reigned one hundred days,Saved the city, so they say.Theophanes ... Show More

A discussion with Professor Anthony Kaldellis about how the Romans became Greeks.Anthony Kaldellis is the Gaylord Donnelly Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Classics and the College at the University of Chicago. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i ... Show More

Following the death of Constantine, a short dynastic bloodbath occurs, after which his sons divide the empire between themselves. In addition, the new emperors also permit all the eastern bishops exiled by their father to return. As a result violent clashes soon erupt between riv ... Show More

Is it safe to hand control of the deadliest army in the world to a 20-year old? If you are Thracian, Triballian, Illyrian or Theban, the answer is definitely no. Alexander becomes king and fights off threats to his rule in all directions. 

The Tsar has abdicated and the provisional government rules Russia, but Petrograd is overflowing with revolutionaries who want more radical change. Lenin has returned from exile and is looking to seize power for the Bolsheviks. Their momentum is growing and with Russia still in t ... Show More

<p>From child king in the Second World War to post-communist prime minister, the story of Bulgaria's King Simeon II; the first ever surgery performed on a foetus in the womb, an American family selling secrets to the Soviets in the 1980s, plus the 1963 attempt to form a United St ... Show More

<p>146 BCE - 1204 CE - This is the story of the Balkan Peninsula from its post Classical Greek and Hellenistic period when it was conquered by the Roman Republic, through to the defeat of the Byzantine Empire by the Latins of the Fourth Crusade.</p> 

The winds of nationalism are blowing through Ottoman territory in the Balkans. Unrest is rife and the Empire is bankrupt. The young sultan Abdülhamid is at the helm. Listen as William and Anita are joined by Eugene Rogan to discuss whether the Ottoman Empire really was the sick m ... Show More

In June 2001, more than half a century after being driven into exile by communists, Bulgaria’s former King Simeon II made a dramatic comeback by winning the country’s parliamentary election. In 2018, Farhana Haider spoke to Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha about his remarkable journey fr ... Show More

Divide and rule, a man described as Brian Blessed but ‘with a bigger, bushier, blacker beard’, and a whole lot of regicide. Join Anita and William as they continue to take us through the rip-roaring history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond. LRB Empire offer: lrb.me/empire Twitter: @Emp ... Show More