Succession to the Byzantine Empire

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Since its fall, the issue of succession to the Byzantine Empire has been a major point of contention both geopolitically, with different states laying claim to its legacy and inheritance, and among the surviving members of the Byzantine nobility and their descendants. Historically, the most prominent claims have been those of the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Byzantium in 1453 and ruled from its former capital, Constantinople; the Russian Empire, as the most powerful state practising Eastern Orthodox Christianity; and various nobles and figures in Western Europe of increasingly spurious and questionable imperial descent. Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire on 29 May 1453, with the last emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, dying in the fighting. The Byzantine Empire was the medieval continuation of the ancient Roman Empire, its capital having been transferred from Rome to Constantinople in the 4th century by Rome's first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great. Though hereditary...

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