Didn’t the Ottomans interrupt that continuity rather significantly? For example, we don’t call it “Constantinople” any more and the inhabitants of the region don’t seem to consider themselves descendants of Romans as much as Ottomans (or perhaps Islamic identity more generally), at least as I understand it.

While people in modern Turkey may not consider themselves or their state successors or the Roman Empire, the Ottoman authorities did to some extent. Notably, ‘Kayser-i Rum‘ was part of the Sultan’s title after the conquest of Constantinople.

Of course, the Ottomans weren’t the only ones playing this game; the Holy Roman Empire and to some extent Russia were also examples.

  > For example, we don’t call it “Constantinople” any more

Not to detract from the rest of your point, but "Istanbul" actually comes from a Greek nickname meaning "to the city", and didn't even become the official name until 1930.

Curious, about this, I got sucked into a rabbithole of reading about this background of this etymology. Thanks for the nerdsnipe! :)

"THE ETYMOLOGY OF İSTANBUL: MAKING OPTIMAL USE OF THE EVIDENCE"

https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/item/15924/stac...

(It disputes the details of the traditional 'to the city' etymology, but in the end proposes deriving from something else with very similar meaning, "στην­ Πόλι" (something maybe like 'sten­ Poli' but there are details of historical pronunciation in the article I didn't read closely) rather than "εἰς­ τὴν ­Πόλιν" [is timˈbolin].)

Without reading the article, if it is between "στην­ Πόλι" and "εἰς­ τὴν ­Πόλιν", I can tell you, as a Greek, it is exactly the same phrase. Poli/Polin (Πόλη/Πόλιν) are interchangeable, the same word with a different suffix but with both the same purpose, and "στην" is just "εις την" stiched together.

Similar to the difference between "is not" and "ain't".

>Didn’t the Ottomans interrupt that continuity rather significantly?

They did, but after half to a full millenium after the fall of the Roman Empire - so for those there it was a much more "recent" (for ancient peoples sense of historical time) affair.

>For example, we don’t call it “Constantinople” any more and the inhabitants of the region don’t seem to consider themselves descendants of Romans as much as Ottomans

Funnily enough, the Mehmed II (the conquestor of Constantinople) did call himself (among other things) "king of the romans" after that.

And the name Instabul itself comes from Constantinople (also known as "Pole" (The City, it being the big Apple of the area, where Instabul meant "in-sten-Pole" (to-the-City).

But yes, the current inhabitants of modern Turkey region don’t consider themselves descendants of Romans. But you can find some connection to other parts of the mediterranean and the levant.

>Well, that's true for the western Roman Empire. The eastern side (which included southernmost Italy, Greece, most of the mediterrenean, middle east - Syria, Lebanon, and balkans, and eastern (modern) turkey) persisted, kept and advanced the Roman civic structure, organization, legal system, etc and didn't collapse during the middle ages.

So did the West. We went from a Late Imperial system in which the military had the power (so-called « barbarians ») to an Early Medieval system in which the military had the power and stopped paying lip service to the Emperor. That's it. Collapse happened in very localized area (like England), but it certainly doesn't apply to Gaul, Iberia and Italy.

The big hole in the « Dark Ages » is due to the Islamic invasion of North Africa cutting off the supply of papyrus. But the papyrus left from the 6th and 7th centuries makes it extremely clear that those were literate societies keeping and iterating upon the Late Roman forms of administrations.

The low point is around the 8th c., somewhere between the Islamic invasion of Spain and Charlemagne.