Second Siege of Constantinople

Can you point out the scientific, cultural, economic, social advancement of Arabs until the 2nd decade of 8th century? If you can't by then (the time of the siege), let's expand it for the entire 8th century. Name reformers, scholars, philosophers, anything. If you don't know individuals, try to support some alleged achivements with evidence.

Afterwards, I'm sure not only me, but many others can flood this thread with Byzantine achievements (and remarkable individuals) in the same age.

 

It's amazing how so many modern Bulgarians and Turks (Anatolian Turks, I mean) constantly minimize Byzantine history.

 

Not in the 8th century for sure,but surely in the timespan between 9th and 11th centuries

The Arabs were not defeated by Bulgarians alone, so there's no undermining. I've seen no analysis on this thread how the power, organization and superior technology/discipline/whatever of Arab forces could be a dangerous combination for the security of the city or even the Empire. Can you give us an overview of the successes of Arab artillery against Constantinople's walls? Their successes on sea against Byzantine navy? Some parallels between the siege of 717-718 and the sieges of 1204 and 1453 to at least build a believable hypothesis the city could have fallen to Arabs?

There is not a single contribution in this thread to say the Bulgarians had no role in defeat (therefore your claim the Bulgarian role is downplayed has no support for this particular example), there are many contributions in this thread saying the Bulgarians saved the Empire, Europe, without them the Arabs would have conquered the Empire, the City, the Islam would have conquered Europe, Arabs were more advanced than Byzantines in the 8th century, in other periods - a lot of claims of "Byzantine inferiority" without a shred of evidence, without a decent scale for comparision and at least hints, if not arguments. Amazingly, the posters of such things are in a visible majority Bulgarians or Turks. On the other hand, you can't identify a cultural or ethnical background of those who disagree with them (we're not all Greeks or something like that, at the best one can say we like Byzantine history to a degree), so to me the shape of the bias is obvious and well-justified (Seljuks, Ottomans and Bulgarian Medieval states had Byzantine Empire as enemy). There are other stereotypical images about Byzantines on these forums: they were saved by their diplomacy, there is only one famous victory against Bulgarians (Kleidion) largely mentioned for the 14,000 blinded Bulgarian soldiers, rather for the military brilliance of Basil II or his army (the other Byzantine victories are amorphous, indirect or attentuated by near events - the Bulgarian tsars were weak in the 8th century, Nicephorus sacked Pliska before he was killed, etc.) - one is left in wonder how Byzantine could even reconquer Balkanic peninsula with so little major victories but with so many defeats!

 

The myth you mention exists too but also, at times, it is a fictional enemy as you take opposite positions even where the myth is not present. The claims made here were openly suggesting a Byzantine inferiority not influences of some sort. There's one thing to discuss about the trade between Byzantines and Muslim world or about the golden age of Islamic intellectual achievements, there's another to say the Bulgarians saved the Empire or Europe.

Bulldog i must say i'm amazed to see a guy from western europe protecting Bulgaria.

His discourse is usually pro-Turkic and anti-their-enemies (and he considers Bulgarians of a definite Turkic origin).

 

that bulgarians are some kind of an unwashed wild tribe which had received civilization from the byzantines

Weren't they? They have brought engineers and scholars from the steppes or wild warriors?