From then until the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia, and Moscow in particular, saw itself as the “Third Rome.” As blood-descendants of the last Roman emperor who died fighting defending his city, its tsars (literally Caesars) claimed the mantle of defenders—if not avengers—of the twelve million Orthodox Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, and had a special interest in restoring Constantinople. They waged a series of wars on and made inroads into Ottoman territory. A cycle soon developed: Russian encroachments emboldened Balkan Christians to seek liberation from their Islamic overlords.
