Byzantine Stories is a literary experiment born from the meeting of human insight and artificial intelligence.
The stories on this platform are written through a creative collaboration between Serhat Engul, an Istanbul-based historian and professional tour guide, and an AI co-writer trained to assist in historical narration, emotional tone, and structural balance.
Together, they explore what we call “Byzantine Introspective Realism” — a genre where history and consciousness meet.
About Byzantine Stories
Every story blends the tangible streets of Istanbul with the invisible corridors of memory, echoing voices from the Byzantine past through a modern human soul.
In Byzantine Stories, our fictional guide Stavros leads us beyond the boundaries of time.
Through his dreams, we wander the Byzantine world — witnessing battles, rebellions, chariot races, and the quiet lives that once filled Constantinople’s streets.
These journeys are not just history retold, but moments reimagined — glimpses of an empire still echoing through the human soul.
This project stands as part of the new wave of AI–Human Collaborative Art, where technology amplifies, not replaces, human creativity.
The result: a dialogue between man and machine, between past and present — and ultimately, between Istanbul and the world.
Stavros’s First Journey to Byzantium
In his first dream, Stavros is drawn into the reign of Emperor Nikephoros I, marching with the Byzantine army toward the mountains of Bulgaria.
The heat of armor, the smell of dust, and the sharp whistle of arrows feel terrifyingly real.
Trapped in a narrow pass, he sees the imperial ranks collapse into chaos — men screaming, horses tumbling, the emperor himself engulfed by the storm.
Stavros feels a sudden sting on his shoulder, reaches for blood, and realizes this is no ordinary dream. He is there — a Byzantine officer caught in the disaster of Pliska, living a forgotten tragedy as if it were his own.
Read the First Dream
Begin with Episode 1 – The Battle of Pliska, where Stavros first crosses the boundary between waking life and Byzantine memory.
Read Episode 1Echoes of Byzantium
He was never a historian by profession, but his life had always been shaped by remembrance.
In the light of an icon, in the echo of a hymn, in the worn texture of a Byzantine mosaic glimpsed in some forgotten chapel — he felt time folding in on itself, whispering that history was not gone, only sleeping.
Byzantine Stories is the record of that awakening.
Through Stavros, the past begins to dream again: empires rise in the theater of the mind, saints and emperors walk through the half-lit corridors of consciousness, and the boundaries between modern life and ancient memory dissolve like gold dust in candle smoke.
Every dream he enters reveals a truth — not about the dead, but about the living.
For the ghosts of Byzantium are not silent; they speak still, through those who dare to listen.
About the Author
Serhat Engul is a licensed tour guide and historian based in Istanbul, with over twenty years of professional experience. He specializes in the Byzantine heritage of the city, leading immersive walking tours that bring history to life through storytelling and reflection.
His work on Byzantine Stories combines historical insight with creative narrative — a bridge between scholarship and imagination.
To learn more about his Byzantine history tours in Istanbul, visit ByzantineIstanbul.com.