Jason Fegadel runs Byztory, a YouTube channel featuring animated videos about the Byzantine Empire ( https://www.youtube.com/c/Byztory). He works as an Archive Specialist in the Electronic Records Division at the National Archives and Records Administration. A native of Rochester, New York, he currently lives in the Washington, DC area with his wife and three children.
1. How and when did you get hooked on history?
Fun story! When I was about 7 years old, my family visited Boston and while we were there, we attended a reenactment of the Boston Tea Party. For whatever reason, this just fascinated me. I had all kinds of questions for my parents afterwards and wanted to learn everything about it, why it happened, and what happened afterwards. I soon started looking for books in the school library about that era and then I started to move into whatever other history-related media I could find. As I got older and studied more, my primary interests moved away from early American history but that was the beginning of my life long interest.
2. What role does history play or has it played in your personal life?
We live in the Washington, DC area so there are plenty of museums, parks, and sites that we can take our kids to. When we visit these places I get to talk their ears off explaining all about the history that they are seeing.
3. How does history play a part of your professional life/career?
I'm very lucky to have had a lot of hands-on experience working with historical materials. In 2011 I started working at the National Archives and Records Administration on a digitization project. I stayed there until 2015 when I moved over to the Library of Congress to work on digitization of their holdings. Then in 2018 I went back to NARA as an Archives Specialist working with electronic records and I'm still in that position today.
4. Why is studying/knowing history important?
The world of today doesn't exist on it's own. We got here because of everything that happened before us. It's important to know where we came from and what brought us to this point. The foundations of the modern world can be found in the ancient and medieval world.
5. What is your favorite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?
Anything related to the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire is fascinating to me but I'm particularly interested in late antiquity, the period from roughly the beginning of the 4th century to the end of the 7th century. I'm fascinated by the causes and effects of the decline and fall of the western Roman Empire, both internally and externally.... what actually happened as the western empire declined, why the eastern empire was able to continue, and how Europe moved into the Medieval period in the aftermath of the fall of the western empire.
6. How did Byztory get started?
There is a lot of good history content on YouTube, but I noticed that there wasn't a ton of stuff out there about the Byzantine Empire. There are a lot of important events that occurred in the Byzantine Empire and there are some interesting stories that can be told, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to produce some educational content. I took some inspiration from some other channels that are out there and adapted some things to fit my vision. I'm still trying to improve things but I'm happy with how it's coming along.
7. What can viewers expect to find on your YouTube channel?
I make animated videos about Eastern Roman/Byzantine history. I try to produce videos that are roughly 10-15 minutes long, but I try to go into depth on the topics that I'm covering. As a result I have several videos in a series, with each video covering only a somewhat short period of time, or in some cases only one major event or battle. I'm currently working on a series about the Gothic War, part of Justinian's attempt to reconquer territories that were once a part of Rome's western empire. I have a lot of topics that I plan to do series on in the future, including the Schism of 1054 and the Byzantine Empire's role in the crusades.
Awesome job!
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