Byzantine Heritage Research Articles

Rome, Ravenna, and Venice, 750–1000: Byzantine Heritage, Imperial Present, and the Construction of City Identity

Rome, Ravenna, and Venice, 750–1000: Byzantine Heritage, Imperial Present, and the Construction of City Identity

“The Gates of Eternal Life”: Metamorphosis and Performativity in Middle to Late Byzantine Sculpted Church Doors (with a Case Study of a Wallachian Wooden Door)

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in analyzing the manufacturing techniques of Byzantine church doors in laboratory settings. However, the connection between the iconography and significance of the décor of church doors and their liturgical performativity, as well as their parallels with iconostases in Byzantium, remained a relatively underexplored area of study. This article seeks to delve deeper into these intersections. By focusing on the relationship between the iconography of church doors in Middle to Late Byzantium and their connection to the sacred space and liturgical practices, I aim to shed light on how these artworks played a crucial role in the sacred experience of the Byzantines. This exploration will not highlight only the aesthetic evolution of church door artwork but also emphasize the communal and embodied nature of the religious experience during the Byzantine era. Their intricate designs were not merely decorative elements but served as portals to the divine, enriching the salvation journey of worshippers as they crossed the threshold into the liturgical spaces. By conducting an examination of the development of door iconography and their symbolism throughout the empire’s history, the transformation of narrative depictions from the Middle Byzantine era to the Palaiologan period, culminating in a convergence of symbolic meanings within the sacred space of the church, is delineated. This transformation is further exemplified by a sculpted church door from the Principality of Wallachia. By bridging the gap between art history and religious studies, this article aims to rekindle interest in the profound symbolism and significance of Byzantine church doors and their relation to sacred liturgical space, offering a broader perspective on an important aspect of Byzantine heritage.

:Rome, Ravenna, and Venice, 750–1000: Byzantine Heritage, Imperial Present, and the Construction of City Identity

:<i>Rome, Ravenna, and Venice, 750–1000: Byzantine Heritage, Imperial Present, and the Construction of City Identity</i>

Orthodox Poets of the Soviet Era: Aleksandr Solodovnikov, Vasily Nikitin, Sergey Averintsev, Elena Pudovkina

The article explores the work of Orthodox poets during the Soviet era, particularly focusing on Aleksandr Solodovnikov, Vasily Nikitin, Sergey Averintsev, and Elena Pudovkina. It formulates a general principle of the poetic style of these authors as the principle of soul, word, and world transformation, realized through prayerful and confessional expressions. The distinctive feature of the resurging Orthodox poetry in the 20th century primarily lay in its pursuit of maximum immediacy, simplicity, and originality, deliberately transcending “literariness,” which was particularly burdensome for individuals of the 20th century. In turn, the analysis reveals that due to this aspiration for the primacy of the word, it unexpectedly proves to be far more complex than it appears at first glance. It carries not only profound meanings of Orthodox faith but also the deep tradition of Christian “literariness” in the best sense of the term—an active continuity with the texts of predecessors, reaching back to ancient Russian and Byzantine heritage. Moreover, it strives to reproduce the spirit of the Gospel’s word, as far as it is humanly possible. Literary creation for an Orthodox person is justified and beneficial only when it constitutes a part of their spiritual self-improvement and transmits the experience of this work to others. It represents the work of soul transformation by the grace of God, captured in the word. Spiritual poetry is traditional not only in content but also in form, oriented toward classical poetry of the 19th century as its model. In cases when it diverges from this model, it does not tend toward the modernism of the 20th century but, conversely, delves into the deep archaism of the early centuries of Christianity, sometimes directly aligning with the structure of the Gospel’s word and canonical church hymns. This is logical since the breakdown of classical poetic structure in the 20th century was a consequence of secularization—the despiritualization of the world and language. Accordingly, the reverse process inevitably led to the revival of the style of classical poetry and even its earlier form—the church poetry.

Byzantine heritage and Soviet system

Byzantine heritage and Soviet system

Византийское наследие: сценарии конструирования исследовательского поля

Византийское наследие: сценарии конструирования исследовательского поля

О роли «византийского наследия» в решении проблемы взаимоотношений Запада и Востока в истории России

О роли «византийского наследия» в решении проблемы взаимоотношений Запада и Востока в истории России

Nineteenth-Century Conservation of Byzantine Heritage in the Ottoman Empire: The Significance of the 1893 Istanbul Historic Peninsula Fortification Map

ABSTRACT City walls are essential urban elements contributing to the identity of historical cities. Their significance as a component of a city’s image is reflected on historical city maps, revealing the physical traces of urban history. The Istanbul Historic Peninsula, a multi-layered historical city centre surrounded by Byzantine-period walls, has been represented on different maps and drawings by Ottoman and foreign experts ever since the fifteenth century. One of the first architectural documentation studies focusing on these city walls is the Historic Peninsula Fortification (HPF) Map, dated 1893. Archival and literature research shows that the map is a copy of the Nineteenth-Century Istanbul Map, also called the Ayverdi Map. In this paper, we discuss the value of the 1893 Istanbul HPF Map as a historical document, its properties, and its historical and cultural significance for documenting the city walls for conservation purposes in the Ottoman period.

Constructing continuity: heritage listing and monument preservation in Greater Athens from the 1920s to the 1970s

New perceptions in Greek national historiography during the late nineteenth century brought forward new heritage paradigms. In the interwar, Athens’ Byzantine heritage was thoroughly studied, protected by special laws, and popularized to wider audiences. After the Second World War Byzantine and ancient remains were given equal attention. The nineteenth-century neoclassical legacy came to take a place in the discussion about heritage at a time when the first apartment blocks made their appearance and it, too, would be protected by special laws. Through aspects of identification, protection, and restoration of Athens’ built heritage, this paper explores the physical and discursive articulation of the city's past.

Byzantine heritage in contemporary Turkey: Research features and political significance

The article considers the politics of memory of the Turkish government in relation to the Byzantine heritage in the country and the reaction of the states whose historical narrative and identity are associated with the Byzantine Empire’s legacy. The article is based on a wide range of sources in Turkish, Greek, English and Russian. The authors believe that the Turkish policy of Islamization and the ideology of neo-Ottomanism, which are implemented by the ruling AK Party under the leadership of the President R.T. Erdogan, lead to the gradual dismantling of the remaining Byzantine heritage, which was proved by the transformation of the Monastery of the Choir and the Hagia Sophia into mosques. Turkish society, except for a few dissidents many of whom have already left the country, does not show interest in the history of Byzantium and perceives the policy of the ruling party quite pragmatically, according to the opinion polls. The international reaction to the decisions of the Turkish leadership was quite restrained and in general did not focus on Byzantium and its role in history. Thus, European politicians and researchers criticized mainly the anti-Western idea of Erdogan’s actions and rhetoric, while Greece fears mostly the revival of Ottoman imperialism and considers the Byzantine legacy as a part of Hellenism. The authors conclude that it was Russian society that defined the policy of Erdogan as the destruction of the Byzantine heritage of the Eastern Orthodox civilization (primarily due to the position of the Russian Orthodox Church), which made the Russian political leadership discuss this issue at the highest level. Moreover, in the international dimension, Ankara’s consistent policy to dismantle the Byzantine heritage affects the image and ideology of the Russian state to a greater extent than that of Greece, which is determined by the sustainable perception of Russia as the successor of the Byzantine tradition.

Public perceptions of Byzantine heritage in Türkiye

Public perceptions of Byzantine heritage in Türkiye

Russian Diplomacy in the Struggle for National Interests during World War I

Article covers a complex of the most important geopolitical questions facing Russian empire during the first global conflict of 1914-1917, and also the efforts of domestic diplomacy directed on their decision in a favorable course for the country in the conditions of a difficult confrontation of great powers. Relevance of the topic is conditioned by insufficiently deep analysis of the struggle on the diplomatic front of the First World War and superficial idea about the aims and motives of the Russian imperial government in its actions on the world arena in relation to both the enemies from the bloc of the Central Powers and the Entente allies. In the course of the research the author has traced the evolution of Russian foreign policy from the beginning of military operations to the period of revolutionary upheavals, the cause-and-effect relationships of decisions of its leadership in the course of the world conflict, and also gives an objective assessment of the results of this work in achieving the final reunification of its ethnic territories, creation and consolidation around itself of new Slavic states, realization of rights for the "Byzantine heritage".

Ambrus Miskolczy. A román középkor időszerű kérdései. Régi-új viták és közelítések

Ambrus Miskolczy. <i>A román középkor időszerű kérdései. Régi-új viták és közelítések</i>

Veronica West-Harling, Rome, Ravenna, and Venice, 750–1000. Byzantine Heritage, Imperial Present, and the Construction of City Identity. Oxford, Oxford University Press 2020

Article Veronica West-Harling, Rome, Ravenna, and Venice, 750–1000. Byzantine Heritage, Imperial Present, and the Construction of City Identity. Oxford, Oxford University Press 2020 was published on August 1, 2022 in the journal Historische Zeitschrift (volume 315, issue 1).

Rome, Ravenna and Venice, 750–1000: Byzantine Heritage, Imperial Present, and the Construction of City Identity, by Veronica West-Harling

Rome, Ravenna and Venice, 750–1000: Byzantine Heritage, Imperial Present, and the Construction of City Identity, by Veronica West-Harling

Byzantium after Byzantium? Forum

The Byzantine Empire has existed longer than all the empires that were on Earth — more than 1000 years. She created the «Byzantine Commonwealth» of countries (D. D. Obolensky’s term), stretching from the South Baltic to the Mediterranean and from the Adriatic Sea to the Caucasus Mountains. The Commonwealth countries had religious and cultural unity, a close political culture and a similar tragic fate. All of them fell victim to foreign conquest, from the Mongols to the Ottomans, and with great difficulty, centuries later, regained their sovereignty. With the death of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, its historical role did not stop. Byzantium remained a relevant historical actor for a long time, as an ideal and as a symbol, as a heritage and as a hope for the revival of its former greatness. It is not for nothing that the ideas of «lasting Rome», «New Constantinople», etc., were so popular. According to the Romanian historian Nicolae Iorga, the time of «Byzantium after Byzantium» has come, which continues to this day. In the article, historians, specialists in the history of Byzantium, consider the following questions: 1) What is «Byzantium after Byzantium»? Is it an symbolic image, is it a historical memory of a bygone empire, is it a political, spiritual, cultural ideal? Or is it a fictitious concept, Byzantium died in 1453? 2) How long did «Byzantium after Byzantium» exist? What is the chronological depth of Byzantine influence in the Balkans, in Eastern Europe? 3) There is a point of view about the «unfavorable heritage» of Byzantium — all countries belonging to the «Byzantine Commonwealth» have a difficult historical fate. Is this a fatal coincidence, or the negative influence of the «Byzantine heritage»? 4) Did Byzantium have a successor (cultural, political, spiritual)? To what extent can they consider Russia, the Balkan states?

Moscow is the Third Rome. Byzantine heritage in building the empire by the Peter the Great in XVIII c

Moscow is the Third Rome. Byzantine heritage in building the empire by the Peter the Great in XVIII c

Східне для Західних

Periodization of art as a subject of research is a challenge for writing a monograph on the region of Central and Eastern Europe. Due to the dense layering of different cultural contexts and the presence of experience that Western Europe did not have (for example, the existence of the Soviet regime), it does not allow applying the optics of traditional art history to the Eastern European region. The authors of the collective monograph Periodization in the Art Historiographies of Central and Eastern Europe joined in solving this problem, where researchers from the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland and other countries of the region analyze periodization in the art historiography of specific countries, which sheds light on the "non-linear" art history, which combines three main discourses – imperial, academic and nationalist. The authors focus their attention on such problems as the Byzantine heritage, which in the historiography of the 19th century was supposed to replace the Italian Renaissance for a number of Eastern European countries, the interaction of large Western European narratives with local Eastern European ones, a change in the view of periodization under the influence of national movements, etc. Although the articles are devoted to different problems and topics, they are united by the application of postcolonial theory to the periodization and recognition of the Central/Eastern European region as a "near Other" in relation to the Western European one. In this article, I compare the ideas highlighted in the monograph with other concepts exploring Eastern Europe from a postcolonial perspective. In the end, I come to the conclusion that all of them, taking into account the book under review, are aimed at revealing questions that interest Western researchers, namely, what is the region of Central and Eastern Europe: a colonizer, a colony, or combines both of these features. At the same time, basing on Piotrowski’s concept of "horizontal history", I argue that for the Eastern European audience, what is relevant is not the deconstruction of narratives within the boundaries of modern Central and Eastern European states, but on the contrary, tracing the intersection of different cultural contexts of neighboring countries outside the borders of national narratives, since Eastern European countries know more about the art of the West than about each other’s art.

Reflecting on Reactions to Hagia Sophia’s Reopening as a Mosque

Reflecting on Reactions to Hagia Sophia's Reopening as a Mosque Patricia Blessing (bio) and Ali Yaycıoğlu (bio) KEYWORDS Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Ottoman, Byzantine In this essay, we reflect on the conversion of Hagia Sophia from museum back to mosque in light of the discussions that have taken place since the transformation happened on 24 July 2020. Let us begin with the initial reactions to the museum-to-mosque conversion, especially in mainstream media in the US and Europe. In much of that reporting, Hagia Sophia's Byzantine past was emphasized, and narratives of Ottoman conquest connected to misleading notions of Islamic iconoclasm followed. Thus, the building's life as a church (537–1453) has obscured its history as a mosque (1453–1934). Among reactions to the 2020 transformation, writing that also carefully considered the Hagia Sophia's Ottoman context, and the fact that the building was affected by changes in Ottoman political and religious life over time, was slow to emerge.1 Why does this matter? Hagia Sophia is a Byzantine monument, it is an Ottoman monument, and it was until 2020 one of modern Turkey's most important museum-monuments. This statement should be self-apparent, yet in reactions to the museum-to-mosque conversion, Hagia Sophia at times appeared only as a Byzantine monument that has now—through the insistence of Turkey's current government, fulfilling a long-time dream of right-wing politics—turned into a mosque to the detriment of its Byzantine past. We contend that this view is mistaken because it does not take into account the entire history of the building, and it neglects the multiple and complex past(s) of both the monument and the city where it is located. Interestingly in Turkey, we have a mirror image of this one-dimensional representation of Hagia Sophia, this time as a mosque. The Ottoman conquest of the city in 1453, according to the supporters of Hagia Sophia's conversion, was seen as an almost eschatological event, resulting in the building's rebirth [End Page 197] as a spiritual monument for Muslims, rendering its earlier history irrelevant. This view becomes clear from the name of the building, which now appears as "Ayasofya-i Kebir Camii" (Grand Ayasofya Mosque) on an official website presenting cultural sites in Turkey.2 Commemorative coins issued recently use the same name with the dates 1453–2020, ignoring the first 900 years of Hagia Sophia's existence.3 Islamists saw the 1934 decision to turn the mosque into a museum during the early Turkish republic as a top-down imposition, ignoring the sensitivities of pious Muslims and also waqf law. This conquest narrative emphasizing the rebirth of the building as a mosque has, since the 1950s, been popular among different branches of Turkey's right wing political establishment. It is now also the official view of the state, the result of a larger push toward homogenizing the historical representation of Istanbul under the Islamist AKP (in alliance with the nationalist MHP). In recent years, we have seen the government pursue a political agenda based on the representation of Istanbul as a Sunni Muslim Turkish city in a Sunni Muslim Turkey, with a glorious Sunni, Muslim, Turkish and Ottoman past. This agenda belies the past and present ethnic, racial, and religious diversity of the city (and Turkey at large). An open question at the moment is whether the new administration of Istanbul under Ekrem İmamoğlu, the social democrat mayor who was elected in June 2019 after defeating a decades-old Islamist municipal government, will change this monolithic representation. The larger point concerning the suppression of Byzantine heritage goes beyond Istanbul, but is especially poignant there due to the number of extant sites, most of which have functioned as mosques since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.4 Of these sites, Hagia Sophia and the Kariye Camii/Chora Church are the only ones that had been functioning as museums until summer 2020. Soon after Hagia Sophia's reopening as a mosque, an analogous decision was taken for the Kariye Camii/Chora Church, raising fears about the fate of its fourteenth-century mosaics and wall-paintings.5 As Christina Maranci has...

The Ottomans and the Greek Landscape: The Perception of Landscape in Greece by the Ottomans and Its Impact on the Architectural and Landscape Design

The current research examines the transformation of the rural and urban landscape during the Ottoman Period across modern Greek territory and the relationship between those changes and the cultural as well as political perceptions of the Ottoman elites, from roughly 1400 to 1800. The study embraces the view of the importance of the landscape as a crucial factor in the birth and development of civilizations and it attempts to confirm this view by projecting it in intentional examples of organization of the built space in Greece, focusing, as already mentioned, on the Ottoman period. Those aforementioned examples highlight the influence of the political and cultural trends in the Ottoman court on specific landscape formations, which reflect the social structure of the Ottoman Empire and constitute at the same time, the spatial inscription of all political decisions. The methodology adopted in this research with regards to the exploration of the relationship between the building units and the natural surroundings in the selected case studies is based on the theoretical investigation of the cultural background of the Ottomans and their association to the Byzantine heritage, supplemented by in situ research in thoroughly selected case studies across Greece. The results of this combined methodological toolset attested to the fact that the Ottomans, through the use of spatial and cultural elements deriving either from their oriental background or from the local established ones, altered the spatial qualities of their surroundings in a way that the emerging political ideologies, the financial power, and the imperial glory of the Ottomans were manifested into the landscape.