| Summary: |
The legacy and the perception of Byzantium in modern and contemporary
South-Eastern Europe have scarcely been examined as such.
Nicolas Iorga's famous "Byzantium after Byzantium" (1932)
has influenced historical research on the topic for a long time.
Iorga argued that up to the beginning of the 19th century, Romanian
aristocrats of Byzantine origin incarnated Byzantium "not only
in its exterior aspects, but also in its essence". After 1800,
the "perennial eternity of Byzantium" was first shaken
by the spread of Enlightenment ideas in the Balkans, before being
overturned by the emergence of nationalism. According to this Romanian
historian, the Greek war of independence, starting in 1821, put
a definite end to a "Byzantium" that had survived for
four centuries after the fall of Constantinople.
However, it seems to us that the emergence of new sovereign states
in the 19th and 20th centuries cannot be seen as a breaking-off
point. It rather led to as many appropriations of Byzantium, to
different memories, to denials of Byzantium but also to the idea
of a common heritage. What do we know about the direct heirs, those
living on the former lands of the Byzantine Empire or in territories
which were thoroughly influenced by the vicinity of the basileus
in Constantinople during the Middle Ages? What exactly constitutes
the Byzantine heritage of South-Eastern Europe? If one considers
the Great Idea of Greece, the 20th-century Balkan wars, the politics
adopted by Orthodox churches and the (re-)writing of national histories,
one wonders if the Byzantine legacy did ever cease to play a crucial
role in South-Eastern Europe.
Two collections of essays, although little-known, should be mentioned
here as pioneering books, one edited by L. Clucas (The Byzantine
Legacy in Eastern Europe, 1988), the other by J. J. Yiannias (The
Byzantine Tradition After the Fall of Constantinople, 1991). However,
these studies focus mainly on the Byzantine influence in Russia,
Greece and on the history of art. Several historians, on the other
hand, have carried out research on the case of Greece (e.g. Ricks
& Magdalino, 1998, as well as studies by Sp. Vryonis, P. Kitromilides,
and R. Argyropoulos) and Romania, where Iorga's thesis has been
debated again and again (by A. Pippidi, for instance). Recently,
other studies have also considered the "neo-byzantinisms"
of intellectual elites deprived of any genuine cultural links with
Byzantium elsewhere in Europe (on Great Britain: Cormack & Jeffreys,
2000; on Western Europe in general: Auzépy, 2003; on European
literature: Konstantinou, 1998; on architecture: Bullen, 2003).
It seems to us that this topic deserves to be reconsidered, using
a comparative approach, and looking at the South-Eastern European
region as a whole. We would welcome contributions along the following
lines: Byzantium and the ethnogenesis of South-Eastern European
nations; ways in which nation-states have used Byzantium politically
and ideologically; the national churches and the Byzantine legacy;
Byzantine culture and the concept of national heritage. The chronological
field is large, ranging from the 18th century to the present.
We hope that the Athens conference will contribute to a thorough
reflection on the continuation, rediscovery and reinvention of Byzantium
in South-Eastern Europe.
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