Imagining Byzantium: Perceptions, Patterns, Problems

Byzanz das Andere. Byzanz das Pompöse. Byzanz das Ewige. Die bloße Existenz dieses Reiches mit seiner reichen Geschichte und seiner Andersartigkeit zu westeuropäischen Traditionen beflügelte den Geist von Gelehrten, Adligen, Politikern und den einfachen Menschen während seines Andauerns bis weit über seinen Untergang im Jahr 1453 hinaus. Schriftsteller der Aufklärung vernachlässigten den weitreichenden politischen und kulturellen Einfluss von Byzanz auf seine Nachbarländer und beraubten dem Reich darüber hinaus seiner ursprünglichen historischen Realität. So wurde ein Modell geschaffen, das in allzu unterschiedlichen Konstrukten verwendet werden konnte und sich von positiven bis zu höchst negativen Konnotationen erstreckte. Mit dem Aufkommen neuer Nationalismen, vor allem in Ost- und Südosteuropa und den damit verbundenen politisch inspirierten historischen (Re-) Konstruktionen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert gewann die Rezeption und die Wahrnehmung von Byzanz neue Facetten. In diesem Band möchten wir diese Muster und die damit verbundenen Probleme näher beleuchten sowie die verschiedenen Arten aufzeigen, wie »Byzanz« als Argumentationsgrundlage für die Nationsbildung und die Konstruktion neuer historiographischer Erzählungen verwendet wurde und wie darüber hinaus sein Erbe in der kirchlichen Geschichtsschreibung fortdauerte. Cover Titelei Table of Contents Preface Jan Kusber: Imagining Byzantium: An Introduction Günter Prinzing: Byzantium, Medieval Russia and the So-called Family of Kings. From George Ostrogorsky to Franz Dölger’s Construct and its Critics Hans-Christian Maner: »Byzance après Byzance« – Nicolae Iorga’s Concept and its Aftermath Dimitris Stamatopoulos: The Western Byzantium of Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos Przemysław Marciniak: Oriental like Byzantium Some Remarks on Similarities Between Byzantinism and Orientalism Kirill Maksimovič: The Collection of Byzantine Can on Law (»Kniga pravil«, 1839) as a Legal Basis for the Russian Orthodox Church in the 19th and 20th Centuries: Paradoxes, Problems and Perspectives Alena Alshanskaya: The Reception of Byzantium in Russian Church Historiography Dimitrios Moschos: Approaching the Byzantine Past in the Historical Work of Dositheos of Jerusalem and Meletios of Athens Christina Hadjiafxenti: Byzantium in Greek Church Historiography of the 19th Century: Between German Protestant Influence and Greek Orthodox Confession Mihai-D. Grigore: Byzantium for Priests. Image of Byzantium in Romanian Theological Textbooks of the Late 20th Century Lora Gerd: Russian Imperial Policy in the Orthodox East and its Relation to Byzantine Studies Andreas Gietzen: Bad Byzantines: A Historical Narrative in the Liberal Conception of Vladimir Jovanović Aleksandar Ignjatović: Negotiating National Prospects by Capturing the Medieval Past: Byzantium in Serbian Architectural History at the Turn of the 20th Century Stefan Rohdewald: Byzantine »Slavery« as Postcolonial Imagination: »Foreign« Rulers of a »Pure« Bulgarian Nation (1850-1930) Sigles Used Rückcover Byzantium the other. Byzantium the pompous. Byzantium the eternal. The mere existence of this empire with his rich history and otherness from western European traditions spurred the minds of scholars, noblemen, politicians and ordinary people throughout its survival and long beyond its final downfall in 1453. Neglecting its great political and cultural influence on neighbouring countries and beyond, Enlightenment writers stripped Byzantium of its original historical reality and thus created a model, which could be utilised in very different constructs, stretching from positive to absolutely negative connotations. With the rise of new nationalisms, primarily in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, and the associated politically inspired historical (re)constructions in the 19th and 20th century, the reception of Byzantium gained new facets, its perception reached into new dimensions. In this volume, we would like to shed some light on these patterns and the problems they entail, and show the different ways in which »Byzantium« was used as an argument in nation-building and in constructing new historiographical narratives, and how ist legacy endured in ecclesiastical historiography "This volume edited by Antje Bosselmann-Ruickbie comprises thirteen papers from the conference "New Research on Late Byzantine Goldsmiths' Works (13th to 15th Centuries)", held in the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz in October 2015. The contributions primarily deal with the material culture of goldsmiths' works, such as crosses, reliquary caskets, jewellery, enamel works, and precious stones, spanning the wide geographical area of Byzantium and many of its neighbours, from Russia via Trebizond and Serbia to Crete. Furthermore, written sources on Byzantine goldsmiths, their craft and the provenance of precious metals provide evidence for goldsmithing in Byzantium throughout its history."-- Schnell + Steiner website The contributions to this book are concerned with the material culture of goldsmiths’ works: crosses, reliquary caskets, jewellery, enamel works and precious stones, spanning the geographical area of Byzantium and many of its neighbours, from Russia via Trebizond and Serbia to Crete.