Download or read book The Balkans and the Byzantine World Before and After the Captures of Constantinople 1204 and 1453 written by and published by . This book was released on 2016-01-16 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers new perspectives on the history of the Byzantine Balkans and beyond--regions that lived for centuries under the long shadow of Constantinople--as well as unique insights into the complex world of late medieval and early modern southeastern Europe during a period of catastrophe.

Download or read book Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-08-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages focuses on how the heritage of Byzantium was continued and transformed alongside local developments in the artistic and cultural traditions of Eastern Europe between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Download or read book The Byzantine Republic written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2015-02-02 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Byzantium is known to history as the Eastern Roman Empire, scholars have long claimed that this Greek Christian theocracy bore little resemblance to Rome. Here, in a revolutionary model of Byzantine politics and society, Anthony Kaldellis reconnects Byzantium to its Roman roots, arguing that from the fifth to the twelfth centuries CE the Eastern Roman Empire was essentially a republic, with power exercised on behalf of the people and sometimes by them too. The Byzantine Republic recovers for the historical record a less autocratic, more populist Byzantium whose Greek-speaking citizens considered themselves as fully Roman as their Latin-speaking “ancestors.” Kaldellis shows that the idea of Byzantium as a rigid imperial theocracy is a misleading construct of Western historians since the Enlightenment. With court proclamations often draped in Christian rhetoric, the notion of divine kingship emerged as a way to disguise the inherent vulnerability of each regime. The legitimacy of the emperors was not predicated on an absolute right to the throne but on the popularity of individual emperors, whose grip on power was tenuous despite the stability of the imperial institution itself. Kaldellis examines the overlooked Byzantine concept of the polity, along with the complex relationship of emperors to the law and the ways they bolstered their popular acceptance and avoided challenges. The rebellions that periodically rocked the empire were not aberrations, he shows, but an essential part of the functioning of the republican monarchy.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c 500 1492 written by Jonathan Shepard and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-30 with total page 1228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Byzantium lasted a thousand years, ruled to the end by self-styled 'emperors of the Romans'. It underwent kaleidoscopic territorial and structural changes, yet recovered repeatedly from disaster: even after the near-impregnable Constantinople fell in 1204, variant forms of the empire reconstituted themselves. The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492 tells the story, tracing political and military events, religious controversies and economic change. It offers clear, authoritative chapters on the main events and periods, with more detailed chapters on outlying regions and neighbouring societies and powers of Byzantium. With aids such as maps, a glossary, an alternative place-name table and references to English translations of sources, it will be valuable as an introduction. However, it also offers stimulating new approaches and important findings, making it essential reading for postgraduates and for specialists. The revised paperback edition contains a new preface by the editor and will offer an invaluable companion to survey courses in Byzantine history.

Download or read book A History of Byzantium written by Timothy E. Gregory and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-08-26 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This revised and expanded edition of the widely-praised A History of Byzantium covers the time of Constantine the Great in AD 306 to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Expands treatment of the middle and later Byzantine periods, incorporating new archaeological evidence Includes additional maps and photographs, and a newly annotated, updated bibliography Incorporates a new section on web resources for Byzantium studies Demonstrates that Byzantium was important in its own right but also served as a bridge between East and West and ancient and modern society Situates Byzantium in its broader historical context with a new comparative timeline and textboxes

Download or read book The Expansion of Orthodox Europe written by Jonathan Shepard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume aims to clarify the context for the expansion of Western Europe by focusing on what had been the greatest power in early medieval Europe, the Byzantine empire, and on the continuing strengths and expansion of the Orthodox world. Byzantine 'orthodoxy' offered a format for faith, hope and fear in various combinations, involving religious beliefs and an idealised world-order. Its multifaceted nature helps explain Byzantium's success - the resilience of the earthly empire and the appeal of its religious organisation and rites to other societies. The volume reprints a set of key studies, combining classic treatments of Byzantine and Slavic history with far-reaching explorations of the extent of those worlds. Part I focuses on the empire in its heyday: some studies illustrate the sense of manifest destiny bolstering the imperial order until - and even beyond - Constantinople's fall to the fourth crusaders in 1204. The spread of the Byzantines' cult enlarged their trading zone northwards across Rus, while Byzantine-based merchants were more active than is generally realised in the Eastern Mediterranean. Part II includes an overview of the 'fragmentation' following 1204. Studies show how Byzantine rites and ideals of rulership were adopted by Serb and Bulgarian dynasts. Particular attention is paid to Rus: although subjugated by the Mongols, Rus churchmen, monks and leading princes all drew on Byzantine religious texts and imagery. From the later fifteenth century Moscow's rulers began to be portrayed as new guardians of religious correctness, even as the World's End supposedly drew nigh. The Introduction contextualises the studies included here, highlighting the significance (and not just in terms of rivalry) of the Byzantine Orthodox world for developments in Western Europe.

Download or read book Byzantium written by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2004 with total page 682 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fall of the Byzantine capital of Constantinople to the Latin West in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade abruptly interrupted nearly nine hundred years of artistic and cultural traditions. In 1261, however, the Byzantine general Michael VIII Palaiologos triumphantly re-entered Constantinople and reclaimed the seat of the empire, initiating a resurgence of art and culture that would continue for nearly three hundred years, not only in the waning empire itself but also among rival Eastern Christian nations eager to assume its legacy. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), and the groundbreaking exhibition that it accompanies, explores the artistic and cultural flowering of the last centuries of the "Empire of the Romans" and its enduring heritage. Conceived as the third of a trio of exhibitions dedicated to a fuller understanding of the art of the Byzantine Empire, whose influence spanned more than a millennium, "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557)" follows the 1997 landmark presentation of "The Glory of Byzantium," which focused on the art and culture of the Middle Byzantine era—the Second Golden Age of the Byzantine Empire (843–1261). In the late 1970s, "The Age of Spirituality" explored the early centuries of Byzantium's history. The present concluding segment explores the exceptional artistic accomplishments of an era too often considered in terms of political decline. Magnificent works—from splendid frescoes, textiles, gilded metalwork, and mosaics to elaborately decorated manuscripts and liturgical objects—testify to the artistic and intellectual vigor of the Late and Post-Byzantine era. In addition, forty magnificent icons from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt, join others from leading international institutions in a splendid gathering of these powerful religious images. While the political strength of the empire weakened, the creativity and learning of Byzantium spread father than ever before. The exceptional works of secular and religious art produced by Late Byzantine artists were emulated and transformed by other Eastern Christian centers of power, among them Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Cilician Armenia. The Islamic world adapted motifs drawn from Byzantium's imperial past, as Christian minorities in the Muslin East continued Byzantine customs. From Italy to the Lowlands, Byzantium's artistic and intellectual practices deeply influenced the development of the Renaissance, while, in turn, Byzantium's own traditions reflected the empire's connections with the Latin West. Fine examples of these interrelationships are illustrated by important panel paintings, ceramics, and illuminated manuscripts, among other objects. In 1557 the "Empire of the Romans," as its citizens knew it, which had fallen to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, was renamed Byzantium by the German scholar Hieronymus Wolf. The cultural and historical interaction and mutual influence of these major cultures—the Latin West and the Christian and Islamic East—during this fascinating period are investigated in this publication by a renowned group of international scholars in seventeen major essays and catalogue discussions of more than 350 exhibited objects.

Download or read book The Eagle Has Two Faces written by Alex Billinis and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Double Headed Eagle, the symbol of the Late Byzantine Empire, speaks eloquently to the worldview of the Byzantines, whose Empire looked both to the East and to the West, but never wasor isreally part of either. At its apogee, the Byzantine Empire was the highest civilization in Europethe Center. This Double Headed Eagle is cherished by the Balkan Orthodox successors to Byzantium, and versions of it grace the national flags of Serbia, Montenegro, and even Albania. Encroached upon by both the Muslim East and the Catholic West, the Byzantine Eagle succumbed, only to emerge, in a state of arrested development, after several hundred years of Turkish or Western Catholic rule. This stunted progression emerges time and again in the civic culture, architecture, economics, and politics of the region, and has direct relevance on political and economic issues today, including Greeces present financial malaise, and the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Traveling through this Ex-Byzantine zone, Billinis offers history, architecture, personal experiences, and numerous anecdotes to expound on key central themes. First, that the Balkan Orthodox nations form a common culture and virtual commonwealth, while still maintaining ethnic, geographical, and linguistic diversity. Without understanding this common Byzantine base, it is impossible to appreciate and to understand the region. Second, the common experience of Turkish rule, while preserving Byzantine culture and insulating the Orthodox religion from Catholic encroachment, did so by cutting off Byzantine Europe from economic, political, cultural, and civic development in progress in Western Europe. The states that emerged from this condition wereand areill prepared to contribute and to compete in modern Europe, and in a globalized world. Finally, throughout, there is a sense that history, rather than linear, runs in a circular form, and that history once again encroaches on the lands of the Double Headed Eagle.

Download or read book The Uses of the Middle Ages in Modern European States written by R. Evans and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An assessment of the role of the Middle Ages in national historiography and in modern conceptions of national identity, looking at relatively young nations, and regions which claim national traditions but were slow to achieve, or regain, separate statehood. Examples range from Ireland and Iceland through Austria and Italy to Finland and Greece.

Download or read book Identities and Allegiances in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204 written by Judith Herrin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-17 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume of studies explores a particularly complex period in Byzantine history, the thirteenth century, from the Fourth Crusade to the recapture of Constantinople by exiled leaders from Nicaea. During this time there was no Greek state based on Constantinople and so no Byzantine Empire by traditional definition. Instead, a Venetian/Frankish alliance ruled from the capital, while many smaller states also claimed the mantle of Byzantium. Even after 1261 when the Latin Empire of Constantinople was replaced by a restored Greek state, political fragmentation persisted. This fragmentation makes the study of individuals more difficult but also more valuable than ever before, and this volume demonstrates the very considerable advances in historical understanding that may be gained from prosopographical approaches. Specialist historians of the Byzantine successor states of the period, and of their most important neighbours, here examine the self-projection and interactions of these states, combining military history and diplomacy, commercial and theological contacts, and the experiences and self-description of individuals. This wide-ranging series of articles uses a great diversity of sources - Arabic, Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, Latin, Persian and Serbian - to exploit the potential of the novel methodology employed and of prosopography as an additional historical tool of analysis.

Download or read book Heavenly Serbia written by Branimir Anzulovic and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1999-03 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As violence and turmoil continue to define the former Yugoslavia, basic questions remain unanswered: What are the forces behind the Serbian expansionist drive that has brought death and destruction to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo? How did the Serbs rationalize, and rally support for, this genocidal activity? Heavenly Serbia traces Serbia's nationalist and expansionist impulses to the legendary battle of Kosovo in 1389. Anzulovic shows how the myth of "Heavenly Serbia" developed to help the Serbs endure foreign domination, explaining their military defeat and the loss of their medieval state by emphasizing their own moral superiority over military victory. Heavenly Serbia shows how this myth resulted in an aggressive nationalist ideology which has triumphed in the late twentieth century and marginalized those Serbs who strive for the establishment of a civil society. "Modern Serbian nationalism...and its contradictory connections...have been sources of considerable scholarly interest...Branimir Anzulovic's compendium is a good example of the genre, made all the more useful by Anzulovic's excellent command of the literature." --Ivo Banac, History of Religions Author interview with CNN: http: //www.cnn.com/chat/transcripts/branimir_chat.html

Download or read book The Serbs and Byzantium During the Reign of Tsar Stephen Du an 1331 1355 and His Successors written by George Christos Soulis and published by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library & Collection. This book was released on 1984 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Muslim Croat Civil War in Bosnia written by Charles R. Shrader and published by Texas A&M University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Shrader's work is a detailed, meticulous, analysis by a neutral expert, not everyone will find his conclusions comfortable. But every serious student of the conflict in Bosnia will have to take his history into account. Enhanced by maps, useful appendices, and a glossary, this should become the standard work on military operations in Central Bosnia and a useful case study of internal warfare and ethnic conflict.

Download or read book Romanland written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-01 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading historian argues that in the empire we know as Byzantium, the Greek-speaking population was actually Roman, and scholars have deliberately mislabeled their ethnicity for the past two centuries for political reasons. Was there ever such a thing as Byzantium? Certainly no emperor ever called himself “Byzantine.” And while the identities of minorities in the eastern empire are clear—contemporaries speak of Slavs, Bulgarians, Armenians, Jews, and Muslims—that of the ruling majority remains obscured behind a name made up by later generations. Historical evidence tells us unequivocally that Byzantium’s ethnic majority, no less than the ruler of Constantinople, would have identified as Roman. It was an identity so strong in the eastern empire that even the conquering Ottomans would eventually adopt it. But Western scholarship has a long tradition of denying the Romanness of Byzantium. In Romanland, Anthony Kaldellis investigates why and argues that it is time for the Romanness of these so-called Byzantines to be taken seriously. In the Middle Ages, he explains, people of the eastern empire were labeled “Greeks,” and by the nineteenth century they were shorn of their distorted Greekness and became “Byzantine.” Only when we understand that the Greek-speaking population of Byzantium was actually Roman will we fully appreciate the nature of Roman ethnic identity. We will also better understand the processes of assimilation that led to the absorption of foreign and minority groups into the dominant ethnic group, the Romans who presided over the vast multiethnic empire of the east.

Download or read book The Serbs written by Sima M. Cirkovic and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sweeping history of the Serbian people starts with the settlement of the Slavs on the Balkan Peninsula in the seventh century and ends with the dissolution of Yugoslavia at the end of the twentieth century. A comprehensive survey of the development of the Serbian nation. Provides the background history of the Serbs, essential to understanding their current situation. Traces the history of the Serbian people from the seventh through to the late twentieth century. Focuses on the process of integration and disintegration which have characterised Serbian history. Pays detailed attention to socio-economic history.

Download or read book Byzantium Rediscovered written by J. B. Bullen and published by Phaidon Press. This book was released on 2006-04-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The revival of the art and architecture of the Byzantine Empire.

Download or read book Sailing from Byzantium written by Colin Wells and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege…. Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than a thousand years. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer and Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Aeschylus, would never have survived. Yet very few of us have any idea of the enormous debt we owe them. The story of Byzantium is a real-life adventure of electrifying ideas, high drama, colorful characters, and inspiring feats of daring. In Sailing from Byzantium, Colin Wells tells of the missionaries, mystics, philosophers, and artists who against great odds and often at peril of their own lives spread Greek ideas to the Italians, the Arabs, and the Slavs. Their heroic efforts inspired the Renaissance, the golden age of Islamic learning, and Russian Orthodox Christianity, which came complete with a new alphabet, architecture, and one of the world’s greatest artistic traditions. The story’s central reference point is an arcane squabble called the Hesychast controversy that pitted humanist scholars led by the brilliant, acerbic intellectual Barlaam against the powerful monks of Mount Athos led by the stern Gregory Palamas, who denounced “pagan” rationalism in favor of Christian mysticism. Within a few decades, the light of Byzantium would be extinguished forever by the invading Turks, but not before the humanists found a safe haven for Greek literature. The controversy of rationalism versus faith would continue to be argued by some of history’s greatest minds. Fast-paced, compulsively readable, and filled with fascinating insights, Sailing from Byzantium is one of the great historical dramas–the gripping story of how the flame of civilization was saved and passed on.