Byzantium's Balkan Frontier

Byzantium's Balkan Frontier PDF Author: Paul Stephenson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521770173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Byzantium's Balkan Frontier is the first narrative history in English of the northern Balkans in the tenth to twelfth centuries. Where previous histories have been concerned principally with the medieval history of distinct and autonomous Balkan nations, this study regards Byzantine political authority as a unifying factor in the various lands which formed the empire's frontier in the north and west. It takes as its central concern Byzantine relations with all Slavic and non-Slavic peoples - including the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Hungarians - in and beyond the Balkan Peninsula, and explores in detail imperial responses, first to the migrations of nomadic peoples, and subsequently to the expansion of Latin Christendom. It also examines the changing conception of the frontier in Byzantine thought and literature through the middle Byzantine period.

Byzantium's Balkan Frontier

Byzantium's Balkan Frontier PDF Author: Paul Stephenson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521770173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

Get Book Here

Book Description
Byzantium's Balkan Frontier is the first narrative history in English of the northern Balkans in the tenth to twelfth centuries. Where previous histories have been concerned principally with the medieval history of distinct and autonomous Balkan nations, this study regards Byzantine political authority as a unifying factor in the various lands which formed the empire's frontier in the north and west. It takes as its central concern Byzantine relations with all Slavic and non-Slavic peoples - including the Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians and Hungarians - in and beyond the Balkan Peninsula, and explores in detail imperial responses, first to the migrations of nomadic peoples, and subsequently to the expansion of Latin Christendom. It also examines the changing conception of the frontier in Byzantine thought and literature through the middle Byzantine period.

Emergent Elites and Byzantium in the Balkans and East-Central Europe

Emergent Elites and Byzantium in the Balkans and East-Central Europe PDF Author: Jonathan Shepard
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040237657
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
According to Byzantium's leaders, their imperial order anchored in Constantinople was the centre of excellence - spiritual, moral, material and aesthetic. They rewarded individuals willing to join, and favoured outside groupings prepared to cooperate militarily or politically. Interactions with outsiders varied over place and time, complicated by the sometimes differing priorities of Byzantine churchmen and monks on or beyond Byzantium's borders. These studies consider the dynamics of such interactions, notably the interrelationship between the Bulgarians and their Byzantine neighbour. The Bulgarians' reaction to Byzantium ranged from 'contrarianism' to the systematic adaptation of Byzantine religious orthodoxy, ideals of rulership and normative values after Khan Boris' acceptance of eastern Christianity. For their part, Byzantine rulers were readier to do business with their Bulgarian counterparts than official pronouncements let on, occasionally even adopting aspects of Bulgarian political culture. Byzantium's interrelationship with other ruling elites was less intensive, but the process of Christianisation and the need to format this in readily comprehensible terms could make even distant potentates look to the template of effective Christian sole rulership which Byzantium's rulers embodied. Hungarian and Rus leaders were of abiding geopolitical interest to imperial statecraft, and the studies here show how during the generations around 1000 Byzantine political imagery resonated throughout the region.

The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer

The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer PDF Author: Paul Stephenson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521815307
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
The reign of Basil II (976-1025), the longest of any Byzantine emperor, has long been considered as a 'golden age', in which his greatest achievement was the annexation of Bulgaria. This, we have been told, was achieved through a long and bloody war of attrition which won Basil the grisly epithet Voulgartoktonos, 'the Bulgar-slayer'. In this new study Paul Stephenson argues that neither of these beliefs is true. Instead, Basil fought far more sporadically in the Balkans and his reputation as 'Bulgar-slayer' was created only a century and a half later. Thereafter the 'Bulgar-slayer' was periodically to play a galvanizing role for the Byzantines, returning to centre-stage as Greeks struggled to establish a modern nation state. As Byzantium was embraced as the Greek past by scholars and politicians, the 'Bulgar-slayer' became an icon in the struggle for Macedonia (1904-8) and the Balkan Wars (1912-13).

Byzantium and the Pechenegs

Byzantium and the Pechenegs PDF Author: Mykola Melnyk
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004505229
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
The author traces 150 years of the study of relations between Byzantium and various North Pontic nomads, with particular attention to how colonialist or national aspirations often triggered, hampered, biased, or otherwise influenced scholarship.

Cultural Encounters on Byzantium's Northern Frontier, c. AD 500–700

Cultural Encounters on Byzantium's Northern Frontier, c. AD 500–700 PDF Author: Andrei Gandila
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108679013
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 397

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Book Description
In the sixth century, Byzantine emperors secured the provinces of the Balkans by engineering a frontier system of unprecedented complexity. Drawing on literary, archaeological, anthropological, and numismatic sources, Andrei Gandila argues that cultural attraction was a crucial component of the political frontier of exclusion in the northern Balkans. If left unattended, the entire edifice could easily collapse under its own weight. Through a detailed analysis of the archaeological evidence, the author demonstrates that communities living beyond the frontier competed for access to Byzantine goods and reshaped their identity as a result of continual negotiation, reinvention, and hybridization. In the hands of 'barbarians', Byzantine objects, such as coins, jewelry, and terracotta lamps, possessed more than functional or economic value, bringing social prestige, conveying religious symbolism embedded in the iconography, and offering a general sense of sharing in the Early Byzantine provincial lifestyle.

The Balkans

The Balkans PDF Author: D. Hupchick
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0312299133
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
The tragedies of Bosnia and Kosovo are often explained away as the unchangeable legacy of 'centuries-old hatreds'. In this richly detailed, expertly balanced chronicle of the Balkans across fifteen centuries, Hupchick sets a complicated record straight. Organized around the three great civilizations of the region - Western European, Orthodox Christian and Muslim - this is a much-needed guide to the political, social, cultural and religious threads of Balkan history, with a clear, convincing account of the reasons for nationalist violence and terror.

The Oxford History of Byzantium

The Oxford History of Byzantium PDF Author: Cyril Mango
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198140983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Byzantium linked the ancient and modern worlds, shaping traditions and handing down to both Eastern and Western civilization a vibrant legacy. The Oxford History of Byzantium is the only history to provide in concise form detailed historical coverage from the Roman beginnings to the fall of Constantinople and assimilation into the Turkish Empire. Against a backdrop of stories of emperors, intrigues, battles, and bishops the contributors to this beautifully illustratedvolume explore everyday life in cities and villages, manufacture and trade, machinery of government, the church as an instrument of state, minorities, education, literary activity, beliefs and superstitions, monasticism, iconoclasm, the rise of Islam, and the fusion with Western, or Latin, culture.

Rival Byzantiums

Rival Byzantiums PDF Author: Diana Mishkova
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108604110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This is a comprehensive comparative view of the way the phenomenon of Byzantium has been treated by the historiographies of the polities that have emerged from its remains – Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia and Turkey – from the Enlightenment to the present day. Synthesising a sprawling mass of material largely unknown to academic audiences, it highlights the important place Byzantium's representations occupy in the identity building and historical consciousness in that part of Europe. The diverse interpretations of the Byzantine phenomenon across and within these historiographic traditions are scrutinised against the backdrop of shifting geopolitical and cultural contexts, in constant dialogue and competition with each other and in communication with extra-regional, western and Russian, academic currents. The book will be of value to medieval historians, Byzantinists and historians of historiography as well as students of and specialists in modern politics, cultural and intellectual history.

The Balkans and the Byzantine World before and after the Captures of Constantinople, 1204 and 1453

The Balkans and the Byzantine World before and after the Captures of Constantinople, 1204 and 1453 PDF Author: Vlada Stankovic
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498513263
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
This book represents the first attempt to analyze historical and cultural developments in late medieval and early modern southeastern Europe as a set of mutually intertwined regional histories, burdened by the strong dichotomy between the almighty center—Constantinople—and the periphery that is rarely visible in both contemporary sources and modern scholarship. This mosaic of original studies is devoted to various regions of the Byzantine Balkans and their historical, artistic, and ideological idiosyncrasies, mirroring the complex character and composite and fragmented structure of this vast region. The focal points of the book are the two captures of Constantinople in 1204 and 1453, and the contributors analyze the significance of these catastrophic events on the political destiny of medieval Balkan societies, the mechanisms of adapting to the new political order, and the ever-present interconnectedness of a lower, regional elite across southeastern Europe that had remained strong even after the Ottoman conquest.

The Wars of the Balkan Peninsula

The Wars of the Balkan Peninsula PDF Author: Alexandru Madgearu
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
ISBN: 9780810858466
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
The Balkan Peninsula is often referred to as the "powder keg of Europe," but it is more accurately described as the "melting pot of Europe." In The Wars of the Balkan Peninsula: Their Medieval Origins, Alexandru Madgearu discusses the ethnic heterogeneity in modern-day Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia and traces its history. Madgearu examines the historical evolution that led to the genesis of several conflicts in the Balkans. The affected areas and associated events have transformed the Balkan Peninsula into an intricate ethnic mosaic, where no single group of people has the majority. The various ethnic and religious differences these groups possess have survived the many occupations of this land over the years, whether by the Roman, Byzantine, or Ottoman Empires, and then became manifest when the modern Balkan states were created. With the dissolution of the strong outside forces once dominating the area, the Balkan states-prompted by political propaganda and nationalist ideologies-then used history to support territorial claims, defend ethnic-cleansing actions, and justify conflicts with other countries. The Wars of the Balkan Peninsula argues that the current ethnic structure is the basis for the solution of the disputes between the Balkan states and that history should be used to explain, not legitimize, the conflicts. Book jacket.