Rival Byzantiums
Empire and Identity in Southeastern Europe

Explores the treatment of Byzantium by the historiographies of the polities that have emerged from its remains since the Enlightenment.

Diana Mishkova (Author)

9781108499903, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 December 2022

300 pages
23.6 x 15.9 x 2.5 cm, 0.68 kg

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.

Introduction
Part I. On the Road to the Grand Narratives: 1. Precursors: The historiography of the enlightenment
2. The century of history: Byzantium in the budding national-historical canons
3. In search of the 'scientific method'
4. Between Byzantine studies and metahistory
5. Byzantium in Ottoman and early Republican Turkish historiography
Part II. Metamorphoses of Byzantium after World War II: 6. From Helleno-Christian civilisation to Roman nation
7. Towards 'Slavo-Byzantina' and 'pax Symeonica': Bulgarian scripts
8. How Byzantine is Serbia?
9. Post-Byzantine empire or Romanian national state?
10. In the fold of the 'Turkish-Islamic Synthesis'
Epilogue and conclusion.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]