The Political Dimension of Byzantine Studies

Byzantine Studies have been politicized at least since the 17th century and have played an important role in the political narratives of emerging nations in Eastern Europe and the Caucasian Region. The carving-up of the great empires of the 19th century after the Great War created a fragmented Europe with contending claims between nations and minorities legitimized through historical, linguistic and cultural arguments. Since 1924 the Byzantine Congresses have preserved Nicolae Iorga’s ambition of functioning as a bridge between scholars, disciplines, faiths and nations, also in extremely troubled times. What is the state of affairs to-day, after the break-down of the Post-Cold War order and of the global Orthodox “Commonwealth” of the 1990s and the 2000s? Since the happy days of the AIEB congresses 1991–2011? Unfortunately, since 2014, the largest Orthodox countries in the world have been at war with each other, a conflict that developed into a “Holy War” in 2022. Russian has now ceased to be one of the “official” languages of the AIEB. This should not lead us to forget the quality and importance of Russian Byzantine Scholarship (albeit some of the Byzantine studies in Russian actually was written by non-Russian scholars). Even in the period of heavy Marxist-Leninist politization very important works were written by scholars in the Soviet Union, particularly after the death of Stalin. Much research surviving on the shelves to the light at the congresses in Moscow 1991 and Copenhagen 1996. Today many scholars from Russia and Ukraine are in exile. And deep rifts have opened between neighbors and colleagues. The political instrumentalizing of history, faith, language, and culture is no less dangerous than the ideological one of the 20th century. But most important is probably to preserve the mutual respect between scholars and scepticism towards the idealization of “empires” and “civilizations”.