This study examines how Byzantium was represented in nineteenth-century newspapers and how these references shaped popular perceptions of the Eastern Roman Empire. The study treats newspapers as a medium through which historical knowledge circulated beyond academic audiences. The analysis identifies three main contexts in which Byzantium appeared: as a stereotype (often associated with decadence, flattery,…
This study explores late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ottoman engagement with Byzantine heritage through the lens of the emerging and increasingly politicized concept of vatan (homeland). It argues that the apparent contradiction between the persistent denigration of Byzantium in Ottoman political histories and the simultaneous preservation, appropriation, and valorization of Byzantine material culture constituted a…
This contribution examines how the story about the medieval Norwegian king, often called Sigurd the Crusader or Jorsalfare, is used in diachronic transmedia storytelling in examples from the early thirteenth, late nineteenth to early twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It discusses how King Sigurd’s stay in Constantinople during his journey to Jerusalem (1108–1111 CE), particularly…
This paper examines the ways in which the Byzantine Empire is represented and reinterpreted in comics, considering the medium as a space of cultural mediation rather than a vehicle of popularization. Through a series of case studies – from Disney comics and the Franco-Belgian magazine Pilote to Greek, German, and Japanese productions – it explores…