Approaching Byzantium: Identity, Predicament and Afterlife

The attempts to interpret Russian and Southeast European history in light of a Byzantine background tend to focus on traditions of political culture, and to claim that patterns characteristic of the late Roman Empire have had a formative impact on later developments. But the effects attributed to po...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThesis eleven Vol. 62; no. 1; pp. 39 - 69
Main Author Arnason, Johann P.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published SAGE Publications 01.08.2000
Subjects
Antiquity
Christianity
Civilization
Empires
Historicism
Historiography
History
Identity
Political culture
Roman Empire
Byzantium
empire
caesaropapism
Christianity
civilization
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Summary:The attempts to interpret Russian and Southeast European history in light of a Byzantine background tend to focus on traditions of political culture, and to claim that patterns characteristic of the late Roman Empire have had a formative impact on later developments. But the effects attributed to political culture presuppose a civilizational framework, and arguments on that level must come to grips with evidence of historical discontinuity, during the Byzantine millennium as well as in later centuries and on the periphery of the Byzantium cultural world. The path to a historically grounded civilizational analysis is, however, obstructed by persisting images of Byzantium as a stagnant culture, immobilized by a complete fusion of secular and sacred authority. The article discusses and criticizes some of the most influential versions of this view.
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ISSN:0725-5136
1461-7455
DOI:10.1177/0725513600062000004