Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. xxx-18
Author(s):  
Ellen C. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Byzantine Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Mediterranean World

The introduction to this handbook explains the scope and purpose of Byzantine art, architecture and visual culture from 330 to 1453, across the Eastern Mediterranean world, including Italy and the Balkans, Russia, and the Middle East. It begins with an overview of the role of the arts in religious and secular life, and explains the periodicization of the field into Early, Middle and Late phases as a useful way to consider these artistic productions. It presents the development in scholarly approaches that flow from the beginning phase of Byzantine art history when modern scholars were first discovering the wealth of Byzantine materials, to the later analysis and interpretation of the arts in their historical roles, and finally to the contemporary use of newer (including scientific) techniques and interdisciplinary approaches often incorporating methods from other fields. Consideration of the arts after 1453 that continue to show Byzantine influence is included. Dissemination of information including publications, digital opportunities and display in collections and exhibitions is discussed. The section presents information about the authors, the use of the handbook, and offers thoughts for future exploration in the field of Byzantine art.

Studying Russian Icons on the Balkans

Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5 (103)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Yuliana Boycheva
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Cultural Transfer ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Art Objects ◽  
Ideological Influence ◽  
South Eastern Europe ◽  
Private Donations

The Russian religious artefacts - icons, liturgical utensils, veils, vestments and books and objects of private piety, held in museums and church or monastery collections in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean constitute a body of valuable art objects, and important material evidences related to the historical development of the relations between Russia and large region of South-Eastern Europe. This piety objects comes continually to the region for a long period through official, unofficial and private donations, or by pilgrimage and trade. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent theoretically challenging openings of art history into visual studies and social anthropology RICONTRANS studies them not simply as religious or artistic artefacts, but as mediums of cultural transfer and political and ideological influence, which interacted with and were appropriated by receiving societies. Their transfer and reception is a significant and poorly studied component of the larger cultural process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways.

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean Region ◽  
Reception Theory ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Byzantine Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Object Based ◽  
Byzantine Period ◽  
Art And Architecture

The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture offers a wide-ranging introduction to the richness and diversity of the arts in the Byzantine world. It includes thirty-eight essays by an international roster of authors, from prominent researchers to emerging scholars, on various issues and media. Discussions consider art created for religious purposes, to enhance and beautify the Orthodox liturgy and worship space, as well as art made to serve in royal and domestic contexts. While the Byzantine period is defined as the years 330–1453 ce, some chapters treat the aftermath and influence of Byzantine art on later periods. Arts covered include buildings and objects from the Eastern Mediterranean region, including Italy, the Balkans, Russia, and the Near East. The volume brings together object-based considerations of themes and monuments that form the backbone of art history, with considerations drawing on many different methodologies—sociology, semiotics, anthropology, archaeology, reception theory, deconstruction theory, among others—all in an up-to-date synthesis of scholarship on Byzantine art and architecture. The handbook is a comprehensive overview of a rich field of study, offering a window into the world of this distinct and fascinating period of art.

The Great War of the Postcards

2021 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 525-568
Author(s):  
Johann Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
Great War ◽  
World War ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Book Illustrations ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Great War

This article examines the functions and the significance of picture postcards during World War I, with particular reference to the war in the Ottoman Lands and the Balkans, or involving the Turkish Army in Galicia. After the principal types of Kriegspostkarten – sentimental, humorous, propaganda, and artistic postcards (Künstlerpostkarten) – have been presented, the different theatres of war (Balkans, Galicia, Middle East) and their characteristic features as they are reflected on postcards are dealt with. The piece also includes aspects such as the influence of Orientalism, the problem of fake views, and the significance and the impact of photographic postcards, portraits, and photo cards. The role of postcards in book illustrations is demonstrated using a typical example (F. C. Endres, Die Türkei (1916)). The specific features of a collection of postcards left by a German soldier who served in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq during World War I will be presented at the end of this article.

Alternative Remembrances

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Nour K. Sacranie
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Critical Material ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
Art Scene ◽  
Post War

Memory of the civil war in Lebanon is fractured if not completely broken, and its history remains officially unwritten. A lack of reconciliation or peace-building initiatives suggests that the causes for the conflict have simply been masked or ignored rather than cured. Existing scholarship has examined the absence of a national collective memory or unified history in Lebanon, with some speculation that the persistent fault lines in the country’s multi-factional and multi-religious society may lead to a relapse of the violence. While there have been some curatorial endeavors in the field, little popular criticism and even less academic writing focuses on contemporary visual culture in Lebanon or the wider Middle East. It is only in recent years that due attention has been paid to the vibrant art scene in the region, and the dearth in critical material has been addressed. With this in mind, this paper aims to contribute to the wider burgeoning conversation about critical art practices in the Middle East. In analyzing the work of three Lebanese ‘post-war’ artists, questions about the nature of wartime history and memory are asked in relation to visual culture. The article asks what art is doing in the context of Lebanese post-war society, and while it may not be possible to answer this question fully, there is an underlying need to re-evaluate the way the arts are viewed in contemporary discourse, as pioneered by Jacques Ranciere and Jill Bennet, among others.

Islamisation in the Southern Levant after the End of Frankish Rule: Some General Considerations and a Short Case Study

Islamisation ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 156-186
Author(s):  
Reuven Amitai
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Mediterranean Basin ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean Basin

Two major trends in the development of the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean basin since the Islamic conquests of the mid-seventh century have been Arabisation and Islamisation. This is neither a trivial statement nor a tautology. History is full of examples of invaders who left little or no linguistic or religious impact on the conquered peoples: one need only think of the various Germanic peoples who invaded the Roman Empire, many of whom were eventually Latinised while accepting Christianity. The Bulghars coming into the Balkans in the seventh and eighth centuries soon lost their Turkic language and accepted Christianity in its Greek guise. The Mongols left a great impact on the Middle East in the thirteenth century, but neither their language nor their traditional religion survived in the region (although many words from Mongolian can still be found in Turkish, Persian and occasionally even Arabic). The Franks ruled much of the Levant for almost two centuries, but left the country with little religious and even less linguistic impact. Thus the linguistic and religious success of the Arabs might be considered something of a historical exception.

Nomads and Christianity in the Middle Ages

1975 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 209-221
Author(s):  
W. H. C. Frend
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Urban Populations ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
Past Wrongs ◽  
The Middle Ages

Why did Christianity decline relatively to Islam in wide areas of the Mediterranean world during the European Middle Ages? The problem has deserved more attention than it has received from historians, for the pattern is not a consistent one and the decline where it took place, cannot be explained on the grounds of Moslem military superiority alone. The first generation of Moslem conquerors that so decisively defeated the Byzantine armies were plunderers who sought booty and revenge for past wrongs suffered at the hands of the Byzantine authorities or simply from the agricultural and urban populations of the east Roman frontier provinces. Confronted with undreamed of success, they had little idea of establishing either civil government or settling in the areas they had conquered. They had little desire also to convert their new Christian subjects, for that would diminish the flow of tribute exacted in exchange for protection. Yet as time went on, Christianity in the eastern Mediterranean showed none of the survival and recuperative power that characterised the Orthodox Church in the Balkans during the five centuries of Ottoman occupation from 1390–1912. Of the areas overrun by successive Moslem invaders down to 1400 only Spain, Sicily and Crete re-emerged as Christian territories.

Theoretical Approaches to Roman Imagery and Iconography

2021 ◽  
pp. 30-50
Author(s):  
Clare Rowan
Keyword(s):  
Visual Culture ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Roman Imperialism ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approaches ◽  
Siege Of Jerusalem ◽  
Selection Of

This chapter presents a selection of interdisciplinary approaches used within the study of Roman visual culture. Iconology, creolization, hybridization, and entanglement are discussed alongside the problems of ‘Romanization’. Emphasis is given to the idea that images, like objects, have a biography and live a social life. Images in this sense can have a range of meanings depending on context and user. The role of images in Roman imperialism and memory is explored, with case studies including funerary contexts, the conquest of Egypt in 30 bce, the formation of Nemausus as a colony, and the siege of Jerusalem in 70 ce.

scholarly journals Narrating Europe's Migration and Refugee ‘Crisis’

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Collyer ◽  
Russell King
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Security Controls ◽  
Global Power ◽  
Physical Barriers ◽  
Introductory Paper ◽  
And Control

It is very clear – as many journalists covering the unfolding migration and refugee crisis have pointed out – that geography lies at the heart of the events taking place in Europe and the Mediterranean. It is a story of borders and routes, of distance and proximity, and of location and accessibility. The role of (re-) bordering has been fundamental in states’ attempts to ‘manage’ and ‘control’ the refugee and migrant flows and, in this respect, we observe a return to the more traditional practices of bordering – physical barriers and personnel-heavy security controls – rather than the previous processes of ‘externalizing’ and ‘internalizing’ border management. In the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans the external border of the European ‘fortress’ has been prised open, whilst the free-movement ethos of the Schengen area has been compromized by EU states’ reactions to the large-scale movement of migrants and refugees and recent acts of terrorism. In this introductory paper we bring a critical geopolitical lens into play in order to understand the European, regional and global power geometries at work, and we critically examine the political and media rhetoric around the various discursive constructions of the migrant/refugee ‘crisis’, including both the negative and the Islamophobic utterances of some European leaders and the game-changing iconicity of certain media images.

scholarly journals Middle East: New Balkans of the World?

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Dr.Sc. Georgescu Stefan ◽  
Dr.Sc. Munteanu Marilena
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Ancient Egypt ◽  
Western Civilization ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The 19Th Century

Middle East is a region whose geopolitical dynamics has many analogies with the role of the Balkans in the first half of the 19th century and up to the 3rd decade of the 20th century, namely a "Powder keg of Europe", defined in the same period as the "Eastern Issue".Moreover, Middle East is a region located at the junction of three continents: Europe, Asia and the Mediterranean Africa, and along with ancient Egypt is the cradle of Western civilization, providing for it political, economic, religious, scientific, military, intellectual and institutional models.Four millennia of civilization before Christian era did not pass without leaving a trace.Trade, currency, law, diplomacy, technology applied to works in time of war or peace, the profit based economy and the bureaucratized economy, popular and absolutist government, nationalist and universal spirit, tolerance and fanaticism – all these are not inventions of the modern world, but have their origins and methods of implementation, often even sophisticated methods, in this region.

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