The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer
The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer

Author: Paul Stephenson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2003-08-07

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780521815307

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The reign of Basil II (976-1025), the longest of any Byzantine emperor, has long been considered as a 'golden age', in which his greatest achievement was the annexation of Bulgaria. This, we have been told, was achieved through a long and bloody war of attrition which won Basil the grisly epithet Voulgartoktonos, 'the Bulgar-slayer'. In this new study Paul Stephenson argues that neither of these beliefs is true. Instead, Basil fought far more sporadically in the Balkans and his reputation as 'Bulgar-slayer' was created only a century and a half later. Thereafter the 'Bulgar-slayer' was periodically to play a galvanizing role for the Byzantines, returning to centre-stage as Greeks struggled to establish a modern nation state. As Byzantium was embraced as the Greek past by scholars and politicians, the 'Bulgar-slayer' became an icon in the struggle for Macedonia (1904-8) and the Balkan Wars (1912-13).

The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer
The Legend of Basil the Bulgar-Slayer

Author: Paul Stephenson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-11-25

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780521158831

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The long reign of the Byzantine emperor Basil II (976-1025) has been considered a "golden age", in which his greatest achievement was the annexation of Bulgaria after a long and bloody war. Paul Stephenson reveals that the legend of the "Bulgar-slayer" was actually created long after his death. His reputation was exploited by contemporary scholars and politicians to help galvanize support for the Greek wars against Bulgarians in Macedonia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Basil II and the Governance of Empire (976-1025)
Basil II and the Governance of Empire (976-1025)

Author: Catherine Holmes

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 640

ISBN-13: 0199279683

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Basil's Byzantium is revealed as a state where the rhetoric of imperial authority became reality through the astute manipulation of force and persuasion."--Jacket.

The Blinded State
The Blinded State

Author: Mitko B. Panov

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-03-25

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 900439429X

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This book is a revisionist account of Samuel’s State and the legendary struggle between Samuel Cometopoulos and Basil II (10th-11th century). It goes beyond the standard approach to the study of state formation, presenting an entirely new analytical framework which interrogates how contemporaries in the Balkans at different times, ranging from the Byzantine and Balkan elites of the medieval centuries to later voices in the early modern and modern periods, have represented Samuel’s polity in the service of their own political agendas and territorial aspirations towards Macedonia. The wide-ranging relationship between culture, identity and power are addressed, making use not just of Balkan literary and artistic traditions but on writings from across the Slavic world and western political and intellectual contexts. Demonstrating the conflicted legacy of the Samuel’s State in the Balkans, Mitko B. Panov questions established scholarly opinion and offers new interpretations that reconsider its place in Byzantine and Balkan history and imagination.

Constantine
Constantine

Author: Paul Stephenson

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2010-06-10

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1468303007

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This “knowledgeable account” of the emperor who brought Christianity to Rome “provides valuable insight into Constantine’s era” (Kirkus Reviews). “By this sign conquer.” So began the reign of Constantine. In 312 A.D. a cross appeared in the sky above his army as he marched on Rome. In answer, Constantine bade his soldiers to inscribe the cross on their shield, and so fortified, they drove their rivals into the Tiber and claimed Rome for themselves. Constantine led Christianity and its adherents out of the shadow of persecution. He united the western and eastern halves of the Roman Empire, raising a new city center in the east. When barbarian hordes consumed Rome itself, Constantinople remained as a beacon of Roman Christianity. Constantine is a fascinating survey of the life and enduring legacy of perhaps the greatest and most unjustly ignored of the Roman emperors—written by a richly gifted historian. Paul Stephenson offers a nuanced and deeply satisfying account of a man whose cultural and spiritual renewal of the Roman Empire gave birth to the idea of a unified Christian Europe underpinned by a commitment to religious tolerance. “Successfully combines historical documents, examples of Roman art, sculpture, and coinage with the lessons of geopolitics to produce a complex biography of the Emperor Constantine.” —Publishers Weekly

East of the West
East of the West

Author: Miroslav Penkov

Publisher: Bond Street Books

Published: 2011-07-05

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0385676018

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A brilliant debut from a rising talent praised by Salman Rushdie, among others. A grandson tries to buy the corpse of Lenin on eBay for his Communist grandfather. A failed wunderkind steals a golden cross from an orthodox church. A boy meets his cousin (the love of his life) once every five years in the waters of the river that divides their village into East and West. These are some of the strange, unexpectedly moving events in talented newcomer Miroslav Penkov's vision of his home country, Bulgaria, and they are the stories that make up his extraordinary debut collection. In East of the West Penkov writes with great empathy about 800 years of tumult in troubled Eastern Europe; his characters mourn the way things were and long for things that will never be. But even as the characters wrestle with the weight of history, the debt to family, and the pangs of exile, the stories themselves are light and deft, animated by Penkov's unmatched eye for the absurd. In 2008, Salman Rushdie chose Penkov's story "Buying Lenin" (which appears in this collection) for that year's Best American Short Stories, citing its heart and humour. East of the West reveals the full realization of the brilliant potential that Rushdie recognized.

The Byzantine World
The Byzantine World

Author: Paul Stephenson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-12-20

Total Pages: 639

ISBN-13: 1136727876

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The Byzantine World presents the latest insights of the leading scholars in the fields of Byzantine studies, history, art and architectural history, literature, and theology. Those who know little of Byzantine history, culture and civilization between AD 700 and 1453 will find overviews and distillations, while those who know much already will be afforded countless new vistas. Each chapter offers an innovative approach to a well-known topic or a diversion from a well-trodden path. Readers will be introduced to Byzantine women and children, men and eunuchs, emperors, patriarchs, aristocrats and slaves. They will explore churches and fortifications, monasteries and palaces, from Constantinople to Cyprus and Syria in the east, and to Apulia and Venice in the west. Secular and sacred art, profane and spiritual literature will be revealed to the reader, who will be encouraged to read, see, smell and touch. The worlds of Byzantine ceremonial and sanctity, liturgy and letters, Orthodoxy and heresy will be explored, by both leading and innovative international scholars. Ultimately, readers will find insights into the emergence of modern Byzantine studies and of popular Byzantine history that are informative, novel and unexpected, and that provide a thorough understanding of both.

Master Narratives of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria
Master Narratives of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria

Author: Roumen Daskalov

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-08-30

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 9004464875

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This book traces the establishment of a master narrative of the Middle Ages in Bulgaria and its evolution to the present day, including the attempt at a Marxist counter-narrative, thereby offering a critical analysis of Bulgarian historiographical views.

Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World
Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World

Author: Olivia Remie Constable

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-01-15

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 1139449680

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The Greek pandocheion, Arabic funduq, and Latin fundicum (fondaco) were ubiquitous in the Mediterranean sphere for nearly two millennia. These institutions were not only hostelries for traders and travelers, but also taverns, markets, warehouses, and sites for commercial taxation and regulation. In this highly original study, Professor Constable traces the complex evolution of this family of institutions from the pandocheion in Late Antiquity, to the appearance of the funduq throughout the Muslim Mediterranean following the rise of Islam. By the twelfth century, with the arrival of European merchants in Islamic markets, the funduq evolved into the fondaco. These merchant colonies facilitated trade and travel between Muslim and Christian regions. Before long, fondacos also appeared in southern European cities. This study of the diffusion of this institutional family demonstrates common economic interests and cross-cultural communications across the medieval Mediterranean world, and provides a striking contribution to our understanding of this region.

Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline
Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline

Author: Cecily J. Hilsdale

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-02-20

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 1107033306

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Questions how political decline refigures the visual culture of empire by examining the imperial image and the gift in later Byzantium (1261-1453). Provides a more nuanced account of medieval artistic cultural exchange that considers the temporal dimensions of power and the changing fates of empires.