Byzantium in the Popular Imagination. The Modern Reception of the Byzantine Empire, 2023
Gargova, Fani. “Popularizing Byzantine Architecture. The 1900 Paris World Exhibition, Balkan Nati... more Gargova, Fani. “Popularizing Byzantine Architecture. The 1900 Paris World Exhibition, Balkan Nationalisms and the Byzantine Revival.” In Byzantium in the Popular Imagination. The Modern Reception of the Byzantine Empire, edited by Markéta Kulhánková and Przemysław Marciniak, 11–31. London: I.B. Tauris, 2023.
Illuminations: Studies Presented to Lioba Theis, 2022
Gargova, Fani. “A Theory of Byzantine Architecture for a Monumental Church by Louis van Overstrae... more Gargova, Fani. “A Theory of Byzantine Architecture for a Monumental Church by Louis van Overstraeten (1818-1849).” In Illuminations: Studies Presented to Lioba Theis, edited by Fani Gargova, Galina Fingarova, and Margaret Mullett, 161–74. Vienna: Phoibos Verlag, 2022.
Middle Ages without borders: a conversation on medievalism / Medioevo senza frontiere : una conversazione sul medievalismo / Moyen Âge sans frontières : conversation sur le médiévalisme, 2021
This report from the online workshop on 3 June 2021 which took place at the University of Vienna ... more This report from the online workshop on 3 June 2021 which took place at the University of Vienna and University of Gothenburg gives an account of the talks and discussions on the role of Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis in the Jewish communities of Sofia and Stockholm.
Medievalism, Byzantinism, and Bulgarian Politics through the Archival Lens
This chapter explores archival practices and the role of primary source materials in the history ... more This chapter explores archival practices and the role of primary source materials in the history of research about the Bulgarian Middle Ages and their connection to nationalism. First, there is an overview on the value of archival descriptions in archival practice, which contribute to the discoverability, usability, accessibility, as well as integrity, of unique, historical collections to the researcher. Second, a case study about the connection of Bogdan Filov, Josef Strzygowski, and Thomas Whittemore is presented, and their investigation of Byzantine and Bulgarian medieval monuments is described in order to show how archival descriptions serve as preconditions for understanding, discovering, and accessing primary source material.
Understanding Artifacts Through Geographies: Perceiving Geographies Through Artifacts
Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2012
Every artifact contains a multitude of spatial references. Through them every artifact becomes a ... more Every artifact contains a multitude of spatial references. Through them every artifact becomes a map on its own. This map is multilayered and complex, combining virtual with real geographies. It needs to be deciphered according to these qualities and seen in reference to its various ontological contexts. In this sense the artifact—as a map—is a representation of an imaginative geography of the culture it was produced in, encompassing the concept of neighboring cultures. The most important ingredient for comprehending the nature of the artifact is that it at the same time defines and is defined by space. The paper aims at presenting the idea of space in a different cultural and historical context and to contrast it with a modern view on the geographies of those same objects. Those include mobile artifacts and maps. As an overall agenda, the paper is dedicated to the use of the contemporary geo-information and cartography, as well as the humanities to draw from an understanding of space represented by the objects. It examines, from the point of view of the humanities, the forms of application of a historical geography, combined with an imaginative geography when addressing the issue of representing and communicating the history, importance and context of artifacts. The aim is to facilitate a profounder investigation of art in its spatial existence, while adhering to its original and transformed contexts throughout time.
DiFaB – A Databased Visual Archive of Byzantium and the Challenges of Indexing Historical Material Culture
Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2010
The Digital Research Archive for Byzantium (DiFaB) is currently establishing a valuable tool for ... more The Digital Research Archive for Byzantium (DiFaB) is currently establishing a valuable tool for scholars in the field of Byzantine Studies while also aiming at interdisciplinary research. This paper introduces the specifities of the field, after which the project and working strategies are described. The long-established affinity of byzantinists to topography can be linked with a strong interest in new
Die Synagoge von Sofia als Spiegel der Europäisierung einer Osmanischen Stadt
Im Zentrum der bulgarischen Hauptstadt stehen sich, nur wenige Meter voneinander entfernt, die dr... more Im Zentrum der bulgarischen Hauptstadt stehen sich, nur wenige Meter voneinander entfernt, die drei großen monotheistischen Religionen gegenüber: die noch aktive Moschee, die ehemalige bulgarisch-orthodoxe Kathedrale, die katholischen und rumänischen Kirchen, und die Sofioter Synagoge. Sie zeugen von der langen, turbulenten Geschichte der Region und der Identitätsfindung im jungen Nationalstaat.
Die sephardisch-jüdische Bevölkerung von Sofia nimmt in diesem Prozess eine zentrale Rolle ein. So wurde während der Urbanisierung nach zentraleuropäischem Vorbild der jüdischen Bevölkerung ein eigenes, im orthogonalen Muster neu erbautes Viertel, „Ütschbünar“, zugewiesen. In der Mitte dieses auf dem Reissbrett entworfenen Stadtteils, welcher in seinem Raumverständnis grundlegend vom osmanischen abweicht, wurde jedoch eine Kirche und keine Synagoge erbaut. Die Synagoge wurde zeitgleich am zentralen Marktplatz von Sofia errichtet und fungierte somit als ein bedeutender Ort für die Verhandlung nicht nur der jüdischen Identität, sondern auch jener der bulgarischen Gesellschaft der Hauptstadt im Allgemeinen. In diesem Vortrag soll ein fundiertes Verständnis des postosmanischen Balkanraumes und des „shared space“ aufgezeigt werden, welcher ein Zusammenleben von diversen ethnischen und religiösen Gruppen ermöglichte. Zur Zeit der Erbauung der Synagoge von Sofia mussten die Grundlagen des Zusammenlebens erst innerhalb des rationalisierten und kontrollierten westeuropäischen Raumverständnisses definiert werden.
Defining 'Early Bulgarian Art' between the World Wars
For Bulgaria the time in between the First and Second World Wars meant an increased awareness o... more For Bulgaria the time in between the First and Second World Wars meant an increased awareness of the country’s medieval artistic legacy. Scholars, as well as artists and architects turned to the Bulgarian monuments of the Middle Ages for inspiration, but also for political and cultural legitimization. Today scholarship on that period in Bulgarian art history seems to be in agreement on the reasons for the search for a Bulgarian identity in the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms, just as on the importance of Byzantium both as an influence and as a means for dissociation. On the other hand, little attention has been paid to the specific modes of how Old Bulgarian art was employed in architecture. Also missing is an examination of how from the 1910s to the 1940s medieval Bulgarian art was defined and where its roots were sought .
Bulgaria’s independence from Ottoman rule in 1878 created a fundamental need for self-definition and a proud identity that can be traced back to a previous grandeur, a period of national confidence that existed before submission to a foreign empire. This nation-building movement was an important part of a development towards Europeanization and modernization and the effort to catch up on similar ideological foundations throughout the 19th century in Western and Central Europe. It also produced a romanticized view of the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms of the Middle Ages that were historically stylized as the great enemies of the Byzantine Empire.
A search for the material manifestations of these strong, important states led in the period around 1900 to the discovery of Pliska and Preslav, the first two capitals of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, among others and the commencement of building activity in a Bulgarian style, such as the 1890s construction of the Sveta Nedelya cathedral. The expansionary agenda of the Bulgarian king Ferdinand I. during the Balkan Wars and the First World War gave archaeologists and historians like Bogdan Filov the possibility to travel and discover an extensive Bulgarian territory that would also encompass the Macedonian and Thracian landscapes. This broader understanding of the medieval Bulgarian legacy formed the scholarship after the First World War in a considerably nationalistic way. The buildings of the time – such as the Court House and the new Sveta Nedelya church in Sofia – testify to a well-informed conception of Bulgarian and Byzantine art and architecture and are specifically monumental in their appearance.
In this paper I examine the specific agenda of studying a Bulgarian medieval artistic past during the indicated period. Of special interest are the modes of transmission of a national idea and the historical approaches, which underpin their validity. I contrast this scholarship with the buildings that were realized during the same period and ask whether and how they support these mindsets.
Byzantium in the Popular Imagination. The Modern Reception of the Byzantine Empire, 2023
Gargova, Fani. “Popularizing Byzantine Architecture. The 1900 Paris World Exhibition, Balkan Nati... more Gargova, Fani. “Popularizing Byzantine Architecture. The 1900 Paris World Exhibition, Balkan Nationalisms and the Byzantine Revival.” In Byzantium in the Popular Imagination. The Modern Reception of the Byzantine Empire, edited by Markéta Kulhánková and Przemysław Marciniak, 11–31. London: I.B. Tauris, 2023.
Illuminations: Studies Presented to Lioba Theis, 2022
Gargova, Fani. “A Theory of Byzantine Architecture for a Monumental Church by Louis van Overstrae... more Gargova, Fani. “A Theory of Byzantine Architecture for a Monumental Church by Louis van Overstraeten (1818-1849).” In Illuminations: Studies Presented to Lioba Theis, edited by Fani Gargova, Galina Fingarova, and Margaret Mullett, 161–74. Vienna: Phoibos Verlag, 2022.
Middle Ages without borders: a conversation on medievalism / Medioevo senza frontiere : una conversazione sul medievalismo / Moyen Âge sans frontières : conversation sur le médiévalisme, 2021
This report from the online workshop on 3 June 2021 which took place at the University of Vienna ... more This report from the online workshop on 3 June 2021 which took place at the University of Vienna and University of Gothenburg gives an account of the talks and discussions on the role of Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis in the Jewish communities of Sofia and Stockholm.
Medievalism, Byzantinism, and Bulgarian Politics through the Archival Lens
This chapter explores archival practices and the role of primary source materials in the history ... more This chapter explores archival practices and the role of primary source materials in the history of research about the Bulgarian Middle Ages and their connection to nationalism. First, there is an overview on the value of archival descriptions in archival practice, which contribute to the discoverability, usability, accessibility, as well as integrity, of unique, historical collections to the researcher. Second, a case study about the connection of Bogdan Filov, Josef Strzygowski, and Thomas Whittemore is presented, and their investigation of Byzantine and Bulgarian medieval monuments is described in order to show how archival descriptions serve as preconditions for understanding, discovering, and accessing primary source material.
Understanding Artifacts Through Geographies: Perceiving Geographies Through Artifacts
Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2012
Every artifact contains a multitude of spatial references. Through them every artifact becomes a ... more Every artifact contains a multitude of spatial references. Through them every artifact becomes a map on its own. This map is multilayered and complex, combining virtual with real geographies. It needs to be deciphered according to these qualities and seen in reference to its various ontological contexts. In this sense the artifact—as a map—is a representation of an imaginative geography of the culture it was produced in, encompassing the concept of neighboring cultures. The most important ingredient for comprehending the nature of the artifact is that it at the same time defines and is defined by space. The paper aims at presenting the idea of space in a different cultural and historical context and to contrast it with a modern view on the geographies of those same objects. Those include mobile artifacts and maps. As an overall agenda, the paper is dedicated to the use of the contemporary geo-information and cartography, as well as the humanities to draw from an understanding of space represented by the objects. It examines, from the point of view of the humanities, the forms of application of a historical geography, combined with an imaginative geography when addressing the issue of representing and communicating the history, importance and context of artifacts. The aim is to facilitate a profounder investigation of art in its spatial existence, while adhering to its original and transformed contexts throughout time.
DiFaB – A Databased Visual Archive of Byzantium and the Challenges of Indexing Historical Material Culture
Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, 2010
The Digital Research Archive for Byzantium (DiFaB) is currently establishing a valuable tool for ... more The Digital Research Archive for Byzantium (DiFaB) is currently establishing a valuable tool for scholars in the field of Byzantine Studies while also aiming at interdisciplinary research. This paper introduces the specifities of the field, after which the project and working strategies are described. The long-established affinity of byzantinists to topography can be linked with a strong interest in new
Die Synagoge von Sofia als Spiegel der Europäisierung einer Osmanischen Stadt
Im Zentrum der bulgarischen Hauptstadt stehen sich, nur wenige Meter voneinander entfernt, die dr... more Im Zentrum der bulgarischen Hauptstadt stehen sich, nur wenige Meter voneinander entfernt, die drei großen monotheistischen Religionen gegenüber: die noch aktive Moschee, die ehemalige bulgarisch-orthodoxe Kathedrale, die katholischen und rumänischen Kirchen, und die Sofioter Synagoge. Sie zeugen von der langen, turbulenten Geschichte der Region und der Identitätsfindung im jungen Nationalstaat.
Die sephardisch-jüdische Bevölkerung von Sofia nimmt in diesem Prozess eine zentrale Rolle ein. So wurde während der Urbanisierung nach zentraleuropäischem Vorbild der jüdischen Bevölkerung ein eigenes, im orthogonalen Muster neu erbautes Viertel, „Ütschbünar“, zugewiesen. In der Mitte dieses auf dem Reissbrett entworfenen Stadtteils, welcher in seinem Raumverständnis grundlegend vom osmanischen abweicht, wurde jedoch eine Kirche und keine Synagoge erbaut. Die Synagoge wurde zeitgleich am zentralen Marktplatz von Sofia errichtet und fungierte somit als ein bedeutender Ort für die Verhandlung nicht nur der jüdischen Identität, sondern auch jener der bulgarischen Gesellschaft der Hauptstadt im Allgemeinen. In diesem Vortrag soll ein fundiertes Verständnis des postosmanischen Balkanraumes und des „shared space“ aufgezeigt werden, welcher ein Zusammenleben von diversen ethnischen und religiösen Gruppen ermöglichte. Zur Zeit der Erbauung der Synagoge von Sofia mussten die Grundlagen des Zusammenlebens erst innerhalb des rationalisierten und kontrollierten westeuropäischen Raumverständnisses definiert werden.
Defining 'Early Bulgarian Art' between the World Wars
For Bulgaria the time in between the First and Second World Wars meant an increased awareness o... more For Bulgaria the time in between the First and Second World Wars meant an increased awareness of the country’s medieval artistic legacy. Scholars, as well as artists and architects turned to the Bulgarian monuments of the Middle Ages for inspiration, but also for political and cultural legitimization. Today scholarship on that period in Bulgarian art history seems to be in agreement on the reasons for the search for a Bulgarian identity in the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms, just as on the importance of Byzantium both as an influence and as a means for dissociation. On the other hand, little attention has been paid to the specific modes of how Old Bulgarian art was employed in architecture. Also missing is an examination of how from the 1910s to the 1940s medieval Bulgarian art was defined and where its roots were sought .
Bulgaria’s independence from Ottoman rule in 1878 created a fundamental need for self-definition and a proud identity that can be traced back to a previous grandeur, a period of national confidence that existed before submission to a foreign empire. This nation-building movement was an important part of a development towards Europeanization and modernization and the effort to catch up on similar ideological foundations throughout the 19th century in Western and Central Europe. It also produced a romanticized view of the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms of the Middle Ages that were historically stylized as the great enemies of the Byzantine Empire.
A search for the material manifestations of these strong, important states led in the period around 1900 to the discovery of Pliska and Preslav, the first two capitals of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, among others and the commencement of building activity in a Bulgarian style, such as the 1890s construction of the Sveta Nedelya cathedral. The expansionary agenda of the Bulgarian king Ferdinand I. during the Balkan Wars and the First World War gave archaeologists and historians like Bogdan Filov the possibility to travel and discover an extensive Bulgarian territory that would also encompass the Macedonian and Thracian landscapes. This broader understanding of the medieval Bulgarian legacy formed the scholarship after the First World War in a considerably nationalistic way. The buildings of the time – such as the Court House and the new Sveta Nedelya church in Sofia – testify to a well-informed conception of Bulgarian and Byzantine art and architecture and are specifically monumental in their appearance.
In this paper I examine the specific agenda of studying a Bulgarian medieval artistic past during the indicated period. Of special interest are the modes of transmission of a national idea and the historical approaches, which underpin their validity. I contrast this scholarship with the buildings that were realized during the same period and ask whether and how they support these mindsets.
Moving Image as a Means of Documenting and Promoting Byzantine and Medieval Culture (A Panel Discussion)
This panel aims to engage in a discussion about the use of moving images in fieldwork projects an... more This panel aims to engage in a discussion about the use of moving images in fieldwork projects and how the medium was used to document and promote Byzantine and Medieval art. By conducting a comparison between the moving image collection held by the Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) of Dumbarton Oaks and other similar holdings in other institutions, we aim to explore their similarities and differences; understand the motivations of using this medium; and illustrate the cinematic style employed in these film collections.
As a case study, this panel discussion aims to introduce ICFA's leading protagonist Thomas Whittemore and the unique collection of moving images by the Byzantine Institute, a non-profit organization established in 1930 by Whittemore to document their fieldwork activities, including restoration and conservation. To understand the Institute's mission, we need to examine the stylistic differences between its first film documentation of the Red Sea Monasteries in Egypt, filmed in black-and-white, and the two most important monuments of Byzantine culture, Hagia Sophia and Kariye Camii in Istanbul, Turkey. The former illustrates a traditional style of film documentation for archaeological excavations with an anthropological interest, while the latter, filmed in color as early as 1936 to 1948, displays a more formal and intimate approach towards the monuments. They were instrumental for the promotion of the Institute's goal to capture the quality and splendor of Byzantine mosaics and also illustrate the early techniques of restoration and conservation, leaving an indispensable document of the methods employed.
Our questions for this panel discussion include: What were the initial motivations to use moving images in the documentation of fieldwork activities? Was it solely a financial matter or can moving images of fieldwork projects transmit a different message than still photography? Are the decisions (e.g., color film vs. black-and-white film) dependent on the subject being captured or are they based on the cinematographer's vision? And finally, what role did the films play for the reception of Medieval and Byzantine art?
Byzantium and the Balkans: the ‘Other’ Middle Ages at the Margins of Europe
This panel will question the modes and ideas that modern nation states on the Balkans have used t... more This panel will question the modes and ideas that modern nation states on the Balkans have used to interpret their own past. This past is strongly linked to what we today call “Byzantium”. Defining the idea of “Byzantium”, though, proves to be a challenge. The term is an abstract notion of a culture, neither antique nor medieval, neither Western nor Eastern. In reality it pertains to a vast Empire that existed for over 1000 years with a fluctuating territory, that spanned at times over the whole Mediterranean, but whose main and last strongholds were on the Balkan peninsula. Its culture left a significant mark on those states that were established on Byzantine territory still during its existence. Through recurring political struggles they saw Byzantium as their eternal enemy, but at the same time they deeply appropriated and adopted the Byzantine
culture and came to call it their own. This panel will not merely present manifestations of those processes after the establishment of modern nation states in the 19th century, but will explore the relationships between ideology and material culture throughout three subsequent political structures – royal, communist, and democratic – in those areas up to today. It will investigate the different and specific vernacular conceptions of the Middle Ages at the “margins” of Europe.
The Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) presents The Holy Apostles: Visualizing a Los... more The Image Collections and Fieldwork Archives (ICFA) presents The Holy Apostles: Visualizing a Lost Monument, curated by Fani Gargova (ICFA's Byzantine Research Associate) and Beatrice Daskas (Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellow, 2012-2013, and currently a Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow).
In conjunction with the 2015 Byzantine Studies Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, this exhibition highlights drawings by Paul Underwood, which resulted from a project to reconstruct the lost church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.
This book presents the proceedings of the international conference “The Middle Ages in the Modern... more This book presents the proceedings of the international conference “The Middle Ages in the Modern World,” held in Rome November 21-24, 2018. Attended by more than a hundred participants of different ages, educational backgrounds, and places of origin, the conference constituted a landmark in the study of medievalism: the historical discipline, now in full bloom, that investigates the ways in which the thousand-year period between 500 and 1500 was, and continues to be, presented, reconstructed, and imagined in successive eras. The book opens with a substantial bibliography drawn from all of its components, followed by the seven keynote lectures and ninety-three shorter texts - abstracts of the individual conference papers - organized along eight thematic pathways, which together provide a vivid image of the current state of the field. The electronic version of this book – https://books.openedition.org/efr/18397 – contains the complete proceedings of the conference, including the numerous abstracts of papers delivered in the various sessions. The printed version consists of the introduction, the bibliography, and the seven plenary lectures.
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Papers by Fani Gargova
Talks by Fani Gargova
Die sephardisch-jüdische Bevölkerung von Sofia nimmt in diesem Prozess eine zentrale Rolle ein. So wurde während der Urbanisierung nach zentraleuropäischem Vorbild der jüdischen Bevölkerung ein eigenes, im orthogonalen Muster neu erbautes Viertel, „Ütschbünar“, zugewiesen. In der Mitte dieses auf dem Reissbrett entworfenen Stadtteils, welcher in seinem Raumverständnis grundlegend vom osmanischen abweicht, wurde jedoch eine Kirche und keine Synagoge erbaut. Die Synagoge wurde zeitgleich am zentralen Marktplatz von Sofia errichtet und fungierte somit als ein bedeutender Ort für die Verhandlung nicht nur der jüdischen Identität, sondern auch jener der bulgarischen Gesellschaft der Hauptstadt im Allgemeinen. In diesem Vortrag soll ein fundiertes Verständnis des postosmanischen Balkanraumes und des „shared space“ aufgezeigt werden, welcher ein Zusammenleben von diversen ethnischen und religiösen Gruppen ermöglichte. Zur Zeit der Erbauung der Synagoge von Sofia mussten die Grundlagen des Zusammenlebens erst innerhalb des rationalisierten und kontrollierten westeuropäischen Raumverständnisses definiert werden.
Bulgaria’s independence from Ottoman rule in 1878 created a fundamental need for self-definition and a proud identity that can be traced back to a previous grandeur, a period of national confidence that existed before submission to a foreign empire. This nation-building movement was an important part of a development towards Europeanization and modernization and the effort to catch up on similar ideological foundations throughout the 19th century in Western and Central Europe. It also produced a romanticized view of the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms of the Middle Ages that were historically stylized as the great enemies of the Byzantine Empire.
A search for the material manifestations of these strong, important states led in the period around 1900 to the discovery of Pliska and Preslav, the first two capitals of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, among others and the commencement of building activity in a Bulgarian style, such as the 1890s construction of the Sveta Nedelya cathedral. The expansionary agenda of the Bulgarian king Ferdinand I. during the Balkan Wars and the First World War gave archaeologists and historians like Bogdan Filov the possibility to travel and discover an extensive Bulgarian territory that would also encompass the Macedonian and Thracian landscapes. This broader understanding of the medieval Bulgarian legacy formed the scholarship after the First World War in a considerably nationalistic way. The buildings of the time – such as the Court House and the new Sveta Nedelya church in Sofia – testify to a well-informed conception of Bulgarian and Byzantine art and architecture and are specifically monumental in their appearance.
In this paper I examine the specific agenda of studying a Bulgarian medieval artistic past during the indicated period. Of special interest are the modes of transmission of a national idea and the historical approaches, which underpin their validity. I contrast this scholarship with the buildings that were realized during the same period and ask whether and how they support these mindsets.
Die sephardisch-jüdische Bevölkerung von Sofia nimmt in diesem Prozess eine zentrale Rolle ein. So wurde während der Urbanisierung nach zentraleuropäischem Vorbild der jüdischen Bevölkerung ein eigenes, im orthogonalen Muster neu erbautes Viertel, „Ütschbünar“, zugewiesen. In der Mitte dieses auf dem Reissbrett entworfenen Stadtteils, welcher in seinem Raumverständnis grundlegend vom osmanischen abweicht, wurde jedoch eine Kirche und keine Synagoge erbaut. Die Synagoge wurde zeitgleich am zentralen Marktplatz von Sofia errichtet und fungierte somit als ein bedeutender Ort für die Verhandlung nicht nur der jüdischen Identität, sondern auch jener der bulgarischen Gesellschaft der Hauptstadt im Allgemeinen. In diesem Vortrag soll ein fundiertes Verständnis des postosmanischen Balkanraumes und des „shared space“ aufgezeigt werden, welcher ein Zusammenleben von diversen ethnischen und religiösen Gruppen ermöglichte. Zur Zeit der Erbauung der Synagoge von Sofia mussten die Grundlagen des Zusammenlebens erst innerhalb des rationalisierten und kontrollierten westeuropäischen Raumverständnisses definiert werden.
Bulgaria’s independence from Ottoman rule in 1878 created a fundamental need for self-definition and a proud identity that can be traced back to a previous grandeur, a period of national confidence that existed before submission to a foreign empire. This nation-building movement was an important part of a development towards Europeanization and modernization and the effort to catch up on similar ideological foundations throughout the 19th century in Western and Central Europe. It also produced a romanticized view of the First and Second Bulgarian Kingdoms of the Middle Ages that were historically stylized as the great enemies of the Byzantine Empire.
A search for the material manifestations of these strong, important states led in the period around 1900 to the discovery of Pliska and Preslav, the first two capitals of the First Bulgarian Kingdom, among others and the commencement of building activity in a Bulgarian style, such as the 1890s construction of the Sveta Nedelya cathedral. The expansionary agenda of the Bulgarian king Ferdinand I. during the Balkan Wars and the First World War gave archaeologists and historians like Bogdan Filov the possibility to travel and discover an extensive Bulgarian territory that would also encompass the Macedonian and Thracian landscapes. This broader understanding of the medieval Bulgarian legacy formed the scholarship after the First World War in a considerably nationalistic way. The buildings of the time – such as the Court House and the new Sveta Nedelya church in Sofia – testify to a well-informed conception of Bulgarian and Byzantine art and architecture and are specifically monumental in their appearance.
In this paper I examine the specific agenda of studying a Bulgarian medieval artistic past during the indicated period. Of special interest are the modes of transmission of a national idea and the historical approaches, which underpin their validity. I contrast this scholarship with the buildings that were realized during the same period and ask whether and how they support these mindsets.
As a case study, this panel discussion aims to introduce ICFA's leading protagonist Thomas Whittemore and the unique collection of moving images by the Byzantine Institute, a non-profit organization established in 1930 by Whittemore to document their fieldwork activities, including restoration and conservation. To understand the Institute's mission, we need to examine the stylistic differences between its first film documentation of the Red Sea Monasteries in Egypt, filmed in black-and-white, and the two most important monuments of Byzantine culture, Hagia Sophia and Kariye Camii in Istanbul, Turkey. The former illustrates a traditional style of film documentation for archaeological excavations with an anthropological interest, while the latter, filmed in color as early as 1936 to 1948, displays a more formal and intimate approach towards the monuments. They were instrumental for the promotion of the Institute's goal to capture the quality and splendor of Byzantine mosaics and also illustrate the early techniques of restoration and conservation, leaving an indispensable document of the methods employed.
Our questions for this panel discussion include: What were the initial motivations to use moving images in the documentation of fieldwork activities? Was it solely a financial matter or can moving images of fieldwork projects transmit a different message than still photography? Are the decisions (e.g., color film vs. black-and-white film) dependent on the subject being captured or are they based on the cinematographer's vision? And finally, what role did the films play for the reception of Medieval and Byzantine art?
culture and came to call it their own. This panel will not merely present manifestations of those processes after the establishment of modern nation states in the 19th century, but will explore the relationships between ideology and material culture throughout three subsequent political structures – royal, communist, and democratic – in those areas up to today. It will investigate the different and specific vernacular conceptions of the Middle Ages at the “margins” of Europe.
In conjunction with the 2015 Byzantine Studies Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, this exhibition highlights drawings by Paul Underwood, which resulted from a project to reconstruct the lost church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople.
The electronic version of this book – https://books.openedition.org/efr/18397 – contains the complete proceedings of the conference, including the numerous abstracts of papers delivered in the various sessions. The printed version consists of the introduction, the bibliography, and the seven plenary lectures.