Dienstag, den 22.11.2022
KOL-F-104
Einladung (PDF)
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Prof. Dr. A. Kaldellis (Chicago)
Byzantium and European Identity: A Zero-Sum Game?
The construct known as western „Europe“ was built in part through the appropriation of ancient Greek classicism, the legacy of the Roman empire and its law, and the canonical texts of early Christianity. To construct a cultural genealogy that led from antiquity to the modern western nations, one „alternative universe“ had to be bypassed and shoved aside, namely the Greek-speaking, Christian state of Romanía, i.e., the eastern Roman empire, branded as „Byzantium“ in western scholarship. In fact, Byzantium was the source for many of the prestige antiquities and traditions that the West has claimed as its own. It therefore had to be defamed as an unworthy bearer of them and marginalized. But does this narrative still serve any purpose? Were the two trajectories – western and eastern – really so mutually exclusive as the founders of western modernity believed?
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