Crypto-Christianity in the Balkan Area under the Ottomans

Slavic Review ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stavro Skendi
Keyword(s):  

Little study has been devoted to the phenomenon of Crypto-Christianity. While some attention has been paid to the Crypto-Christians of Asia Minor, who were numerous, lived in groups, and endured a long time, the Crypto-Christians of the Balkans have been largely neglected, with the exception of an occasional work referring to only a single nationality, particularly the Greeks.

Though the existence of Jewish regional cultures is widely known, the origins of the most prominent groups, Ashkenaz and Sepharad, are poorly understood, and the rich variety of other regional Jewish identities is often overlooked. Yet all these subcultures emerged in the Middle Ages. Scholars contributing to the present study were invited to consider how such regional identities were fashioned, propagated, reinforced, contested, and reshaped — and to reflect on the developments, events, or encounters that made these identities manifest. They were asked to identify how subcultural identities proved to be useful, and the circumstances in which they were deployed. The resulting volume spans the ninth to sixteenth centuries, and explores Jewish cultural developments in western Europe, the Balkans, North Africa, and Asia Minor. In its own way, each chapter considers factors — demographic, geographical, historical, economic, political, institutional, legal, intellectual, theological, cultural, and even biological — that led medieval Jews to conceive of themselves, or to be perceived by others, as bearers of a discrete Jewish regional identity. Notwithstanding the singularity of each chapter, they collectively attest to the inherent dynamism of Jewish regional identities.


2020 ◽  
pp. 157-184
Author(s):  
Cédric Brélaz

This chapter deals with the knowledge provincials had, and the use they made, of Roman criminal procedure in the provinces of Asia Minor during the imperial period. This will be examined through two main categories of evidence: (1) petitions to emperors complaining about Roman soldiers or functionaries’ abuses against local population, (2) funerary inscriptions including provisions claiming that fines should be paid to the imperial treasury in case of desecration. This evidence supports the view that (unlike part of scholarship has been assuming for a long time) Roman criminal procedure still included accusatorial features under the Principate and that a formal accusation was needed for a proper criminal investigation to be launched. It is argued that provincials were deeply aware of what Roman criminal law was and could explicitly refer to some specific provisions in order to defend their own interests and even to challenge decisions made by the Roman administration.


1975 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 85-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker

Ever since the publication of Gordon Childe's Danube in Prehistory, almost fifty years ago, the first neolithic colonisation of temperate Europe through the Balkans has been one of the cornerstones of European prehistory. There is still a consensus of opinion in most of the recent literature on the general character of this process: that it involved the transmission of farming techniques and probably the movement of groups of peoples—the first farmers. Farming was ‘carried into central Europe up the Danube … a stone-using agricultural peasantry was widely established in eastern Europe by 5000 B.C.’ (Piggott 1965, 46). However, it has been extremely difficult to proceed beyond this kind of general statement, because there is still an alarming shortage of detailed economic evidence from early neolithic sites in the Balkans. Plant remains and animal bones have been reported from neolithic sites scattered across the area (Murray 1970; Renfrew 1973), but in many cases the recovery of this kind of economic evidence was not the primary objective of excavation and, as a result, the methods employed to gather such evidence have rarely been sufficiently refined to meet the stringent requirements of modern faunal and plant analysis. Alexander (1972, 34) noted recently that, in the case of the First Neolithíc of Yugoslavia, ‘there is as yet no detailed analysis of the animmal bones from any site’ and adequate faunal and botanical reports from early neolithic excavations are still all too few in the Balkan area as a whole.


2012 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgios THEOTOKIS

<span style="line-height: 200%; font-size: 11pt"><font face="Times New Roman">This study will attempt to examine two significantly different types of mercenaries serving the Byzantine Emperors - the Varangians and the Franks - from the mid-10th to the mid-11th centuries. Not structuring my analysis on a chronological basis but rather on the different enemies that these mercenaries were facing in different geographical conditions, the main objective of my research is to give answers to a series of questions; what evidence do we have about the organisation of the mercenary units of the Rus, the Varangians and the Franks and in what numbers were they descending at Constantinople? What were the political circumstances that led to their employment by the Emperors throughout our period of study? What was their standing in the Byzantine military establishment? Did they pose any threat to the central government? What evidence do we have about their battle and siege tactics and their overall role in each operational theatre?</font></span>


2019 ◽  
pp. 132-140
Author(s):  
Valerii Vlasenko

This article is devoted to the relationship between interwar Ukrainian political emigrants and local authorities in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia). A comparative analysis of the attitude of the Yugoslav authorities towards Russian and Ukrainian emigrants was conducted. The Russophilia of Yugoslav authorities, who viewed the Ukrainian question through the lense of the Russian emigrants, was described. The idea of Pan-Slavism had been spreading in the Balkans for a long time, which facilitated the legitimization of friendly relations between the southern Slavs (primarily Serbs) and Russians, whom Serbs considered as protectors from the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires. Yugoslavia sided with the anti-Bolshevik White Movement, an ally of the Entente, which had a positive impact on the situation of Russian emigrants. The young state was in need of professionals with a good command of foreign languages and European culture. Many emigrants met those requirements. Therefore, in the early 1920s, several thousands of emigrants worked in the public service. The reigning Karadjordjević dynasty had marital ties with the Romanov dynasty. A former Russian diplomat was among advisers to the king and the head of government. The immigration from the former Russian Empire was addressed by the Royal Court as well as several ministries and central government institutions. Direct support to the immigrants was provided by the State Commission for Assistance to Russian Refugees. Yugoslavia was a center of political and religious immigration for Russians and a provincial center for Ukrainian emigration. It is concluded that the Yugoslav authorities did not distinguish Ukrainians from Russian emigrants, therefore, any specific policy towards them was not carried out. The degree of interaction of Ukrainian emigrants with local authorities in Yugoslavia varied geographically (Slovenia and Croatia, on the one hand, and Serbia and Macedonia, on the other) and in time (in the first half of the 1920s and from the mid-1920s until the beginning of World War II). Keywords: authorities, emigration, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Yugoslavia.


2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zdenko Brusić

I will use the opportunity in the fourth number of the Archaeologia Adriatica journal which is dedicated to my friend and colleague J. Belošević to pay attention to the finds which were found at the sea bottom as a consequence of various shipwrecks or as discarded or lost objects in the Early Middle Ages period when Croatian state developed and existed. Monuments from this period belong to rich scope of the study and research of my colleague J. Belošević. In this case by underwater finds I refer to a specific category of monuments that I have already written about, and which can be dated to the mentioned period on the basis of analogies. Namely these are amphorae which exhibit considerable differences regarding their size, i.e. capacity from the earlier types dated from the 5th to 7th centuries. These Byzantine amphorae, as they are usually referred to, have characteristic massive handles which are usually higher than the vessel's opening whereas base of the amphora is oval in shape, without pointed end characteristic of the earlier amphorae. Forms are usually piriform or ovoid, and their height usually does not exceed 40 cm. Remains of a shipwreck with amphorae of this type were discovered near the island of Mljet in the mid-1970s and the site had already been devastated. I discovered another site with the remains of the Byzantine amphorae and some other objects in the sea in front of the Ždrijac site in the vicinity of Nin when I was working as a curator of a regional archaeological collection in Nin in the 1960s. Byzantine amphorae were also found in 1995 in the Bay of Pijan in Savudrija where rescue underwater archaeological excavations of an important ancient port near Aquileia were undertaken due to building and extending a quay. Great part of the remaining amphorae which I present in this paper are older finds without exact data about the findspot and circumstances of discovery, such as the upper segment of an amphora from Umag or an oblong amphora with large handles which are significantly higher than its opening from Poreč (presently in the Regional Museum in Poreč). Three almost identical amphorae have piriform bodies and massive handles with a triangular cross-section which are higher than the amphora's opening. One of them was found near the island of Žut long time ago, presently it is in the Šibenik City Museum, the second was taken out of the sea in a fishing net between the islands of Silba and Olib, and the third one is from the Trogir port. There are several more amphorae corresponding to these finds: upper segment of an amphora from Ždrijac in Nin and two somewhat larger amphorae, one of which was found near the island of Ošljak near Zadar long ago (presently in the Archaeological Museum in Zadar) and the other from the Kovačić collection on the island of Hvar. A larger segment of a smaller oblong amphora of the similar shape was found in the 1970s near the island of Vela Arta near Murter. An upper segment of an amphora with a distinct neck and opening and large massive handles with triangular cross-section was found in the sea near the cape of Gospa od Gradine in Rogoznica, presently also in the Šibenik City Museum. We also need to mention finds from the port of Hvar found in 1991 and amphorae from the churches of St. Michael in Ston, St. George on the island of Vis and St. Barbara in Trogir. Underwater explorations along the Asia Minor coastline and in the Black Sea brought to light similar examples of amphorae on the basis of which N. Günsenin and Ch. Bakirtzis created a chronology, classifying them into several types dated from the 9th to 13th centuries. For an amphora from the collection of the Franciscan Monastery on the island of Krapanj we can find closer analogies, and probably also production centers on Peloponnesus. Without individual analysis of each of our amphorae, we can easily notice difference in the height of the handles which are often higher than the amphora's opening. Other evident differences include size and forms of amphorae as well as their diversity in relation to amphorae from the same period found in Turkish/Pontic region and the remaing part of the Balkans. These insights about the typological differences between our amphorae and the aforementioned ones in the Asia Minor region open up possibilities for hypothesizing about other, possibly local workshop centers in the area of today's Albanian littoral or the rest of the eastern Adriatic coast. All together, our coast shows the most impressive picture of maritime trade in the early medieval period on the basis of density of finds of the mentioned amphorae. Trade with glass products was also present in this period along our coast as indicated by the remains of a shipwreck near Cape Stoba on the island of Mljet where a certain amount of glass sets was found together with amphorae. Some of complete glass items found on a shipwreck near Serçe Limani can be related to some finds from the terrestrial sites on the basis of analogies, such as a glass flask from the grave (no. 322) at the great necropolis from Ždrijac in Nin which can be related to the workshop centres of the eastern Mediterranean since similar flask was found on the shipwreck from Serçe Limani in Turkey.


Author(s):  
Dietrich Willers
Keyword(s):  

Der Übergang des lange in Bern befindlichen Claudiusporträts in den Besitz der Münchner Glyptothek gibt Anlass zu zwei Bemerkungen. Der bisher vertretenen Ansicht, das Werk entstamme einer Werkstatt Ägyptens, wird widersprochen und stattdessen eine Herkunft aus Kleinasien favorisiert. Indizien sprechen für die Wiederverwendung eines ursprünglichen Caligulaporträts. The transfer of the Portrait of Claudius, who had for a long time been in Bern, into the property of the Glyptothek in Munich gives occasion to two remarks. The opinion hold until now, that the oeuvre was produced in an atelier in Egypt, is objected. Instead, an origin in Asia Minor is favored. Evidence points to a reutilization of a former portrait of Caligula.   


Author(s):  
Konstantin Kasatkin

In the 19th century, the idea of Pan-Slavism was widespread among the Slavic nations. However, the very concept of Slavic reciprocity had different connotations in various fields of culture. The ‘imperial’ or ‘Russian’ Pan-Slavism that became wide-spread in Russia was characterized by identification of interests of all Slavism with the interests of the Russian politics. It began to form in the 1820s and developed mainly on the basis of the South Slavic material. At the same time, the Bulgarians were the focus of ‘imperial’ Pan-Slavic theories. Through the example of works by Y.I. Venelin, A.F. Veltman and I.P. Liprandi, this paper traces the process of gradual transformation of the Bulgarians into one of the key elements of the ‘Russian’ Pan-Slavic theories of 1820-1870s. For a long time, the fantasies of Pan-Slavists found no response among the political elites. However, the situation changed radically after the Crimean War. The ideas about Russian-Bulgarian reciprocity expressed by Venelin formed the core of the theory of imperial Pan-Slavism and, thanks to state and near-state figures like Liprandi, they became an integral part of the Russian policy in the Balkans in the second half of the 19th century.


Author(s):  
L. SLOKOSKA

In 1985, archaeologists from Bulgaria and Britain began a collaborative work with the initiation of two complementary projects. The first one was entitled ‘The Roman and late Roman city; Nicopolis ad Istrum’ (1985–1992) when the archaeological research of both teams was concentrated upon the Roman city and its late antique successor. The ‘City of Victory’ was founded by the emperor Trajan and is one of the largest archaelogical sites in the Balkans. The second programme represents a continuation and an expansion of the first and was entitled ‘The city and the village in the Roman and late Roman Empire: Nicopolis ad Istrum and nucleated settlement in its territory’ (1996–2002). It initiated work on the site of the late antique fortified settlement near the village of Dichin. Nicopolis, like the other cities in Thrace, was organized according to the Greek model, on similar lines to those found in the cities of Asia Minor. This influence is reflected in the character of the town, its plan, its agora and in its principal buildings.


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