1st Edition

An Orthodox Commonwealth Symbolic Legacies and Cultural Encounters in Southeastern Europe

By Paschalis M. Kitromilides Copyright 2007
276 Pages
by Routledge

276 Pages
by Routledge

This collection brings together fifteen studies on the survival and adaptation of the Orthodox religious and cultural tradition in the societies of Southeastern Europe after the fall of Constantinople, a world so often misunderstood and misinterpreted. This problem of cultural history is examined in a diversity of contexts and on multiple levels of analysis in order to elucidate issues of broader... Read more
Contents: Introduction; Part 1 Identities: 'Balkan mentality': history, legend, imagination; Orthodox culture and collective identity in the Ottoman Balkans during the 18th century; Orthodox identities in a world of Ottoman power; In the pre-modern Balkans...: loyalties, identities, anachronisms. Part 2 Religion and Politics: Initiatives of the Great Church in the mid-18th century: hypotheses on the factors of Orthodox ecclesiastical strategy; From Orthodox commonwealth to national communities. Greek-Russian intellectual and ecclesiastical ties in the Ottoman era. Part 3 Focus and Hinterland: Athos and the enlightenment; Philokalia's first journey?; Byzantine twilight or belated enlightenment in Asia Minor. Part 4 Challenges: On the intellectual content of Greek nationalism. Paparrigopoulos, Byzantium and the Great Idea; Europe and the dilemmas of Greek conscience; The Greek cultural presence in the Balkans; The ecumenical Patriarchate and the 'national centre'. Part 5 Research Perspectives: Athos and its image in the early 20th century. The Visitor Book of Dionysiou monastery, 1908-1935; The intellectual foundations of Asia Minor studies: the R.M. Dawkins-Melpo Merlier correspondence. Index.

Biography

Paschalis M. Kitromilides, PhD Harvard University, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Athens and Director of the Centre for Asia Minor Studies. From 2000 to 2011 he was Director of the Institute of Neohellenic Research at the National Hellenic Research Foundation.

His books in English include:

The Enlightenment as Social Criticism. Iosipos Moisiodax and Greek Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992); Enlightenment Nationalism Orthodoxy (Variorum, 1994); An Orthodox Commonwealth. Symbolic Legacies and Cultural Encounters in Southeastern Europe (Variorum Collected Studies Series, Ashgate, 2007); Adamantios Korais and the European Enlightenment (Voltaire Foundation, 2010); Enlightenment and Revolution. The Making of Modern Greece (Harvard University Press, 2013); Enlightenment and religion in the Orthodox world (Voltaire Foundation, 2016).