Day 5

Day 5 was dedicated to Byzantine historiography. It started with the presentation of Lect. univ. Dr. Manuela Dobre (University of Bucharest), "Memory, Identity, Otherness in the 15th century Byzantine Historiography", which highlighted the way in which the historical sources from the 15th century create the Byzantine identity and the idea of political continuity of Rome, in line with the ideological transformation undergone after 1204, with the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins, who are demonized. Authors such as Critobulus of Imbros or Silvester Syropoulos mention the figure of Emperor Constantine the Great, as the founder of Byzantium and patron of the Orthodox religion, by presiding over the Council of Nicaea, while a Doukas speaks of the great military conquests of Emperor Heraclius, in an attempt to restore the former glory of the Empire, of which only a few territories remained.

Next, prof. univ. dr. Stratis Papaioannou (University of Crete) illustrated the various dimensions of Byzantine memory: temporal memory (recording historical events, transforming past events into a present experience), ritual memory (the history performeded) and textual memory (memory as a matrix in literature), in the lecture
"Historia: Temporal, Ritual, and Textual Memory in Byzantium". The professor spoke about the reception of Byzantine historiography; the importance of collections of quotations, anthologies, florilegia and excerpts in Byzantium; history as a series of apophthegmatic anecdotes; the memory of the present brought into eternity (according to the formula "now and forever, amen");  the memory of the future, as the remembrance of death and the remembrance of God (the Byzantines remember God, so that God would remember them forever and ever); the memory preserved through Greek manuscripts.