Belvedere Meridionale (Mar 2014)
Bizánc és a Balkán: integrációs tényezők, stratégiák, struktúrák - Byzantium and the Balkans: Integrating Factors, Strategies and Structures
Abstract
The author of this paper intends to give an overall picture about the particular relationship of the Eastern Roman Empire with the Balkans. The peoples of the Balkan were very rapidly assimilated into the ‘Byzantine Commonwealth’. This extraordinary term denotes an extraordinary concept of Dimitri Obolensky, a Russian-born historian and Byzantinist. It signifies a supranational structure with religion (liturgy and church organization), culture (language and literacy), recognition of the emperor’s political supremacy (to varying degrees) and a kind of early medieval ‘cosmopolitism’ as cohesive powers. In other words, the peoples of the Balkan were receptive to imperial influences. However, the early period was a real dark age in the history of the Balkans: between the 5th and the 8th centuries the Huns and Avars invaded from the steppe and destroyed the former Roman heritage. The Slavic tribes arrived in the 6th and 7th centuries, later the Onogur Bulgars or ‘proto-Bulgarians’ settled in the region at the end of 7th century. Consequently, Byzantium lost these provinces. These were unsettled times for the Basileia Romaion’s as well. The pacification of these peoples was a complicated task, but the slow and consistent application of the ‘divide et impera’ policy and the development in the 9th century (the rule of Michael III and the Macedonian dynasty) had their effects. The expeditions, the regained domination over the Balkans, the ‘Hellenization’ of the Peloponnesian Slavs, the ‘remorse’ of the Serbs and the assimilation of the Bulgarian population were some consequences of the ‘Pax Byzantina’. The events of the 10th century generated new dimensions in the international connections, but this era was not an integrating period, it was rather the war between the Empire and the new powerful Bulgaria and the baptism of new nations in the region. The present essay focuses on the wide network of examples and analogies which is of course a fragment of the impressive entire structure. In his work, the author has relied on the most important volumes of this topic and on various interesting, but slightly forgotten studies.
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