Authors:Błażej Andrzej Cecota Pages: 7 - 21 Abstract: In the first part of my article, I described how Theophanes the Confessor refused to legitimize the Abbasids, recognizing the legitimacy of Umayyad rule (according to the chronicler, the Umayyad power came directly from the Prophet Muhammad, which is obviously not entirely true). The chronograph emphasized that the Abbasids used the lower classes to seize power, which allowed them to lead to a state of anarchy. At the same time, he noticed how bad a ruler Marwan the Second was. From this difficult situation, as can be understood, there was no good way out, because both sides of the dispute were tainted with sins that led to injustice or unrighteousness. This was confirmed by supernatural phenomena mentioned by historian in the context of the change of power in the Muslim state. In the second part of my paper, I described how Theophanes tried to suggest that the Abbasid rule had led to religious and class divisions in the country. As a chronicler described the manifestations of anarchy that led to the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries. According to my interpretation, the description of the civil war in the caliphate after the death of Harun ar-Rashid in the work of Theophanes the Confessor is almost a harbinger of the end of the Muslim empire. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.1 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Mirosław Leszka, Zofia Brzozowska Pages: 23 - 42 Abstract: The article deals with two Byzantine chronicles that were translated into Old Church Slavic in the Middle Ages on the Balkan Peninsula and were subsequently adapted in Rus’, where they served as the base and source of inspiration for indigenous East Slavic historical studies in universal history. It is about the works of Symeon Magister and Logothete, who probably wrote between the reign of Romanus I Lecapenus and the beginning of the reign of Basil II, and the Epitome historiarum of John Zonaras, covering history from the creation of the world to 1118, which is the most comprehensive Byzantine historical work and which, possibly, was completed ca. 1145. The aim of the article is to establish the chronology of the creation of the Old Church Slavic translations of both chronicles and the history of their dissemination in the Slavia Orthodoxa area (with a review of the state of research). The editions of the translations and unpublished manuscript material were examined (its excerpt is presented in the appendix). We were able to establish that the complete translation of the work of Symeon Magister and Logothete is preserved only in the Moldavian historiographical compilation of 1637, while the text of John Zonaras was translated by the Slavs several times and functioned in their literatures in many versions, none of which, however, is complete. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.2 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Zdzisław Pentek Pages: 43 - 52 Abstract: This article is the fourth part of the series „On the Empresses of the Latin Empire (1204–1261)”. Its aim is to present the biography of Berengaria of León (Berenguela in Castilian), the third wife of John of Briene, mainly on the basis of Castilian and Old French sources. Information about her is laconic and scattered through various sources. Berengaria was the daughter of King Alfonso IV of Leon and his second wife, Berengaria of Castile. Born in 1204, in 1224 she married the former king of Jerusalem, John of Brienne. She became the Latin empress in 1231. She had three sons, her daughter Mary, as the wife of Baldwin II, also became the Latin empress, Little is known about Berengaria's education and her language skills during the stay in Constantinople. She died there in April 1237, but was buried in Compostela. She was not politically active and did not play a significant role in the history of the the Latin Empire. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.3 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Piotr Wróbel Pages: 53 - 72 Abstract: In the extensive work of the Dubrovnik-born Benedictine Lodovico Tuberon de Crieva, „Commentaria de temporibus suis” describing the events in the Mediterranean in the years 1490–1522, there is a small passage about the events on the island of Hvar (ital. Lesina). The island was then, together with most of the Dalmatian coast, under the rule of the Venetian Republic. On Hvar in 1510, a popular uprising against the local nobles broke out, which lasted with varying intensity until 1514. The Venetian authorities then sent considerable armed forces, which, after defeating the rebels at sea and on land, suppressed the rebellion. It is surprising, however, that Tuberon suggests in the above-mentioned passage that the outbreak of the revolt could have been provoked by the Venetians themselves, who feared the nobility allegedly favoring the King of Hungary. He also mentions the leading role of a clergyman who was supposed to encourage the plebs to act and initiate a revolt. Taking the mentioned text of Tuberon as a starting point, the author analyzes the political and social situation on the island of Hvar as well as the background and course of the events in the years 1510–1514. The author's goal is to establish what the grounds for Tuberon's presumptions were and to what extent they are true. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.4 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Ilona Czamańska Pages: 73 - 90 Abstract: The article deals with the nature of the political relationship between the Ottoman Empire and the Balkan states. The various forms of dependency led to varied limitations on the functioning of these states, especially in the field of their international politics. The Ottoman Empire's relations with weaker, allied, vassal and subordinate states were shaped by the following factors: the historical period, the political and legal nature of the mutual relations, religion, the current political and military situation. On the basis of analysis of the sources and scientific literature, it has been shown that the Ottoman Empire was unable to prevent more or less official policy by its subordinate centres, as long as they had any state structures (even if they were only of a self-governing nature). In the 14th century, most of the Balkan states found themselves as allies and tributaries of the Ottoman Empire. The alliance with the Ottomans did not limit political relations with countries uncommitted against the Ottomans. In the 15th century there was a process of more and more clearly political subordination of the Balkan states which added two important elements to earlier financial and military obligations - investment and obedience. In the 16th century, it was extremely important to surrender to the King of Hungary John Zápolya under the authority of Sultan Suleiman. It also resulted in the Ottoman Empire taking over direct political control of the Romanian principalities: Wallachia and Moldavia. The Sultan was not able to fully control them, they often carried out independent political activities, connected with the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Holy Empire, and Transylvania. In the 18th century the process of building the Balkan nation states launched, albeit very slowly. In the 19th century, any independence, even very limited, was conducive to the rapid formation of their own independent statehood. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.5 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Lilia Zabolotnaia Pages: 91 - 107 Abstract: The article considers the ratio of the leading agricultural sectors in the economic structure of Moldavian cities in the period from the end of the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century. The study attempts to systematise the available historical material (various sources of that era) based on the mathematical method and mathematical modelling tools. The results of the study confirm the well-established facts that agricultural and trade and handicraft activities were basic in the urban economic infrastructure and were closely interconnected. The dominance of the agrarian factor in urban life and the semi-agrarian nature of the towns of the Principality of Moldavia contributed to significant functional changes in the evolution of the economic infrastructure of towns and cities, the formation of the urban market, trade and market relations, craft formations, and so on for the following centuries. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.6 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Zbigniew Hundert Pages: 109 - 119 Abstract: On 10 and 11 November 1673 Commonwealth’s armies crushed Ottoman forces at the battle of Khotyn. Victory open new theatre of the operations against High Porte: towards river Danube and on the Polish territories lost in 1672 (Podolia with Kamianets-Podilskyi and Right-bank Ukraine). Polish and Lithuanian troops were very weary after the campaign, what’s more death of King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki led to interregnum. Polish command decided to set up the system of border defence, to protect country until the election of new monarch, which should later lead to the new offensive. As such cavalry detachments were spread out in Podolia and Moldavia, while corps under command of Mikołaj Hieronim Sieniawski, Crown Standard-bearer was sent to occupy the latter country. Previous research mentioned that this group had between 6000 and 8000 soldiers. Thanks to document from National Library in Warsaw, we can now identify much more detailed organisation of Sieniawski’s force. He had 48 pancerni banners and two light horse banners, in total 5206 horses. Despite capturing Iași, capitol of Moldavia, Sieniawski’s troops were forced on 17 January 1674 to retreat to Poland, under pressure from the fresh Tatar attack. Despite of the withdrawal from Moldavia, border defence system was still functional and Commonwealth managed fairly quickly to elect new king. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.7 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Yevhen Horb Pages: 121 - 135 Abstract: The Austro-Turkish War of 1788–1791 has not yet been properly reflected in scientific literature despite the fact that in a certain way this last conflict between the Ottomans and the Holy Roman Empire „awakened the Balkans” and became a catalyst for the national liberation movement of the Serbs, which gained strength at the beginning of the 19th century. The territory of modern Serbia became a central theater of military actions in this difficult positional war, and those were the Serbs who ensured the success of many military operations of the Austrian troops. The war of 1788–1791 belonged to those conflicts, the history of which was written, so to speak, „in real time”, and this in many ways created certain stereotypes in the reproduction of the pattern of military actions. The one-sidedness and stereotyped nature of the narrative sources can be compensated by using large cartographic material – both published and stored in the archives of Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, etc. Serbia as a theater of military actions is depicted on most of these maps and military topographical plans developed in the last quarter of the 18th century, but, with the exception of the Josephinian Land Survey, none of them have become the object of even cataloging and classification, not to mention its careful studying. Therefore, the00 proposed article is the first comprehensive attempt to summarize the information about cartographic sources regarding Serbian lands during the Austro-Turkish War of 1788–1791. As additional sources, to verify historical and geographical information, military topographical descriptions of Serbian lands compiled by the Austrian administration and periodicals of the war period were used. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.8 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Marzanna Kuczyńska Pages: 137 - 152 Abstract: The subject of interest in the article is the eighteenth-century New Bulgarian version of the Hagiography of Saint Paraskeva-Petka of Tarnovo by the Bulgarian Patriarch Euthymius (14th century), included in the poorly researched „Berlin Damaskin” currently stored in the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow (the so-called Berlin Collection) under the reference number Berol. Ms. Slav. fol. 36; cards 180–187v. The analysis concerns the genological and thematic aspect of the manuscript in the context of the ‘damaskin’ literature (Bulg. дамаскини) of the 16th–18th centuries. The main attention is focused on the content of the text, rhetorical-stylistic transformation (reduction, lowering of style) of the original and its new components. The most interesting element of the structure are the textological additions related to the journey of Paraskeva’s relics from Bulgaria through Serbia to Greece and Moldova, which make it possible to include the Krakow variant of the Petka Life in the Moldovan hagiographic redaction. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.9 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Maria Pandevska Pages: 153 - 170 Abstract: Theorists of migration attempt to establish certain basic frameworks for their classification and ranking, and nowadays, they also do so by introducing subcategories. However, the complexities still burden the precise delineation of all nuances of migration processes and their causes. This article, as a case study, is trying to make a small contribution to the vast topic of Balkan migrations. The focus is solely on the migration processes of the Macedonian population towards the territory of Bulgaria (in the 1870s and at the beginning of the 20th century) and their aftermath (acculturation). For this occasion, starting from the premise of „all refugees are migrants, but not every migrant is a refugee”, migrations are defined only using the following terms: 1) forced migrations with their product being refugees, and 2) continuous voluntary or so-called „quiet” migration processes. This article analyses an original document produced by a marginalised group in Bulgarian society: „ notes” written on the blank spaces of the history. In this case, the viewpoints of these author(s) clash with the mainstream immigration policy of Bulgaria. This document in itself is xenophobic towards all those who do not originate from Bulgaria. However, certain details it provides correspond to the ways in which so-called „quiet” migrations unfold. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.10 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Sylwia Nowak-Bajcar Pages: 171 - 185 Abstract: When a project for the comprehensive modernization of the Serbian capital Belgrade was conceived in the late 1860s, an altruistic concern for the health of society was a constant element of most discussions devoted to this problem. When the modernization process of the Serbian capital Belgrade was continued in the late 1860s, an altruistic concern for the health of the society was a constant element of most statements devoted to this problem. The health discourse, apart from the aesthetic one, was an element connecting the reflection on the city in Western Europe and Serbia. However, while in the West attempts to heal urban space were supposed to be an antidote to the negative effects of industrialization, in relation to Belgrade these treatments resulted from completely different premises, namely, they were motivated by the legacy of the times of industrial backwardness as a result of Turkish rule. Urban green areas played a special role in the process of modernizing Belgrade. The concern for them in the statements of Serbian architects and town planners of the interwar period, presented as a touchstone of modernity, was in fact included in the mission of strengthening dynastic interests, based on „national forest myth-making”. In the article I present the mechanisms of designing a historical and political filter on nature, which are one of the strategies of including it in the processes of creating and strengthening the ideology of „integral Yugoslavism”, hidden under the slogans of modernizing the capital of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by greening it. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.11 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Ivan Milec, Josip Jagodar Pages: 187 - 206 Abstract: During the period of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, urban and rural municipalities were the lowest administrative units and closest to the needs of the ordinary population. The aim of this paper is to determine the level of self-government, whether the leadership of municipal administrations was an expression of the political will of the majority of the population or an instrument of the regime that ensured loyalty through various restrictions, pressures and direct nominations. This case study is spatially limited to the area of the Brod district, which was composed of one city and 18 municipalities. It is limited in period from the proclamation of the dictatorship of King Alexander in 1929 until the collapse of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. During the 1920s, central government limited local self-government in various ways, and immediately after the proclamation of the dictatorship, it was legally abolished. However, it should be recognised that the Law on Municipalities was adopted in 1933 and the Law on City Municipalities a year later in which the regime proclaimed self-government in the municipalities, but in reality, it limited it to a great extent. The situation in cities and rural municipalities is very different. Elections for the rural municipalities were held three times (1933, 1936, 1940), while in the cities, despite announcements, these were not held until the collapse of the state. The appointment procedure adopted during the dictatorship period was retained, although the parliamentary elections of 1935 and 1938 showed that the imposed concepts did not have significant support from the electoral base. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.12 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Tadeusz Czekalski Pages: 207 - 224 Abstract: The aim of the article is to present the concept and actions taken by the Soviet diplomacy and the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church to subjugate the Orthodox communities in the communist Balkan countries. The mechanism of the subjugation of the Balkan churches has been included into a comparative perspective and integrated into the broader concept of the Moscow Patriarchate towards gaining a leading role in the Orthodox world in the first years after the end of the Second World War. The process of dependency and its effects are reflected in diplomatic documents, but also in those produced by the Orthodox Churches themselves. The key element for gaining central position in the Orthodox world by Moscow was the organisation of anniversary celebrations and conferences to integrate the community and to involve it in the implementation of plans towards Soviet political domination. The results of these efforts were very limited in relation to ambitions outlined by the leadership of the Soviet state, revealing differing positions of the major patriarchates, as well as a real strength of authority and prestige that the Ecumenical Patriarchate invariably enjoyed. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.13 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Mateusz Sokulski Pages: 225 - 248 Abstract: The article discusses the question of the politics of memory in the public discourse of Serbia in the 1980s with regard to the crimes commited by the Ustasha regime against the Serbian population in Independent State of Croatia (NDH), during World War II. Particular attention is is paid to the case of the largest Ustasha concentration camp Jasenovac. The discussion on this topic was presented on the basis of the press from the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s. The predominant number of publications emphasised that the Serbs suffered huge losses and that the crimes against the Orthodox population in the NDH were never punished. Discussions about the genocide, which was often described in Serbia as „forgotten”, referred to the political climate in the republic at the time. Leading Serbian politicians spoke sharply on the subject, and numerous scientific and quasi-scientific publications were published. The number of victims was manipulated. Moreover, a message about the „awakening of the Ustasha spirits” was developed in relation to Croatian national activities. Anti-Croatian rhetoric intensified with the introduction of the multi-party system in Yugoslavia (1989) and strengthening of secessionist aspirations in Croatia. The discussions concerning Jasenovac were developed in the context of the political crisis of the federation at the time and the aspirations of Serbian elites towards national unification of Serbs around martyrdom messages. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.14 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Mirella Korzeniewska-Wiszniewska Pages: 249 - 270 Abstract: The Serbian socio-political initiative Ne da(vi)mo Beograd (We will not give/flood Belgrade) is defined as a local political movement initiated by the citizens of Belgrade. This movement is one of the new urban social movements emerging from the so-called new social movements of the second generation and indicate the dynamic development of grassroots civic initiatives that want to change the local reality in the face of lack of trust in politicians from the central government, as people not interested in changing the situation of the average citizen. Urban movements, in turn, are characterized by initiatives aimed at improving the lives of the inhabitants of a given town. The article aims to analyze the activities of this movement as an element of a wider activity, known in Serbia as the Civic Front, which brings together local political organizations that are active in individual towns. It also aims to try to answer the question where the border of a social movement ends and the activity of a political organization begins. Ne da(vi)mo Beograd seems to be an initiative that goes beyond unambiguous definitions and may be an example of new, new civic activities that need a new definition, while setting a new framework for activity. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.15 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Ela Cosma Pages: 271 - 313 Abstract: The purpose of our study is to investigate the current state of research regarding Ius Valachicum in Romanian and foreign historiography. After presenting Romanian history, palaeography and the legal history of the Carpatho-Danubian space, we turn to the Polish historiography of the North Vlachs, with respect to the Serbo-Croatian historiography of the South Vlachs. Finally, we use case studies to illustrate two enacted customary laws of the Vlachs from Croatia. The methods used in this paper include description, analysis, and comparison, as well as exploratory and applied research. The article is a historiographical survey of Ius Valachicum among the Romanians and Vlachs. The medieval and premodern consuetudinary laws of the Romanians and Vlachs are reflected both in primary and secondary sources, from 14thcentury historical documents to historiographical preoccupations dedicated to Ius Vlachicum from the 18thand 19th centuries. First, we refer to the special literature explaining both ethnonyms and the historical-geographical spread of the Romanians and Vlachs. Then we present the Romanian historiography investigating the manifestations and features of Ius Valachicum in the geographical area belonging to the present-day Romanian state. Turning to the Czech and Polish historiography, the occurrence of Ius Valachicum is revealed among the North Vlachs from medieval and premodern Poland, Ruthenia, and Hungary. We also review the Serbo-Croatian historiography of the Ius Valachicum specific to the South Vlachs from Croatia and Serbia. Finally, two enacted customary laws of the Vlachs from Croatia (1436, 1630) are analysed from the point of view of legal history. These codifications of Ius Valachicum prove the juridical power and importance acquired by the Croatian Vlachs during the Middle Ages. The historiographical pros and cons, as well as the critical remarks presented at the end of this study, at the same time, offer a few methodological solutions for future investigations of Romanian and Vlach Ius Valachicum. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.16 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Jędrzej Paszkiewicz Pages: 315 - 330 Abstract: The aim of the article is to present, on the basis of source materials and historiographical findings, the regularities associated with the evolution of the Wallachian settlement in Thessaloniki in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this case, a rapid process of assimilation of the newcomers into the local Greek-speaking Orthodox community is noticeable. It took place in the context of coexistence between individual Wallachian families and the Greek population in cultural and economic terms. At the root of integration of Wallachians with the Greeks were the religious community (subordination to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, common churches and liturgy in Greek), the lack of an adequately established Wallachian language tradition, and the impossibility of implementing their traditions (identified with a pastoral-transhumant economy) in urban socio-economic realities. As a result, the settlers in Thessaloniki became Hellenized in a linguistic and national sense, but they kept also some cultural distinctions, defined in terms of kinship or places of origin. This situation could not be altered by cultural activities of Romania, which at the turn of the 20th century aimed at establishing national and linguistic ties with individual Wallachian communities. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.17 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Ewa Kocój, Łukasz Kocój Pages: 331 - 357 Abstract: The cultural heritage of the Aromanian (Vlach) shepherds in Bulgaria is still an underresearched topic in the field of contemporary heritology and memory studies. The Aromanians settled there after years of severe persecution perpetrated by the Turks and Albanians at the end of the 18th century. For almost two centuries, Bulgaria was a space where they created their own world, with houses, farms, and places of religious worship They set up a network of herding and trade routes leading to various regions of the Balkans and Europe. The aim of this paper is to explore the remaining traces of the cultural heritage of Aromanian shepherds that can be found in the settlements of southern Pirin in Bulgaria. It presents the main Aromanian mountain villages, former herding routes and preserved cultural heritage. The research is based on the qualitative methodology, including participant observations in the villages of Pirin and interviews with the inhabitants of Bulgarian mountain villages. The research has shown that today’s sparse Aromanian community living in the Bulgarian Pirin Mountains has retained the memory of its roots, as well as a small number of neglected cultural heritage sites. Undoubtedly, places and non-places of this community require description, documentation, and revitalisation. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.18 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
Authors:Wojciech Sajkowski Pages: 385 - 388 Abstract: The XXII Balcanicum conference was held on October 20-21, 2023, organized by the Commission on Balkan Studies, in cooperation with the Faculty of History of the Adam Mickiewicz University. The theme of this year's scientific session was formulated as follows: Memorial places and politics of memory in the South-East Europe. 33 presented papers reflected various aspects of the phenomenon of commemoration of characters, processes, historical events defining real and symbolic spaces in the South-East Europe, in the past and today. The participants presented various approaches on such issueas as the place and role of politics of memory in the functioning of societies, regional and local communities, families and individuals. Moreover, they discussed the use and perception of various instruments of the politics of memory (as for scientific research, institutional aspect, legislation, monumental or toponymic landscape, education, media e.t.c.) and their impact on public discources about the past. PubDate: 2023-12-01 DOI: 10.14746/bp.2023.30.24 Issue No:Vol. 30 (2023)
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