Bizanţul şi Europa Centru-Orientală: de la Common-Wealth medieval la succesiunea imperială (III): preliminariile unor dileme identitare
Byzantium and Central-Eastern Europe: from medieval Common-Wealth to imperial succession (III): preliminaries of identity dilemmas

Summary/Abstract: The last two centuries of Byzantine history were marked by the constant efforts of the political and intellectual elite, who ensured the imperial restoration culminating in the recovery of Constantinople, with the aim of reintegrating Byzantium into the new power framework at the borders of Southeast Europe. The image of this vestige of Roman power engaged in political and diplomatic actions to secure its position in the two-front confrontation with the successors of the crusader states and the new Islamic threat, which became effective from the mid-14th century, gains an introspective dimension through its connection to the internal debate involving factions of society that aimed to integrate Byzantium into Christianitas by attenuating or even resolving the controversies with the Holy See, and those who identified Byzantium’s mission with the reaffirmation of its spiritual identity, a result of a millennium of theological reflections incorporating a degree of freedom that was difficult to accept for promoters of prejudices regarding medieval spirituality and cultural progress that ensured the indispensable connection between Greco-Latin classicism and the world that embraced the innovations of the Renaissance and Humanism. From a perspective less connected to the eventful dimension of history, the end of Byzantium’s independent existence demonstrates the importance of deepening our understanding of the past by identifying the dynamics of changes that the structural crisis generated for personalities and communities in the region.

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