IMAGINEA BIZANŢULUI ÎN CRONOGRAFELE CU CIRCULAŢIE ÎN SPAŢIUL ROMÂNESC
THE IMAGE OF BYZANTIUM IN THE CHRONOGRAPHS HAVING CIRCULATED THROUGHOUT THE ROMANIAN SPACE

Summary/Abstract: Acquiring a holistic image of Byzantium inspired by the medieval representations of the Romanian society can not be achieved without understanding chronographs. These compilations of universal history are veritable public encyclopedias, whose presence in Moldavia, Walachia and Transylvania is proven today by dozens of manuscripts, usually in large volumes, kept in collections in Romania and abroad. These manuscripts are dated to a period starting before the 1620s and ending after the mid-nineteenth century. Th e importance of chronograph in terms of creation of knowledge and representation of the sequence of “possessions and kingdoms” (political possessions) is given by the fact that they were the main source of inspiration for many legends, stories, poems, anecdotes with wide circulation in the Romanian intellectual and public life. Also, they off ered Romanian chroniclers precious news regarding the national history, the history of neighboring nations and a historiographic model. Th e chronographs reading brings out a series of clichés, symbols and stereotypes about the Byzantine State and its civilization, submitted to Romanian readers. Among them lies the “translatio imperii” idea, which furthers that the Byzantine State is the natural follower of the Roman Empire, but at the same time is granting legitimacy to the Ottoman sultan aft er the conquest of Constantinople. Th ere also persists the eschatological theme regarding the fall of Byzantium, which is caused by Christians’ sins, from the authors and copyists point of view. Th e ethnic and political terminology is updated in translation under the impact of the new realities specifi c to seventeenth – eighteenth centuries, the most convincing evidence being the replacement of Persians with Turks. It is also interesting to observe the functioning of the “otherness” mechanisms, which seems to be ordered by religious criteria. Th e others, represented in chronographs as pagans or heretics, are the old polytheistic Greeks, occidental catholic nations which are called Latins, and also Byzantine iconoclasts strongly condemned by the authors’ compilations. In the vision created by iconoclastic disputes, metropolitan bishop Dosoft ei, interpreter for the Kigalas chronograph, fi nds examples that will be used in his own struggle against Calvinism. In general, the chronographs off er the readers an idealized image of the Byzantine Empire, of the imperial authority and church. So, chronographs generally show readers the ideal monarch’s image, having in the background the projection of a strong State with its inherent temporal weakness, of a state based on the orthodox Christian dogma, assimilated in a way that managed to overcome the heresies of all times. Such representations were transmitted to the Romanian reader. From a social perspective, we might say that these behavioral patterns were the resistance structure for the local mentalities in which the Byzantine tradition played a key role.

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