The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500-1453

Dimitri Obolensky

Published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press in 1974-01-01

Throughout much of the Middle Ages, Eastern Europe-the Balkans, Russia, and lands on either side of the middle Danube--fell under the political and cultural influence of the Byzantine Empire, and in time they came to share a common cultural tradition. The Byzantine heritage of this countries is in fact significant enough for us to say that they formed a single international community. In THE BYZANTINE COMMONWEALTH, the often obscure history of this period is brought to life by Dimitri Obolensky with the aid of numerous maps and photographs. Barbarian invasions in the early part of the period caused shifting of boundaries and division into ethnic groups and warring national states. But, through it all, the commonwealth retained enough vitality and cohesion to survive as a definite entity, not merely an intellectual abstraction but a real society. Professor Obolensky here provides a comprehensive account of the relations between Byzantium and Eastern Europe--political, diplomatic, economic, religious, and cultural--considering them both in the light of Byzantine Europe's foreign policy and from the point of view of the East European peoples themselves. The religious bond is perhaps the easiest to comprehend, for the community has been seen mainly as the body of Orthodox Christendom, with the Church of Constantinople as its acknowledged head; political, juridical, and cultural bonds are more elusive, because national sovereignty was still strong and, although the rule of the...

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