Dmitry Polyvyanny (Ivanovo State University – Russia)


Supranational Identities and Realities in the South-East of Europe of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time: Slavdom, Orthodoxy, Empire.

Synopsis.

The proposed paper will offer some generalizations and ideas based on the author’s long-time research of the Balkan medieval cultures and comparative studies of the cultural identities of the Orthodox Slavic peoples in the Middle Ages and early Modern time. The paper will deal mostly with three components of the cultural identities of the Southern Slav peoples - ethnocultural (like Slav identity of these peoples), confessional (represented here by the Orthodox identity) and political (often expressed in the claims for the Imperial dignity).

These identities, coinciding or crossing each other, belonged (and to certain extent still belong) to the peoples living on the huge territory of the region of South-East of Europe, which currently is a place where the growing European integration meets already and will meet new for it social, political, economic and cultural realities. Clear (and understandable) selectiveness of the contemporary historiographies of the East European nations leads to underlining and stressing of certain aspects, which may be exposed as a proof of the “deep European roots” of the new members and candidates of the EU or, on the contrary, to the revision of some traditional points (like Slav origin of Bulgarians or Byzantine-roots of the Serbian statehood etc.). Leaving aside the discussion on these points, the author will try to express an alternative look underlining some really integrative traditions of the Southern Slav peoples, which may be compared to those underlined by the Central European states (West-rooted Christianity, Latin-based scripture and literature, belonging to the political space of the Western Imperium and its successors).

The said identities will be analyzed mostly against the background of the cultural and political development of the Orthodox Southern Slav peoples on the edge between the Middle Ages and the early Modern time (end of the 14 th to end of the 16 th cc.) and compared to those of the other Slav peoples of Europe, including Czechs, Poles and Russians both in the Great Principality of Lithuania and in Moscow Russia. The preliminary research leads us to the conclusion, that the communication and the cultural dialogues between the three groups of the Slav peoples living in the South-East, Central East and “Eastern East” of Europe had been most intensive in the period, when the historical destinies of these groups took the opposite (as opposite could be all three) directions, leading finally to the formation of the three contemporary geopolitical zones of the East of Europe – the heritage of the forming Ottoman and Habsburg Empires and the continuous struggle between Poland and Russia.

Of course, the author has no contemporary parallels in his mind and is not intended to make any political forecasting. By the same time he is sure that the analysis of the historical traditions and so far the geopolitical approach, heavily and justly criticized by many modern authors, must not be left aside in the understanding of the character of the contemporary changes in the European political and cultural landscape.