Cam b r id g e

UNIVERSITY PRESS

Medieval Academy o f America

Review
Author(s): Marios Philippides
Review by: Marios Philippides
Source: Speculum, Vol. 76, No. 1 (Tan., 2001), pp. 225-227
Published by: Medieval Academy o f America
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 R ev ie w s 225
David Ricks and Paul M agdalino , eds., Byzantium and the Modern Greek Identity.
(Centre for Hellenic Studies, Kings College London, Publications, 4.) Aldershot, Eng.,
and Brookfield, Vt.: Ashgate, 1998. Pp. x, 188; black-and-white figures. $72.95.

T h e Greek nation was established in the nineteenth century after its liberation from the
Ottoman Empire and soon thereafter embarked on a search for its identity. The struggle
for independence had been assisted to a great extent by various philhellenes from Europe
and the United States, who had been brought up with the classics in an educational system
that encouraged the study, admiration, and even imitation o f ancient Greece. Many o f
them had fought on the side o f the beleaguered Greeks against the Turks. The philhellenic
movement had been fueled by romantic notions encouraging and expecting a virtual res
urrection o f the classical spirit. Some philhellenes were disappointed by the depressing
conditions they encountered in Greece. The Greeks, o f course, were not direct descendants
o f the ancient Athenians but heirs o f the long medieval period and former subjects o f the
Ottoman sultans. The Europeans viewed the Greeks immediate past and Byzantine heritage
through the filter and bias o f Edward Gibbon and had learned to ignore or even despise
the Greeks nonclassical history.
The Greeks noted the love affair o f the philhellenes with ancient Greece and, eager to
please, began emphasizing their ties with antiquity more and more, neglecting in the process
their Byzantine culture, which, o f course, could not be entirely ignored. The nineteenth
century can be characterized as a period o f stress; while Greek identity was being forged,
individuals took sides on these issues and attempted to underscore either the ancient Greek
past or the medieval heritage. The struggle took on political dimensions, as some Greeks
(including the first king o f the newly constituted nation, the Bavarian prince Frederick Otto
o f Wittelsbach [1832-62]) wished to re-create a modern version o f the old Byzantine com
monwealth with territories to be won from the declining Ottoman Empire, thus formulating
the important nationalistic concept known as the ( Grand Idea or Grand
Vision ).
This monograph, edited by two well-known Hellenists, David Ricks and Paul Magda
lino, provides an overview o f these tendencies. Scholars have been aware o f such issues,
and the dichotomy o f the Byzantine versus the ancient heritage has been examined by
scholars in the past. Some years ago the same topic was approached by Arnold Toynbee,
The Greeks and Their Heritages (Oxford, 1981). The advantage of the present volume,
which originated in a colloquium convened by David Ricks in May 1996, is that the topic
is handled by various scholars with different specialties. There are fourteen essays plus an
editors preface.
The opening essay, by Alexis Politis, From Christian Roman Emperors to the Glorious
Greek Ancestors, discusses the background o f Greek intellectuals o f the Enlightenment,
who followed Gibbons position that Byzantium represented a degenerate coda to the his
tory o f Rome. It was under this heavy influence that the modern Greek nation attempted
to ignore its medieval past. The same theme is picked up in the second essay, by George
Huxley, Aspects o f Modern Greek Historiography o f Byzantium, who discusses the
intellectual environment o f the nineteenth century with its heavy classical bias and the views
o f such well-known historians as Spyridon Zampelios, Pavlos Karolides (who translated
the manuscript o f Kritoboulos into Turkish at the request o f Sultan Mehmed V), and
Socrates B. Kougeas (the director o f the Department o f Manuscripts in the National Library
at Athens at the beginning o f the twentieth century), with some acknowledgment o f the
work o f more recent scholars such as D. A. Zakythenos and K. I. Amantos. Notable
omissions in this essay include the immense work by two giants in the field o f medieval
Greece: Spyridon Lampros, who deserves a whole essay, and Constantine Sathas, both o f
whom are mentioned only in passing (p. 21). The third essay, by Paschalis M . Kitromilides,

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226 R ev iew s

On the Intellectual Content of Greek Nationalism: Paparrigopoulos, Byzantium, and the

Great Idea, deals with the most influential historian in modern Greece, Paparrhegopoulos
(spelled curiously as Paparrigopoulos in this essay; in general, there seems to be an
eccentric way of transliterating Greek names throughout the volume), who exercised im
mense influence with his best-sellers on the history of the Greek nation, as he attempted to
redefine and reorder Greek history, setting a pattern for other Balkan historians (such as
Vasil Zlatarski and Nicolae Iorga) to follow. It was through his views and publications
that the came to be formulated, demanding the reconquista of Constanti
nople and the creation of a new Magna Graecia in the Balkans. The fourth essay, by
Caroula Argyriadis-Kervegan, Byzantine Law as Practice and as History in the Nineteenth
Century, demonstrates the legal problems in theory and practice that the Byzantine heri
tage created for the young nation. In the fifth essay, Byzantium and the Greek Language
Question in the Nineteenth Century, Peter Mackridge deals with the history of the thorny
language problem, the debate that forced intellectuals to dream of a return to ancient Greek
through a puristic stage of the language (the notorious , whose echoes are
still with us nowadays), purged of all foreign words and expressions accumulated in the
Ottoman period. Beginning with the pioneer work of Adamantios Koraes (spelled in this
essay as Korais ), the essay ends with the lively debate between Giannis Psychares and
G. N. Khatzidakes in the early years of the twentieth century.
The papers in the rest of the volume are concerned with literature. Panagiotis A. Aga-
pitos, M etam orphoseon perm ulti libri: Byzantine Literature Translated into Modern
Greek, deals with the popularity of translations of medieval works into spoken Greek
from the 1960s on. Ruth Macrides, As Byzantine Then As It Is Today: P ope Jo a n and
Roidiss Greece, discusses the curious novel of Emmanuel Rhoides, within the intellectual
climate of the period, which displayed a preference for historical novels. Robert Shannan
Peckham, Papadiamantis, Ecumenism and the Theft of Byzantium, deals with an im
portant literary figure, Aexandros Papadiamantes, who opposed the intellectual climate
heavily loaded with classical values and revived the memory of the loss of Constanti
nople, investigating in the process such phenomena as the amnesia out of which visions
of the pasts recovery are engendered (p. 104). In Two Cheers for Byzantium: Equivocal
Attitudes in the Poetry of Palamas and Cavafy, Anthony Hirst examines the works of
well-known modern Greek poets, noting that in Cavafys poetry the Grand Idea is absent
and that he was not a patriot in the ordinary sense of that word (p. 117). He further
questions the view that Palamass presentation of Byzantium ever had widespread influence
and notes that his work is not widely read nowadays, in sharp contrast to Cavafys. Mari
anna Spanaki, Byzantium and the Novel in the Twentieth Century: From Penelope Delta
to Maro Douka, discusses best-selling historical novels by women writers, one at each
end of the twentieth century, but both of them writing in times of Balkan conflict, as the
editors of this volume observe (p. ix). Roderick Beaton, Our Glorious Byzantinism:
Papatzonis, Seferis, and the Rehabilitation of Byzantium in Postwar Greek Poetry, offers
penetrating observations on well-known poets who also tried to redefine and reevaluate
the Byzantine spirit.
As an interesting coda to this rewarding collection, three essays lead us into the life of
modern Greece. Vasilios N. Makrides, Byzantium in Contemporary Greece: The Neo-
Orthodox Current of Ideas, examines the recent revival of Orthodoxy and discusses the
views of controversial theologians, while Eftychia Kourkoutidou-Nikolafdou, The Res
toration of Thessalonikis Byzantine Monuments and Their Place in the Modern City,
examines the ambiguous status of Thessalonicas churches as archaeological monuments
within the context of an overcrowded suburban environment (with two black-and-white
illustrations). Finally Leo Marshall provides a translation of Nikos Gabriel Pentzikes
Thessaloniki and Life, a work by a consciously Byzantinizing artist (cf. the study of

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 R ev ie w s 111
George Thaniel, Homage to Byzantium: The Life and Work o f Nikos Gabriel Pentzikis
[St. Paul, 1983]). While there is no bibliography, all contributions (with the exception of
Pentzikes literary piece) are heavily annotated.
This book has an interesting theme and offers acute observations by the various con
tributors. I would recommend that it be read in conjunction with another recent publication
on a related theme, neoclassical architecture in Athens of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries: Eleni Bastea, The Creation o f Modern Athens: Planning the Myth (Cambridge,
Eng., 2000); Bastea voices similar concerns from the perspective of an architectural his
torian. In short, this collection, carefully edited by Ricks and Magdalino, presents impor
tant contributions that will interest the historian and the literary scholar, as well as Hel
lenists, Byzantinists, historians of modern Greece, and social historians. It is a positive
contribution to the study of modern Greece.

M arios Philippides, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Barbara H. R osenwein, Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges o f Immunity

in Early Medieval Europe. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. xxiii, 267;
6 maps, 5 genealogical tables, and 2 black-and-white figures. $55 (cloth); $18.95 (paper).
Our understanding of how early-medieval Europe functioned as a secular and a religious
community is greatly enhanced by this splendid monograph. Barbara Rosenwein has as
siduously reviewed and critiqued the large body of historical data, both the primary sources
from late antiquity to the early-medieval era (fourth to the eleventh centuries) and the
extensive body of modern commentary. Six appendices supplement the exposition of source
materials in the body of this careful appreciation of the early-medieval legislation, all of
which demonstrates Rosenweins cautious respect for the text. The meticulous docu
mentation as reflected in the historiographical tour de force to be found in Rosenweins
review of scholarship constitutes a clear and definitive state of the question of immunity
in the dynamic historical context of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages.
Rosenweins introduction (pp. 1-23) lucidly defines her subject and methodology: this
includes the treatment of exemptions (usually ecclesiastical in origin) along with immunities
(of royal provenance), the need to contextualize documents and to confront and combine
them with evidence from different genres, and the need to bring these instruments of action
back into modern historical discourse because Immunities and exemptions . . . were
flexible instruments of political and social life (p. 5). There follows a useful reminder that
historians living in nineteenth- and twentieth-century state-centered societies differ in
their evaluation of what the grant of immunities and exemptions revealed about the nature
of medieval governments (weakness) from their colleagues in the 1990s who have dared
to suggest that immunities might have been given out from a position of strength (p. 6 ).
Thus Rosenwein concludes that immunities were above all sets of prohibitions dealing
with fiscal and judicial matters reflecting royal restraint as well as the power of the
king (p. 7). In addition immunities necessarily involved the basic ingredients for the me
dieval infrastructure religion and land (p. 8 ).
Chapters 1-8 demonstrate how immunities emerged and were implemented in reli
gious, social, and political contexts (p. 9). These chapters are organized into three parts:
Prohibition, Control, and Divergence. The background to the first clearly defined
immunities and exemptions (seventh-century and Merovingian) is dealt with in a concise
discussion, Late Antique Traditions (pp. 27-41), which describes Roman immunities
and then late-antique immunities, which were substantively different and attained a sig
nificant status in the law of the late empire, 313-438, consummately gathered in the Theo-

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