Phoenix: The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500-1453 [Paperback]

Dimitri Obolensky (Author)

Book Description

Series: Phoenix Press | Publication Date: August 2000

Throughout much of the Middle Ages, Eastern Europe-the Balkans, Russia, Rumania and the land on either side of the Danube--was affected by Byzantine political and cultural influence. From the barbarian invasions to the Middle Ages, this is an illuminating read that demystifies the Balkans.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix Press (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842120190
• ISBN-13: 978-1842120194
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,374,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Byzantium and the Barbarians, August 31, 2002

By 

"guiscard" (Toms River, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phoenix: The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500-1453 (Paperback)

After the fall of Rome, Byzantium was the greatest, richest, most prestigious city in the known world. It was the center of the Orthodox religion and a great center of culture. It was also the target for every barbarian tribe who wanted a piece of the wealth land and culture.

Dimitri Obolensky's readable book achieves two purposes. First he describes the relations between the Byzantine empire and her neighbors. Obolensky explains how the Byzantines used one barbarian tribe against another, like the Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, Pechenegs, Russians and Khazars. He also shows how the Byzantines used religion to influence the tribes and gain control over them. Eventually the barbarian tribes worshipped Byzantium, but did not trust it.

Secondly Obolensky describes how the barbarian cultures like the Bulgars and the Russians adopted the culture and civilization of Byzantium. The new comers learned art, literature, law and religion from Byzantium.

This book covers the period from 500 AD to the fall of Byzantium in 1453,
starting with a description of the geography, roads and trade routes the Byzantines used, and their strategic importance. Then Obolensky recounts relations in order of region, from the Balkans, then east-central Europe and finally the coast of the black sea.
Obolensky shows how the Byzantines became the source of legitimacy among the states that made up the commonwealth like the Bulgars and the Russians. Finally he recounts how the barbarians learned art, religion, law and literature, and civilization in general from the Byzantines.

The book includes many well placed maps and photos that make this complicated subject clearer. Obolensky's book is a must read book for anyone interested in the history of Byzantium or medieval eastern Europe.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tightly focused but quite good, October 13, 2000

By 

Mitchell Glavas (Santa Ana, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Phoenix: The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500-1453 (Paperback)

I can't praise highly enough this well researched, masterful look at the mechanisms of cultural diffusion in the Balkans and Russia in the Byzantine period. Obolensky, an unquestioned leader in the field of Byzantine studies, has put together a cogent, precise and elegantly written book that, while not really for the layman, is clear enough for most persons with some familiarity with the topic. He demonstrates the role of what he calls "intermediaries", e.g. merchants, missionaries and mercenaries, in spreading Byzantium's unique Graeco-Romano-Christian culture throughout the Slavic world. A little attention is paid to Byzantium's influence on the West and on the structures of the Ottoman state, but the real focus realy is on the Balkan states. And, well, where have you seen that lately?

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb appraisal of Byzantine heritage in Eastern Europe, February 11, 2005

By 

Amore Roberto "Amore Roberto" (Pinerolo -Turin- ITALY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Phoenix: The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe 500-1453 (Paperback)

A span of almost thousand years marks the blooming and decadence of the Byzantine Empire.
"The Byzantine Commonwealth - Eastern Europe 500-1453" is a balanced and informed history of the outer lands (provinces, independent principalities and kingdoms), mostly inhabited by Slavic populations, whose history intersected the one of the Empire.
It is mostly a history of assimilation, with its many facets.
The strategy of the empire to develop an extensive diplomacy of the sword and of the cross. The cautious and balanced use of force, diplomacy (both political and religious) and money. The widespread and deep phenomenon of inclusion and assimilation of cultural values that Constantinople inspired. The gradual political emancipation of the emerging new nations (Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, Hungary and lastly Rumania)
It ends in 1453, the year of the fall of Constantinople to the Turkish armies: in that moment the Byzantine commonwealth disintegrates and the great eastern diasporas begin (with the rise of the myth of the third Rome in Russia, the emergence of the principalities of Rumania, the defeat and toll of resentment in the Serbian and Balkan lands).
Obolensky's study is already somehow outdated since first printed in 1971 for the "History of Civilization" Series of Phoenix Press (in the same series you can find the still unsurpassed "The Greek Experience" by C. M. Bowra,). It cannot take account of the events following the disintegration of USSR and the widespread renaissance of an Orthodox "koinè" (cultural community), especially religious but sometimes also political and social (this at least is one of the - highly debatable - theses advanced by professor Samuel P. Huntington in "The Clash of Civilizations"): a feature this one that cannot change the overall picture, but is nonetheless a strong indication about how deeper went the Byzantine influence.
"The Byzantine Commonwealth" is sometimes very specific, and yet immensely interesting.
I greatly enjoyed the history of the missionary work and travels of st.Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius, their invention of the Glagolitic (and later Cyrillic) script and the inception of the movement of translation from Greek to Old Church Slavonic (the medieval common language of the Slavic populations).
Compelling are also the chapters dealing with the presence and spreading of heretical movements, especially Paulicianism and Bogomilism, sects influenced by Manicheism and that very likely "exerted a powerful influence upon the Patarene and Cathar (or Albigesian) movements in Italy and Southern France".
It is amazing to realize the scantiness of our knowledge and the prejudices we still retain about the Byzantine world. While for Rome and classical Greece we have still outstanding and impressive remains (temples, theatres, aqueducts, weapons and literature), the whitewash following the Turkish conquest and censure of history (from "the idle liars of neither gender" of bishop Liutprand of Cremona to the "tedious and uniform tale of weakness and misery" of Gibbon) have almost cancelled a thousand years of European history.
The Iron Curtain tried to eradicate the deep-rooted marks of a common culture of the Russian and Balkan lands: a heritage of art and faith, common language and culture.
But this civilization has been able to endure the floodings of history, Turkish conquests and Socialist utopias.
And this is one of those rare books than can make us feel the warmth of this candle, still alight.

In the Epilogue a part deserves to be cited in full because of its poetic and evocative force:
"It is hence not surprising that the fall of Constantinople aroused these countries immediate feelings of horror and dismay. Greeks, Slavs and Rumanians reacted to this event by composing laments, in poetry and prose, for the captured and stricken city. A Greek popular poem probably composed in the second half of the fifteenth century, describes an imaginary scene of the last liturgy celebrated in St Sophia in the presence of the emperor and the patriarch, which was interrupted by the arrival of the infidels: as tears were seen in the eyes of the Virgin on the church's icons, the clergy was commanded by voice from heaven to send the cross, the Gospel book and the holy table to Western Europe lest they be profaned by the Turks. In another version of the story as the Turks broke into St Sophia a priest bearing the chalice left building through a door which miraculously closed behind him: on the day the Greeks recapture their city, he will re-emerge to complete unfinished liturgy."