Neither Byzantine nor Serbian: Byzantine Architecture in Serbian Historiography of the Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth Century

Abstract

Since the birth of modern Serbian national historiography, the encounters and relationships between medieval Serbia and Byzantine culture, art and architecture have preoccupied historians, who devised a thesis about peculiarly "national" variants of Byzantine style. However, the historiographical accounts on Serbo-Byzantine architectural relationships dealt more with issues of Byzantium as a value-loaded construct than withhistorical realities in medieval Serbia. The historiographical construction of Byzantine architecture in Serbian historiography represented an ideological tool par excellence, because it was an integral part of the nation's historicity and modernity, political formations and frontiers. Firstly, the cultural construct of Byzantium was highly instrumental in the Serbian national narrative, torn between a need for cultural authenticity and an imperial mission. Secondly, the relationships between Serbian and Byzantine culture, as seen by art and architectural historians of the late XIX and early XX century, corresponded to a recognizable ideological agenda inextricably linked with the idea of the restoration of medieval "empire". It was this complex image of Byzantium and Byzantine architecture that became useful for crafting an idea of medieval Serbia which would, and should, represent a predecessor of a modern on the cusp of its political and territorial expansion.