Roman and Medieval migrations to the Balkans revealed in new study
Who were the peoples that came to the Balkan Peninsula during the Roman Empire and Early Middle Ages? This was the question that a new study has answered using Ancient DNA.
Byzantium and Balkan national identities, with Diana Mishkova
A conversation with Diana Mishkova about how the national historiographies of Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania cope with Byzantium — how they try to appropriate, incorporate, circumvent, or abjure it, and so always reinvent it in the process.
New Medieval Books: Rival Byzantiums
A look at how the Byzantine Empire came to be viewed in five countries – Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia and Turkey.
Medieval Fortifications in the Balkans
Throughout the Middle Ages, the regions of the Balkan Peninsula were caught at the crossroads of competing worldviews and defensive architecture became an important mechanism through which to ensure the protection of secular and religious sites.
Visual material evidence of Viking presence in the Balkans
The purpose of this article is to outline the Viking objects discovered in the Balkans.
The Beginning of the Middle Ages in the Balkans
The article deals with the “short seventh century” between 620 (the date of Emperor Heraclius’ withdrawal of the Roman armies) and 680 (the date of the Bulgar migration into the northeastern Balkans).
The Mongols in Europe: The Byzantines, the Bulgarians and the Golden Horde
How did the Mongol presence in the Balkans effect its two main political powers – the Byzantines and the Bulgarians?
The Mongol invasions and the Aegean world (1241–61)
This article examines the decisive role played by the Mongols in the political history of the Aegean region in the thirteenth century. The Mongol invasions of 1241–44 were the key turning point in the struggle for hegemony in the region.
The Mongol Invasion of Croatia and Serbia in 1242
The Mongol invasion of Croatia and Serbia constitutes a single, albeit extremely interesting, episode in the great western campaign of 1236-1242, so meticulously planned and executed by the armies of Batu, grandson of Chingis Khan and founder of the “Golden Horde”.
Moses as a Role Model in the Serbian Charters after 1371: Changing Patterns
The aspects of the Old Testament figure of Moses highlighted in the charters of post-Nemanjić Serbia, or under the Lazarević and Branković dynasties (1371– 1459), testify to a changed attitude towards Old Testament role models.
A millennium of Belgrade (Sixth-Sixteenth centuries): A Short Overview
This paper gives an overview of the history of Belgrade from the reign of Justinian I (527–565), i.e. the time of Slavic settlement, to the Ottoman conquest in 1521.
Investigating a Murder: The Case of the Justinianic Plague in Scythia Minor
The study beforehand applies a logical scheme of analysis over a possible presence of the Justinianic plague in the province of Scythia Minor.
Lasting Falls and Wishful Recoveries: Crusading in the Black Sea Region after the Fall of Constantinople
This paper examines the Black Sea question in the second half of the 15th century, with special emphasis on crusading and religious questions.
Banditry and the Clash of Powers in 14th-Century Thrace: Momcilo and his Fragmented Memory
In the 14th century, a time of civil wars, religious and dynastic strifes, epidemics, natural disasters and miserable living conditions for the wider strata in the cities and the countryside that increased migratory movements, banditry, an indigenous phenomenon in the Balkan mountainous regions, intermingled with the intensified political struggles.
Hungary’s Conversion to Christianity: The Establishment of Hungarian Statehood and its Consequences to the Thirteenth Century
The Carpathian Basin occupies a peculiar place in history. It was the ground where Roman-Germanic world met that of the Slavs and mounted nomad peoples, where no group had achieved sustained unity before the state of Hungary was founded.
Late Antique and Early Byzantine fortifications in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Geographically, the province of Dalmatia can be divided into two zones: the coastal and the mountainous regions.
The Image of Early Medieval Barbaroi in Contemporary Written Sources and Modern Scholarship: the Balkan Perspective
This article gives a review on the accounts of the contemporary authors held as authorities on the history of the barbarian tribes, which combined with the survey of the material evidence, retrieved with archaeological excavations.
Multi-confessionalism in Medieval and Ottoman Bosnia-Herzegovina
By the fifth century CE, however, the Western Empire was unraveling, and Bosnia, the easternmost outpost of Latin jurisdiction, was being engulfed by throngs of barbarian Slavs.
Barbarians to the Balkans
In the High Middle Ages, in a now clearly articulated opposition between the West and the East, Europe and the Balkans began to emerge and be fixed as distinct and hostile entities. In Crusading chronicles, the Balkan lands lay on the way from Europe to the Holy Land. In the late twelfth and in the thirteenth centuries, the conventional separation line between the civilized and barbarian world, identical with the river Danube, began to break down and the barbarians came to be located in the Balkans.
Why There May Have Been Contacts between Slovenes and Jews before 1000 A.D.
The first documented evidence of a Jewish presence in Slovenia dates from the 13th century, when Yiddish- and Italian-speaking Jews migrated south from Austria to Maribor and Celje, and east from Italy into Ljubljana. This is a good three centuries after the first mention of Jews in the Austrian lands.
In search of a missing link: The Bogomils and Zoroastrianism
Both Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism are dualist relig- ions. Implicit in the beliefs held true by these religions is the notion of co-equal and co-eternal principles. Implicit in this notion is the belief that both good and evil exist and are acted upon from the very beginning.
Poisons and Poisoning in the Republic of Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik authorities occasionally resorted to poisoning as a means of resolving state affairs.
Conversion and Empire: Byzantine Missionaries, Foreign Rulers, and Christian Narratives (ca. 300-900)
For a broader modern audience today, if taken somewhat journalistically, Pusicius’ story is an example that cuts along cultural and religious lines that presumably originate in ancient, political divisions and confirm a “clash of civilizations” thesis.
In the Lion’s Den: Orthodox Christians under Ottoman Rule, 1400-1550
A glance at the Orthodox Christian church under the Ottoman Empire from the early fifteenth to mid sixteenth century gives a revealing glimpse at some of the changing relationships of conquered Christians to the state.