Byzantium in the Popular Imagination: The Modern Reception of the Byzantine Empire

What is the contemporary cultural legacy of Byzantium or The Eastern Roman Empire? This book explores the varied reception history of the Byzantine Empire across a range of cultural production.

Split into four sections: the origins of ’Byzantomania’ in France, modern media, literature, and politics, it provides case studies which show the numerous ways in which the empire’s legacy can be felt today. Covering television, video games and contemporary political discourse, contributors also consider a wide range of national and geographical perspectives including Russian, Turkish, Polish, Greek and Hungarian. It will be essential reading for scholars and students of the reception and cultural history of the Byzantine Empire.

Markéta Kulhánková is Associate Professor at the Institute of Classics, Masaryk University, Czech Republic.

Przemyslaw Marciniak is Professor of Byzantine Literature and Head of Center for Studies on Literature and the Reception of Byzantium, at the University of Silesia, Poland. He is the author of Greek Drama in Byzantine Times (2004), a Polish translation of the satire Timarion, and is the co-editor of The Reception of Byzantium in European Culture since 1500 (2016).