The Idea of Byzantium in the Construction of the Musical Cultures of the Balkans †
Abstract
:1. Introduction: Byzantium after Byzantium
2. Post-Byzantium after Post-Byzantium
This is a telling comment. Though the dynamic approach to the Byzantine past in Serbian architecture has also been dismissed by at least one historian as “a new aberration of the Byzantine paradigm” (Blagojević 2003, p. xi), such an attitude is impossible to maintain in the face of the rampant creativity of architects such as Momir Korunović (1883–1969) and Branko Tanazević (1976–1945), which manifested not only a quest for a post-post-Byzantine heritage, but envisaged a radically new way of so doing that corresponded fully with the simultaneous quest for a Serbian identity—hence my subtitle, “Post-Byzantium after post-Byzantium”. At least some Serbian composers of this period evinced a similar stance: the settings of the Divine Liturgy made by Milenko Živković (1901–1964) and Milivoje Crvčanin (1892–1978) are comparable in their attempts to reconcile the Byzantine past and contemporary Serbian reality and, more importantly, to fuse them into one creative endeavor that was anything but nostalgic.Neither do the authors mention the Orthodox architecture of churches and monasteries from the decades covered in the book, even though much could be said about the effort to modernize what has been, and to a certain extent still is, seen as an ‘outdated’, timeless, or even ‘Byzantine’ architecture. If this architecture had been taken in consideration, the scope of Machedon and Scoffam’s book would have become richer and more diverse.
3. Byzantinism and Balkanism
… is a concept of ‘otherness’ by which Byzantium is turned into the crippled ‘other’ of the cultural construct of Europe. As such, Byzantinism, like Balkanism, involves the stereotyping and categorization of a world that lies on the borders of what the West sees as its own cultural territory. Byzantinism, like Balkanism, categorizes the ‘other’ as an imperfect and incomplete image of the self, thus fitting it into the common cultural construct of European civilization as a sort of caricatured self-reflection.
This remarkable passage neatly encapsulates the fear of the adventure of modernism felt at the time, and though Greek letters did not entirely fall silent, of course, there was a period of cautious investigation and adaptation; in the musical sphere, the work of Petrides, using Byzantine chant as the basis of works otherwise entirely conceived in a western spirit, is an outstanding example of this. Mutatis mutandis, this situation was reflected throughout the Balkans—one might think of the painting of the Serb Kosta Bogdanović (1930–2012), for example, with his series of Vizanthemes, or the incorporation of Romanian–Byzantine elements in the architecture of Cristofi Cerchez (1872–1955), as well of the work of younger Serbian composers (Moody 2014c). And if the shadow cast by Byzantium was a long one, the manifold attempts to bring it into creative dialogue with modernism were, and are, evidence of a dynamic pan-Balkan culture—the Byzantine–Balkan “semiosphere”—that retains its power still today.“Suddenly, from one day to the next, we found ourselves in this jumble of modern life, swept along by the great winds of post-war Europe. Our teachers, carefree people who had dedicated their life to the study of ancient grammar, Roman law, Byzantine history and the Greek folk song, were suddenly faced with the mad speed of our century, the rapid development of society’s mores, our radical political and economic upheavals, the struggle of the classes, jazz and all the world of passions which it expresses, the concerns of the post-war generation, modern girls with their hair cut short, with their skirts above their knees, with their suntanned skin, emancipated all at once from centuries-old social conventions. These good people understand nothing and say that the world is going to rack and ruin. It would be strange if they understood. Greek letters felt frightened and fell silent.”
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Moody, I. The Idea of Byzantium in the Construction of the Musical Cultures of the Balkans. Arts 2020, 9, 83. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9030083
Moody I. The Idea of Byzantium in the Construction of the Musical Cultures of the Balkans. Arts. 2020; 9(3):83. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9030083
Chicago/Turabian StyleMoody, Ivan. 2020. "The Idea of Byzantium in the Construction of the Musical Cultures of the Balkans" Arts 9, no. 3: 83. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9030083
APA StyleMoody, I. (2020). The Idea of Byzantium in the Construction of the Musical Cultures of the Balkans. Arts, 9(3), 83. https://doi.org/10.3390/arts9030083