Paradoxes of a Cultural Divide: European Identities and the Appropriation of Byzantine Architecture in the 19 and 20th Century

Abstract

Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, many Western European nations have been historicized through a variety of disciplinary regimes—from political and cultural history, to archaeology and architectural history. This happened simultaneously with the construction of what is widely believed to represent a common European cultural identity. The perception and interpretation of Byzantine architecture represents a particularly telling example which simultaneously enforces and questions a supposed cultural divide that still dominates the perception of European cultural borders. Namely, Byzantium remained a commonplace for imagining a non-European otherness usually associated with its cultural inheritors—be they modern-day Turks, Russians or the Orthodox nations of the Balkans. However, the same Byzantine architectural legacy was simultaneously and reversely included in Western European historical imagination, becoming integral part of national heritage and acquiring a range of ideological functions and overtly political resonance.