Bulgaria to Host 22nd World Byzantine Studies Congress
Archaeology | May 9, 2011, Monday // 17:32| viewsA close-up of the Mosaic of the Basilica of San Vitale at Ravenna. The Romano-Byzantine emperor Justinian (r. 527-565) is seen at the center (note halo surrounding his crowned head). Photo from kavehfarrokh.com
Bulgaria's capital Sofia will welcome more than 1 000 scholars from around the world for the 22nd International Byzantine Studies Congress in August 2011.
The congress also known as "Byzantium without Borders" will be hosted by the Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski between August 22 and August 27, 2011.
It is organized by the Association of Byzantine and Medieval Scholars in Bulgaria, the Elena and Ivan Duicev Foundation, the History Department of Sofia University, and the SU Center for Slavic and Byzantine Studies "Prof. Ivan Duicev."
The World Byzantine Studies Congress in Sofia is expected to be one of the largest scientific events in Southeast Europe in decades, and to be the second largest World Byzantine Studies Congress after the one in Moscow in 1991, which featured about 2 000 scholars.
The world Byzantine studies congresses take place once every five years, and there is much competition to host them.
Bulgaria hosted the 4th world congress on Byzantium in 1934 under the patronage of Bulgarian Tsar Boris III.
Bulgaria won the hosting of the 2011 World Byzantine Studies Congress in competition with Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus.
The congress will be in Sofia once again after 77 years, and will be the first one in a Balkan country since the Athens congress in 1976, and after the congresses in Paris in 2001 and in London in 2006.
The organizers of the Sofia Congress have reported enormous interest on part of the scholars of Byzantine studies from around the world.
In addition to the scientific events, the World Byzantine Studies Congress in Sofia will feature a total of 14 unique topical exhibits.
Byzantine studies is an interdisciplinary branch of the humanities that addresses the history, culture, costumes, religion, art, such as literature and music, science, economy, and politics of the Byzantine Empire.
The discipline's founder in Germany is considered to be the philologist Hieronymus Wolf, a Renaissance humanist.
He gave the name Byzantine to the Eastern Roman Empire that continued after the western part collapsed in AD 476.
About 100 years after the final conquest of Byzantium by the Ottomans, Wolf began to collect, edit, and translate the writings of Byzantine philosophers. Other 16th-century humanists introduced Byzantine studies to Holland and Italy.
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