RICONTRANS: Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th - early 20th c.)
2018-2024
The Russian religious artifacts (icons and ecclesiastical furnishings), held in museums, church or monastery collections in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, constitute a body of valuable monuments hitherto largely neglected by historians and historians of art. These objects acquire various interrelated religious, ideological, political and aesthetic meanings, value, and uses. Their transfer and reception constitutes a significant component of the wider process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. It is at the same time a process reflecting the changing cultural and political relations between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the Balkans over a long period of time (16th- early 20th century). In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent challenging openings of art history to visual studies and social anthropology, RICONTRANS aims: to map the phenomenon in its long history by identifying preserved objects in the region; to follow the paths and identify the mediums of this transfer; to analyze the moving factors of this process; to study and classify these objects according to their iconographic and artistic particularities; to inquire into the aesthetic, ideological, political and social factors which shaped the context of the reception of Russian religious art objects in various social and cultural environments; to investigate the influence of these transferred artifacts on the visual culture of the host societies.
Principal Investigator: Dr. Yuliana Boycheva
Funded by: European Research Council – Consolidator Grant 2018 (Grant agreement - 818791)
The Russian religious artifacts (icons and ecclesiastical furnishings), held in museums, church or monastery collections in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean, constitute a body of valuable monuments hitherto largely neglected by historians and historians of art. These objects acquire various interrelated religious, ideological, political and aesthetic meanings, value, and uses. Their transfer and reception constitutes a significant component of the wider process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. It is at the same time a process reflecting the changing cultural and political relations between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the Balkans over a long period of time (16th- early 20th century). In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent challenging openings of art history to visual studies and social anthropology, RICONTRANS aims: to map the phenomenon in its long history by identifying preserved objects in the region; to follow the paths and identify the mediums of this transfer; to analyze the moving factors of this process; to study and classify these objects according to their iconographic and artistic particularities; to inquire into the aesthetic, ideological, political and social factors which shaped the context of the reception of Russian religious art objects in various social and cultural environments; to investigate the influence of these transferred artifacts on the visual culture of the host societies.
HOST INSTITUTION: IMS/FORTH
Research team ΙΜS/FORTH:
- Dr. Yuliana Boycheva, Art Historian, Principal Investigator
- Associate Professor Panayotis Ioannou, Art Historian, Senior Researcher
- Dr. Katerina Seraïdari, Social Anthropologist, Postdoctoral Researcher
- Dr. Tasos Kostopoulos, Historian, Postdoctoral Researcher
- Dr. Sofia Katopi, Art Historian, Postdoctoral Researcher
- Dr. Daria Resh, Philologist, Postdoctoral Researcher
- Maria E. Fragopoulou, Art Historian, Research Assistant (RA)
- Katerina Stathi, Historian, Project Coordinator (PC)
- Dr. Tatiana Borisova, Philologist, Former collaborating researcher
- Aspa Chalkiadaki, MA Student
- Eirini Touloupi, MA Student
- Elisavet Margeti, MA Student
COLLABORATING RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS
- BENAKI MUSEUM, (Second Beneficiary of the GA) Athens, Greece
- Assistant Professor Anastasia Drandaki, Archaeologist/Art Historian, Senior Researcher for the Second Beneficiary
- Mara Verykokou, Researcher, PaCo [Participant Contact] for the Second Beneficiary
- Dr. Vassilis Paschalis, Art Conservator
- Alexandra-Eleni Kalligas, Art Conservator
- CENTER FOR CULTURAL INFORMATICS / INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCES / FORTH, Herakleion, Crete
- Chrysoula Bekiari, R & D Engineer
- Dr. Pavlos Fafalios, Postdoctoral Researcher
- Konstantina Konsolaki, R & D Engineer
- Lida Charami, Archaeologist
- DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY OF ART, FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE, Belgrade Serbia
- Prof. Nenad Makuljević, Senior Researcher
- Assistant Professor Anna Kostic, Art Historian, Research Assistant
- Vuk Dautović, Art Historian, Research Assistant
- Irena Ćirović, Art Historian, Research Assistant
- Teodora Bradić, Art Historian, Research Assistant
- Dr. Vuk Dautović, Art Historian, Research Assistant
- Dr. Ivana Ženarju Rajović, Art Historian, Research Assistant
- NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE UNION, Alba Iulia, Romania
- Dr. Ana Dumitran (Curator of the icon collection at the National Museum of the Union, Alba Iulia), Senior Researcher
- Dumitrița Daniela Filip, Research Assistant
- Dr. Cristina Cojocaru, Art Historian, Research Assistant
COLLABORATING RESEARCHERS
- Prof. Ivanka Gergova, Bulgaria
- Prof. Angel Nikolov, Bulgaria
- Simeon Tonchev, Bulgaria
- Dr. Nikolas Pissis, Greece
Project Team
Panayotis K. Ioannou
