Claudia Rapp

This research is based on the PI’s recently concluded FWF Wittgenstein Prize project ‘Mobility, Migration and Personal Agency’, and now focuses on the outside perspective on these movements. Significant advances have been made in gathering source material in medieval Greek that speak to the many different actors, motivations, and modes of movement within Byzantium, but also in and out of it (Mobility and Migration in Byzantium. A Sourcebook, 2023). What is still missing is the outside perspective, based on authors writing in languages other than Greek. This case study will draw on (early career) scholars with different language competences, financed by project funds from the University of Vienna, in order to create translations of selected sources that will highlight how outsiders viewed the geographical and social mobility of Byzantium.

In the wide Slavic world west- and northwards of the Empire, from the 9th century onwards Greek-speaking clerics and missionaries of Byzantium disseminated their own brand of theology and ritual. They reached regions with different languages and cultural traditions, setting into motion processes of translation on many different levels. Holy Scripture and the works of theologians were usually translated with precision, whereas legal texts and liturgical books were not only rendered in different languages, but were also subject to processes of ‘cultural translation’ and adapted to local traditions. It is here where cultural encounters and their management by local elites become most visible. The case study focuses on cultural translations of Byzantine liturgical traditions in the areas inhabited by Slavs on the basis of euchologia and nomocanones (legal books combining Byzantine imperial and canon law). These translations are well-researched in Slavonic Studies; however, the COE presents an opportunity for a broad contextualisation of and transdisciplinary discussion on this material and research from the point of view of Eurasian Middle Ages. Therefore, a complementary study will focus on the core regions of Christianity in Syria, Palestine and Egypt that were initially part of the Byzantine Empire, but after the seventh century came under Muslim rule. Christian communities were here able to retain their customs and identities, and also their liturgy, even though Arabic eventually prevailed (Tannous 2018). The liturgical books offer rich, hitherto understudied material to investigate processes of linguistic and cultural adaptation. Their study can draw on the work of the Vienna Euchologia Project led by the PI. Bilingual Greek-Arabic manuscripts as well as marginal annotations in Arabic can demonstrate the level of linguistic competence of the scribes and illustrate the degree to which liturgical traditions were maintained or adapted. In this case study, the two different regional approaches will be investigated in dialogue with each other, on the basis of a close examination of their respective manuscript traditions.