Finalized project (Mimetic and Innovative Tendencies in Late Byzantine Historiography)

Mimetic and Innovative Tendencies in Late Byzantine Historiography (FWF Project P23912: 01.01.2012–31.12.2016)

This completed project focused on a time of profound cultural change (1204–1453) and was aimed at studying the language of late Byzantine historians. In addressing questions concerning authors’ linguistic/stylistic choices and the mimetic and innovative tendencies in their writings, this research group benefited greatly from historical sociolinguistics and from the Lexikon zur Byzantinischen Gäzität, edited by Erich Trapp.

Andrea Cuomo and Vratislav Zervan worked on conservative and innovative tendencies in the historical works of late Byzantine authors, and presented the outcomes of their research in the new critical edition of John Kananos’ account of the siege of Constantinople in 1422, in the collective volume “Die Lehnwörter im Wortschatz der spätbyzantinischen historiographischen Literatur”, and at several international conferences.

Dissemination

Wiener Soziolinguistisches Forum

International Conference: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Late Byzantine History Writing

Publications

• A.M. Cuomo, Ioannis Canani de Constantinopolitana Obsidione Relatio. A Critical Edition, with English Translation, Introduction and Notes of John Kananos’ Account of the Siege of Constantinople in 1422. (Byzantinisches Archiv 30). Boston, Berlin 2016 (ISBN 9781501510908; ISBN 1501510908)
• A.M. Cuomo, Osservazioni sul lessico di Ioannes Cananus. La soloecobarbara elocutio. Revue des Études Byzantines. 72 (2014) 331–350 (DOI: 10.2143/REB.72.0.3044843)