International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

FASHION IN TRANSITION: 
FROM BYZANTIUM TO THE BYZANTINE COMMONWEALTH
Conveners: 
Aleksandr Musin
, 
Marcin Wołoszyn
, 
Perica Špehar
Aleksandr Musin
, 
The Reception of Byzantium in the Medieval Eastern Europe: 
Nature and Character, Use and Abuse…
Marcin Wołoszyn
, 
Making Border of Kievan Rus’ Visible. Finds of Kolts from Poland
Perica Špehar
, 
Archaeological Finds of Late Medieval Crescent Earrings in Serbia
Irina Sterligova
, 
Pendants (Kolty) from the 1822 Ryazan’ Hoard: Ornaments of an Earthly Princess or Gifts to the 
Queen of Heaven? On the Evolution of Prestigious Byzantine Women’s Headdress Accessories in Rus’
Bojana Stevanović
, 
Serbian Medieval Painting as a Source for the Crescent Earrings
Ljudmila Pekarska
, 
The Golden Age of Kievan Kolts: 
Iconographic Influence of Byzantine Art and Local Stylistic Developments
Svetlana Ryabtseva – Aleksandr Musin
, 
Chronology and Periodization of the Reception of Byzantine Dress Accessories and Fashion 
in the Eastern European Culture, 8
th
-14
th
Century
Mária Vargha
, 
Traces of Byzantine Fashion in Hungary in the High Middle Ages

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Aleksandr Musin
Institute for History of Material Culture, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation; 
[e-mail]
The Reception of Byzantium in the Medieval Eastern Europe: 
Nature and Character, Use and Abuse…
The civilization of Old Rus’ has always been thought of as the result of the influence of Byzantium. 
The interaction between Mediterranean civilization and Eastern Europe has been interpreted as 
transplantation of basic elements of Byzantine culture and the following development into original 
phenomenon, as use and abuse of Byzantium during its reception. However, the key-word of such 
process might be “reception” 
sensu stricto
. Scholars usually regarded the process of reception as 
systematically organized. As a result the Old Rus’ can be compared to the large
 
Byzantine provincial 
monastery at least of the level of their library.
However, the reception of Byzantium in Early Middle Ages scarcely ever was a conscious 
process. Such conclusions can be reached through the comparison of different cultural activities in 
Eastern Europe that had byzantine origins and very seldom were the object of comparative studies: 
literature and architecture, material culture and liturgy, etc. In my vision the historical reception as 
an active and creative process headed by local community was multilevel and multiple staged which 
comprises the introducing to the “alien” culture, selection of its elements, their incorporation and 
absorption, and then their use and transformation, in new system or at least new configuration 
sometimes up to the complete “rebranding” or refuse.
The present approach allows some general observations. The Eastern European reception had 
been effectuated through the intermediate Slavonic cultures of Great Moravia and Bulgaria. Very often 
we deal with the double reception or acculturation that sometimes brought into Eastern Europe only 
echo of Byzantine world. This situation created different iconographic and stylistic “modules” reused 
according different combinations in the local culture. It could be linked to the specificity of “receptive 
aesthetics” and its «horizon of expectation». The transplantation of different byzantine elements 
on the Eastern European soil sometimes led to the deprivation of the original meaning and their 
re-semantization. In a paradox manner numerous elements of non-religious character received in 
Slavonic culture purely confessional meaning and were used in public worship and private devotion. 
The existence of different levels of the reception and its active spontaneous character make scholars 
revisit the cultural and anthropological mechanism of exchange. In several field of cultural activity 
Old Rus’ accepted through the reception not the phenomena themselves, but their bearers who 
quickly acculturated in the local milieu and lost their tradition and habits. We can conclude that the 
reception of Byzantium in Old Rus’ had accidental and occasional character. The similar situation can 
be observed in the field of interests of the present session of free communications - fashion, costume, 
jewelries, adornments, and dress accessories. Their transition led to the use of only limited elements 
of byzantine costume where these elements are sometimes difficult to recognize because of serious 
transformation. As a result “casual reception” did not lead to the formation of “casual dress” according 
byzantine example as well as in other different areas of byzantine-originated cultural activity. In fact, 
the modern humanity has right to see in medieval Rus’ a kind of caricature of Byzantium and not an 
icon of Byzantium as several colleagues would prefer.

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