International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Tomasz Labuk
University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland; 
[e-mail]
Niketas Choniates and the “Silence of History”: Historical Discourse on the Fringe
The seizure of Byzantine throne in 1204 and its disastrous consequences appear to be plain 
historical facts for us – they are perceived as grievous results of specific historical factors. Yet, what 
we seem to acknowledge guilelessly as an ending of yet another sorrowful chapter of history, for 
the Byzantines it was a catastrophe in its most literal meaning – a 
katastrophe
, an act of 
overturning
which toppled the entire edifice of their reality. And it is thanks to Niketas Choniates’ Χρονικὴ
 
Διήγησις, himself an eyewitness of Constantinople’s collapse and a subsequent refugee to the court 
of Nicea, that we possess a sole Byzantine first-hand narrative of these events.
There existed a number of models of historical discourse that Choniates could adapt in his 
writing – be it of classical authors or of his near or not-so-distant predecessors – Michael Psellos, 

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Anna Komnene, or Eustathios of Thessalonike to name the most prominent ones. However, 
apparently neither of them could have served alone as a satisfactory guide as to how to construct 
a satisfactory account of the fall of the entire state. For, how such an adversity could be ‘put 
vividly (ἐναργῶς) before the eyes of the listeners/readers’, in line with a basic rhetorical concept 
of 
enargeia
? How could an unthinkable catastrophe be conveyed within the bounds of Byzantine/
classical historiographical tradition, or was it even possible? To be sure, Niketas was struggling with 
such discursive limitations of history-writing: throughout the work he overtly states that a detailed 
narrative of the fall of Constantinople is impossible, hence he resolved simply to summarise the 
events (ibid: ἐν ἐπιτόμῳ). Later, when asked in January 1204 what ought to be done to escape the 
hindering doom, Choniates simply stood in silence and tears. Finally, his very first response to the 
sack of Constantinople was a refusal to continue his historical narrative and remaining in silence.
Taking the above declarations at their face value and treating them as overt declarations 
on both personal and authorial level, I would like to propose a preliminary analysis of how such 
traumatic experiences might have shaped the discourse of the final version of Χρονικὴ
 
Διήγησις. 
Hence, if A. Angelou urges to analyse how historical discourses were created, then maybe an 
inverted question should be posed as well — what were the limits of such a discourse? Was silence 
and verbatim narrative all Choniates was left with? Also, if, as modern psychological researches 
show, traumatic experiences have profound influence on the memories (and hence representations) 
of them, then how such a trauma shows itself within Choniates’ work? In my paper, I would like to 
propose preliminary answers to the above questions which could open up a discussion about new 
insights into the boundaries of historical discourse.