Cultural development of Byzantium. Features of Byzantine culture
Byzantine Empire arose at the turn of two eras - the collapse of late antiquity and the birth of medieval society as a result of the division of the Roman Empire into eastern and western parts. The geographical position of Byzantium, which spread its possessions on two continents - in Europe and Asia, and sometimes extended its power to areas of Africa, made this empire a kind of connecting link between East and West. Mixture of Greco-Roman and eastern traditions left its mark on public life, statehood, religious and philosophical ideas, culture and art of Byzantine society. However, Byzantium went its own way historically, in many ways different from the destinies of countries, both East and West, which determined the characteristics of its culture.
In the history of European, and indeed the entire world culture, Byzantine civilization belongs special place, it is characterized by solemn pomp, inner nobility, grace of form and depth of thought. Throughout its thousand-year existence, the Byzantine Empire, which absorbed the heritage of the Greco-Roman world and the Hellenistic East, was the center of a unique and truly brilliant culture. In addition, until the 13th century. Byzantium, in terms of the level of development of education, the intensity of spiritual life and the colorful sparkle of objective forms of culture, was undoubtedly ahead of all countries medieval Europe.
Features of Byzantine culture are as follows:
1) synthesis of Western and Eastern elements in various spheres of the material and spiritual life of society with the dominant position of Greco-Roman traditions;
2) maintaining traditions to a large extent ancient civilization, which served as the basis for the development of humanistic ideas in Byzantium and fertilized the European culture of the Renaissance;
3) The Byzantine Empire, in contrast to the fragmented medieval Europe, retained state political doctrines, which left its mark on various areas culture, namely: with the ever-increasing influence of Christianity, secular artistic creativity has never faded;
4) the difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, which was manifested in the originality of the philosophical and theological views of Orthodox theologians and philosophers of the East, in dogmatics, liturgics, and rituals Orthodox Church, in the system of Christian ethical and aesthetic values of Byzantium.
The formation of Byzantine culture took place in an atmosphere of deeply contradictory ideological life in early Byzantium. This was the time of the formation of the ideology of Byzantine society, the formation of a system of Christian worldview, which was established in a bitter struggle with the philosophical, ethical, aesthetic and natural-scientific views of the ancient world.
IN patriotic literature the early Byzantine era, in the works of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, in the speeches of John Chrysostom, where the foundation of medieval Christian theology was laid, we see a combination of the ideas of early Christianity with Neoplatonic philosophy, a paradoxical interweaving of ancient rhetorical forms with the new ideological content. Cappadocian thinkers Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus lay the foundation of Byzantine philosophy. Their philosophical constructs are rooted in the ancient history of Hellenic thinking. At the center of patriotic philosophy is the understanding of existence as a good, which provides a kind of justification for the cosmos, and, consequently, the world and man. In Gregory of Nyssa, this concept sometimes approaches pantheism.
Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, at his own expense, published extensive collections and encyclopedias of works old literature, which have become rare. On his orders, a historical encyclopedia was compiled.
The Byzantine era ends in 1453, when Constantinople was captured by the Seljuk Turks and the last emperor, Constantine Palaiologos, died on the battlefield. The decline of Byzantine literature is accompanied by “cries about the fall of Constantinople,” about the torment and shame of its historical obsolescence.
4. Fresco painting of Byzantium
The fresco painting of Byzantium has hardly survived. Mosaics turned out to be more durable and typical of the Byzantine desire for color and splendor. Antique mosaics were made from cubes of marble and colored stone and were used in the decoration of the vault.
Also known is the Florentine mosaic, made from tightly fitted pieces of marble and stone using the inlay technique. Byzantine mosaics were made from smalt (pieces of glass painted with enamels) and served to decorate walls and vaults.
Palace mosaic compositions (Constantinople, Palermo) represent hunting or pastoral scenes. But mostly Byzantine mosaics are found in churches.
5. Decorative and applied arts of Byzantium
Book miniature
Book miniatures of Byzantium are multicolored: there are examples of the solemn style and more realistic, more colorful and more austere ones, belonging to the imperial and monastic schools.
Ceramics and glass
Byzantine ceramics are still little studied. At first, single-color glazed dishes were made, from the 9th century. it had a molded relief. Of greatest interest are the facing tiles, convex and concave, decorated with decorative motifs. The flat tiles depicted the Virgin and Child or saints. Often the composition was made up of many tiles. Later the dishes became polychrome. From the 9th century The sgraffito technique is used, that is, scratching along the glaze or removing wide areas of glaze.
If we talk about glass, the most notable are the stained glass windows made of real glass, covered with colored enamels and set in lead, which were found in the windows of the apse of the Chora Monastery (Kahriye Jami in Constantinople), created no later than 1120. They depict the Mother of God, Christ, in human size , saints in rich Byzantine clothes, the background is decorated with medallions, rosettes, and curls. Colors - blue, green, crimson.
Jewelry and metalworking
Niello, pearls, precious stones, and especially enamels were used in jewelry. Byzantine jewelers enjoyed the greatest fame due to the magnificence of the palette of their enamels. These are cloisonné enamels: crosses, frames of holy books, crowns. Sometimes the enamels are solid, but more often they are on a gold background: the Byzantines believed that the sky was covered with this metal, and they highly valued gold. The most interesting are the items from the Limburg reliquary and the Hungarian crown. They were made in the royal workshops, but silver products are inferior to gold ones.
Bronze was used to make the doors (the doors of the Hagia Sophia - with a subtle ornamental pattern and engraving). The Byzantines received many orders for temple doors from European countries; in addition, they made openwork bronze lampadophores, crosses, censers, plaques (plates), and royal doors (altar doors).
Stone
In the field of stone-cutting art, the Byzantines left only examples of architectural decoration, for example, the capitals of Hagia Sophia. The carving is very fine, sometimes resembling ivory carving. The sculptural relief is flat, openwork, with abundant floral patterns.
Fabrics
The authenticity of the Byzantine origin of fabrics can be determined mainly by the ornament: a favorite motif is a circle with the figure of an animal (lion, elephant, eagle - a symbol of power). Silks embroidered with gold thread have been preserved. Dalmatica, the spacious long robe of Charlemagne, is made from this silk.
6. Icon painting in Byzantium
Byzantium is the birthplace of icon painting. The roots of visual techniques of icon painting, on the one hand, are in book miniature, from which the subtle writing, airiness, and sophistication of the palette were borrowed. On the other hand, in the Fayum portrait, from which iconographic images inherited huge eyes, a stamp of mournful detachment on their faces, and a golden background. The Fayum portrait is part of the Eastern funerary cult. The person depicted seemed to be in other world. Such portraits were made using the encaustic technique with wax paints burned into the background, which gave the portrait a physical warmth.
The objectives of icon painting are the embodiment of the deity in a bodily image. The word “icon” itself means “image” or “image” in Greek. It was supposed to remind of the image that flashes in the mind of the person praying. This is a “bridge” between man and the divine world, a sacred object. Christian icon painters managed to accomplish a difficult task: to convey through pictorial, material means the intangible, spiritual, and ethereal. Therefore, iconographic images are characterized by extreme dematerialization of figures, reduced to two-dimensional shadows on the smooth surface of the board, a golden background, a mystical environment, not a plane or space, but something unsteady, flickering in the light of lamps. The golden color was perceived as divine not only by the eye, but also by the mind. Believers call it “Tabor”, because, according to biblical legend, the transfiguration of Christ took place on Mount Tabor, where his image appeared in a blinding golden radiance. At the same time, Christ, the Virgin Mary, the apostles, and saints were really living people who had earthly features.
The architectural structure of the icon and the technology of icon painting developed in line with ideas about its purpose: to bear a sacred image. Icons were and are written on boards, most often cypress. Several boards are held together with dowels. The top of the boards is covered with gesso, a primer made with fish glue. The gesso is polished until smooth, and then an image is applied: first a drawing, and then a painting layer. The icon is distinguished by fields, a center - the central image and an ark - a narrow strip along the perimeter of the icon. The iconographic images developed in Byzantium also strictly correspond to the canon.
In the first three centuries of Christianity, symbolic and allegorical images were common.
Christ was depicted as a lamb, an anchor, a ship, a fish, a vine, and a good shepherd. Only in the IV-VI centuries. illustrative and symbolic iconography began to take shape, which became the structural basis of all Eastern Christian art,
7. Development of artistic culture
Hellenistic art, which was not united even in its heyday, gave rise to several art schools: Coptic in Egypt, Sasanian in Persia, Syrian, etc. There was a division of the Latin West and the Greek East (Byzantium). However, Hellenistic foundations and Christian ideology determined the similarity of individual branches in subjects, forms, technology, techniques of medieval art, and blurred the boundaries.
There was mutual influence and interpenetration while maintaining the main direction. Change and geographical boundaries Byzantine art: Caucasians Transcaucasia, Asia Minor, Southern Italy, Syria, Palestine, Sinai, Greece, Lower Egypt Adriatic coast. Slavic countries Balkan Peninsula they enter and then leave the field of Byzantine art. The changing economy and social structure reward the fluidity of art, its subjects, styles, and technical principles. This is also facilitated by the constant change in the geography of culturally active centers. And therefore, one should abandon the current ideas about the inertia of Byzantine culture, which arose in Western Europe on the basis of differences in religions and differences in the development of culture (the Renaissance’s contempt for the Middle Ages).
Byzantine art proper begins in the 7th century, but the ancient tradition in Byzantium was never interrupted, and the ancient chain restrained the steps in the development of art, which largely performed the function of transmitting cultural heritage and spiritual education. Constantinople (Second Rome) was most firmly bound by the traditions of the past. Rulers of any origin demanded the imitation of Roman models, architects and artists carried out their will, which in new historical and social conditions leads to aesthetic impoverishment.
In the field of painting, this process is associated with the mosaic technique, which flourished in the 4th-6th centuries. up to the 19th century. In Byzantine mosaics one can trace this process of Hellenistic extinction: monumentality is lost, color fades, the design becomes more geometric and schematic. K XIV century the mosaic is replaced by a fresco, and then by an easel icon. But the extinction of the Hellenistic tradition is accompanied by a positive process of infusion of art from the Western Asian provinces.
In the East, new linear-rhythmic elements were developed.
VII century - This is the end of the late antique period in the culture of Byzantium and the beginning of the Middle Ages. The Arabs become masters of the East, the Slavs - the Balkans, the Lombards - Italy, i.e. the class struggle intensifies. The “lower classes” of society are adopting the more understandable art of its eastern monks, who are fleeing the Arabs in droves.
The struggle of the emperor with the church, the gap between the fading imperial and peasant-philistine art in the 8th-9th centuries. takes the form of iconoclasm. Icons, banned by the emperor as pagan widows, were distributed by monks as shrines. This struggle ends in the 9th century. the victory of icon veneration along with the strengthening of Syrian and Palestinian influence in art.
Under Vasily I (836-886), a new, canonical type of architecture and a new iconography were formed. New churches are being created with paintings that represent a significant step forward in form and content.
Second half of the 9th century. is an early Byzantine phase coinciding with the pre-Romanesque form in the West. But unlike the West, Byzantium followed the path of compromise between the imperial tradition and eastern forms, and stylistic unity was achieved only in the X-XII centuries. in the Middle Byzantine period, which coincided with the Romanesque period in the West.
Byzantine culture
Easel painting of Byzantium is closely related to Eastern Hellenistic portraiture using the encaustic technique (wax paints burned into the base). The exact date and time of the transition to tempera on gesso is unknown. In the 12th century. easel painting becomes, along with miniatures, the leading type of painting. In the 12th century. masterpieces of Byzantine icon painting were created. An idea of its high level is given by the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God, now kept in the Tretyakov Gallery. This is an unusually humane image of a mother, anticipating the future tragic fate of her son, which is achieved through meager and extremely precisely found means, the environment of which is played by a thin, spiritual line and a soft, muted color. The Vladimir icon is one of the masterpieces of world painting.
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Byzantine culture does not have specific territorial and temporal boundaries. Historians consider the beginning of the development of Byzantine culture to be the period of the founding of Constantinople in 330, the end of which was the capture of the empire by Ottoman troops. After 1456, when the Turks destroyed the empire, the traditions of Byzantine art continued to exist in Rus', Serbia, Georgia, and Bulgaria. The development of Byzantine culture reached its highest point of greatness and power in the 9th century.
The development of Byzantine culture took place in the process of the evolution of Byzantine society from antiquity to the Middle Ages, the struggle between pagan and Christian ideologies, as a result of which Christian traditions became the ideological basis of Byzantine culture.
Features of Byzantine culture
Byzantine culture is a special, original and distinctive type of culture. Its originality lies in the fact that it is very different from medieval culture Europe with special elements of eastern civilizations. At the same time, she was not alien to the details of Muslim and ancient culture.
Byzantine culture
Byzantine culture oriented people towards an ideal, to some extent irrational world of the highest truth. This is explained by the dominant role of religion in the life of Byzantine society.
Such cultural features could not but influence Byzantine art. Byzantine culture gave the world its own artistic phenomenon. The main differences between Byzantine artistic style It was that they did not try to reproduce the image of the surrounding world, and artistic creativity itself was not a means of self-expression of the author. Artists, first of all, were original conductors of spirituality. They embodied the highest divine world on canvas.
Influence and role of Byzantine culture
Byzantine culture had a huge influence on the culture of Kievan Rus. After the baptism of Rus', Byzantium became, to some extent, an object for inheritance. Including Byzantine culture, it was completely borrowed as the basis for the formation of its own culture. Nestor the Chronicler in the Tale of Bygone Years wrote about the visit of Prince Vladimir to Constantinople. The prince was amazed by the beauty, grandeur and aesthetic content Byzantine temples and returning home, he immediately began construction of the same ones in Kievan Rus. Byzantine culture gave the world, and in particular Rus', the art of icon painting.
In the history of European and world culture, Byzantine culture played a very important and noticeable role, not only because it became a logical historical continuation of Greco-Roman antiquity, but also was a kind of synthesis of Western and Eastern spiritual foundations.
She had a decisive influence on the formation and development of cultures in southern and eastern Europe.
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Byzantium entered the Middle Ages, preserving the cultural heritage of antiquity. Crafts and trade continued to develop in its cities. Christian religion had a strong influence on the cultural and political life countries. In the VII-VIII centuries. Greek language became state language Eastern Roman Empire. Despite the reduction of Byzantium's possessions, education continued to develop (even among peasants and artisans there were literate people), and public and private schools were opened. In the 9th century. in its capital Constantinople operated graduate School, in which religion, mythology, history, geography, and literature were taught. Two centuries later, the first university in Europe was opened in the capital.
The Byzantines preserved and developed ancient knowledge in mathematics, chemistry, medicine, geography and history. The scientist Leo the Mathematician (9th century) laid the foundation for algebra. “Greek fire” was invented - an incendiary mixture of oil and tar that cannot be extinguished with water (with its help, the Byzantines won battles more than once).
Construction of Christian churches was underway. Their distinctive feature was the rich decoration and beauty of the interior. In terms of plan, the temple was divided into a vestibule - a room at the western, main entrance, a nave - the main part of the temple, where believers gathered for prayer, and an altar, where only clergy could enter. The altar was facing east, towards the city of Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ was crucified. Church of St. Sophia (Wisdom of God) in Constantinople is the most remarkable monument of Byzantine architecture. Its gigantic dome (31.5 m in diameter) is surrounded by a wreath of forty windows. It seems that the dome, like the vault of heaven, floats in the air.
II. Byzantine spiritual culture
Beautiful mosaics - images made of multi-colored stones and pieces of glass - decorated the walls of the temple. In the X-XI centuries. Instead of a rectangular one, a cross-domed type of temple was established, which had the shape of a cross in plan with a dome in the middle.
The temple was both a model of the world and the abode of God. A strict canon has developed in the design of churches - the rules for depicting Jesus Christ, the Mother of God, saints and scenes from the Bible. The purpose of Christian art was to instruct believers how to earn heavenly bliss after death. In churches and dwellings, icons were placed - picturesque images of God, the Mother of God, scenes from the Holy Scriptures on smooth wooden boards. The faces of the Savior, the Mother of God and the saints reflected high thoughts and spiritual concentration. One of the best examples of Byzantine icon painting, the “Vladimir Mother of God” was brought to Rus' and became one of the main Russian shrines.
Byzantium was the main bearer of culture in medieval Europe: its masters, artists, and architects were invited to other countries, and European youth studied with Byzantine masters and scientists.
The culture of the southern and eastern Slavs was strongly influenced by Byzantium. Rus' adopted the Christian faith from Byzantium. The first churches in Rus' were built and decorated by Byzantine craftsmen.
The Byzantine Empire arose at the turn of two eras - the collapse of late antiquity and the birth of medieval society as a result of the division of the Roman Empire into eastern and western parts. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the concept of worldwide Roman rule, the title of emperor and the very idea of a world monarchy, as well as the traditions of ancient education, survived only on. East - in the Byzantine Empire. In the early period, it reached its peak during the reign of Emperor Justinian 1 (527-565). The almost doubling of the territory of the Byzantine Empire, extensive legislative and administrative reforms, the development of crafts and trade, the flourishing of science and other spheres of culture - all this marked the transformation of Byzantium under Justinian again into the most powerful state in the Mediterranean.
The geographical position of Byzantium, which spread its possessions on two continents - in Europe and Asia, and sometimes extended its power to areas of Africa, made this empire a connecting link between East and West.
Constant bifurcation between the eastern Western world, the crossing of Asian and European influences (with the predominance of one or the other in certain eras) became the historical destiny of Byzantium. The mixture of Greco-Roman and Eastern traditions left its mark on public life, statehood, religious and philosophical ideas, culture and art of Byzantine society. However, Byzantium followed its own historical path, in many ways different from the destinies of the countries of both the East and the West, which also determined the characteristics of its culture.
(In the history of European, and indeed the entire world culture, the Byzantine civilization has a special place; it is characterized by solemn pomp, internal nobility, grace of form and depth of thought. Throughout its thousand-year existence, the Byzantine Empire, which absorbed the heritage of the Greco-Roman world and the Hellenistic East , was the center of a unique and truly brilliant culture. In addition, until the 13th century, Byzantium was undoubtedly ahead of all the countries of medieval Europe in terms of the level of development of education, the intensity of spiritual life and the colorful sparkle of objective forms of culture)
(Features of Byzantine culture are as follows: 1) synthesis of Western and Eastern elements in various spheres of the material and spiritual life of society with the dominant position of Greco-Roman traditions; 2) preservation to a large extent of the traditions of ancient civilization, which served as the basis for the development of humanistic ideas in Byzantium and fertilized the European culture of the Renaissance; 3) The Byzantine Empire, in contrast to the fragmented medieval Europe, preserved state political doctrines, which left its mark on various spheres of culture, namely: with the ever-increasing influence of Christianity, secular artistic creativity never faded; 4) the difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, which was manifested in the originality of the philosophical and theological views of Orthodox theologians and philosophers of the East, in dogmatics, liturgics, rituals of the Orthodox Church, in the system of Christian ethical and aesthetic values of Byzantium. The formation of Byzantine culture took place in an atmosphere of deeply contradictory ideological life in early Byzantium. This was the time of the formation of the ideology of Byzantine society, the formation of a system of Christian worldview, which was established in a bitter struggle with the philosophical, ethical, aesthetic and natural-scientific views of the ancient world. The first centuries of the existence of the Byzantine Empire can be considered as an important stage in the ideological revolution, when not only the main tendencies of thinking of Byzantine society were formed, but also its figurative system, based on the traditions of pagan Hellenism and which acquired the official status of Christianity.
In the patriotic literature of the early Byzantine era, in the works of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, in the speeches of John Chrysostom, where the foundation of medieval Christian theology was laid, we see a combination of the ideas of early Christianity with Neoplatonic philosophy, a paradoxical interweaving of ancient rhetorical forms with new ideological content. The Kappa Docian thinkers Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus lay the foundation of Byzantine philosophy. Their philosophical constructs are rooted in the ancient history of Hellenic thinking. At the center of patriotic philosophy is the understanding of existence as a good, which provides a kind of justification for the cosmos, and, consequently, for the world and man. In Gregory of Nyssa, this concept sometimes approaches pantheism.
In the IV-V centuries. Fierce philosophical theological debates unfolded in the Empire: Christological - about the nature of Christ and Trinitarian - about his place in the Trinity. The essence of these extremely heated discussions was not only the development and systematization of Christian dogma. Their philosophical content was an anthropological problem: in a theologized form, the question was raised about the meaning of human existence, the place of man in the universe, the limit of his capabilities.
These disputes expressed the ideological struggle between anthropological maximalism, which considered it possible to dissolve human nature in the divine and thereby raise man to heights unprecedented in the ancient world, and anthropological minimalism, which completely subordinated man to deity and reduced humanity to extreme degrees of self-abasement.
In the reforming Christian ideology during this period, two stages can be distinguished: aristocratic, associated with the dominant church and the imperial court, and plebeian-folk, which grew out of heresies and is rooted in the thickness of religious and ethical ideas masses and broad layers of the poorest monasticism. The court aristocracy, the highest clergy, and the educated intelligentsia of large cities energetically advocate using the best that was given to humanity by ancient culture. Christian theologians, writers, preachers are increasingly borrowing from the treasury of Greco-Roman culture the impressive simplicity and plasticity of philosophical prose, the filigree methods of Neoplatonic dialectics, Aristotle’s logic, practical psychologism and the sparkling eloquence of ancient rhetoric. In the early Byzantine period, Christian scholarly literature reached a high degree of sophistication, combining exquisite elegance of form with deep spiritualism of content.2. The entire spiritual life of society is characterized by dramatic tension: in all spheres of knowledge, in literature, art, there is an amazing mixture of pagan mythology and Christian mysticism. Sincerity and emotionality, folk naivety and integrity of perception of the world, sharp moral assessments, an unexpected combination of mysticism with the vitality of everyday color, pious legend with business practicality are increasingly penetrating into artistic creativity. The didactic element is being strengthened in all spheres of culture; word and book, sign and symbol, imbued with religious motifs, occupy a large place in the life of a person of the early Byzantine era.
Then the Empire entered into new period its development - the formation and victory of the feudal system. It is not surprising that the emperors of the Isaurian dynasty (Leo III, Constantine V, etc.) not only waged wars with the Arab Caliphate, but also carried out important reforms in the field of law, public relations and church politics. Under Leo III, a short legislative collection “Eclogues” was published, the main objectives of which were to strengthen the central government and protect the interests of the military service nobility - the support of the dynasty. There are a number of new points in the Eclogues, including increased repression of heresies.
The church reforms of the first Isaurians caused a particularly wide political and ideological resonance in Byzantium. For the first time in the history of Byzantium, an open clash between the state and the church occurred when swipe by the veneration of icons, the cult of which gave the church a powerful ideological influence on large sections of the country's population and brought in considerable income.
Culture of Byzantium.
Iconoclasm is the struggle of the military landowning nobility and part of the trade and craft circles of Constantinople to limit the power of the church and divide its property. As a result, the struggle ended in an ideological victory for the icon-worshipers, but in fact a compromise was reached between the state and the church. Church and monastic land ownership was severely limited, many church treasures were confiscated, and church hierarchs both in the capital and locally were actually subordinated to imperial power. The Byzantine emperor became the recognized head of the Orthodox Church.
During this struggle, the iconoclasts, like the icon-worshipers, caused noticeable harm cultural development Byzantium VIII-IX centuries. destruction of monuments of human thought and works of art. But at the same time, it cannot be denied that the iconoclastic doctrine and the aesthetic thinking of the iconoclasts introduced a new fresh spirit into the figurative vision of the world of the Byzantines - exquisite abstract symbolism combined with refined and aesthetically attractive decorative patterns. Indeed, the formation of iconoclastic doctrine and aesthetics, which was based on the idea of the indescribability, inexpressibility of a single supreme deity, was influenced by the ideas of Judaism and Islam.
In development artistic creativity Byzantium also left a noticeable mark on the struggle of the iconoclasts against the sensual Hellenistic art, which glorified human flesh, with its illusionistic technique and colorful color scheme. Perhaps it was precisely iconoclastic artistic quests that largely opened the way to the creation of deeply spiritualistic art of Byzantium in the 10th-11th centuries. and prepared the victory of sublime spirituality and abstract symbolism in all spheres public consciousness subsequent centuries.
Report: Culture of Byzantium
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Byzantium did not experience such a cultural decline as Western Europe. She became an heiress cultural achievements the ancient world and the countries of the East.
1. Development of education. In the 7th-8th centuries, when Byzantium's possessions declined, Greek became the official language of the empire. The state needed well-trained officials. They had to competently draw up laws, decrees, contracts, wills, conduct correspondence and court cases, respond to petitioners, and copy documents. Often educated people reached high positions, and with them came power and wealth.
Not only in the capital, but also in small towns and large villages in primary schools Children of ordinary people who could pay for education could study. Therefore, even among peasants and artisans there were literate people.
Along with church schools, public and private schools were opened in cities. They taught reading, writing, counting and church singing. In addition to the Bible and other religious books, the schools studied the works of ancient scientists, the poems of Homer, the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the works of Byzantine scientists and writers; solved quite complex arithmetic problems.
In the 9th century, a higher school was opened in Constantinople, at the imperial palace. It taught religion, mythology, history, geography, and literature.
2. Scientific knowledge. The Byzantines preserved ancient knowledge of mathematics and used it to calculate tax amounts, in astronomy, and in construction. They also widely used the inventions and writings of great Arab scientists - doctors, philosophers and others. Through the Greeks, Western Europe learned about these works. In Byzantium itself there were many scientists and creative people. Leo the Mathematician (9th century) invented sound signaling for transmitting messages over a distance, automatic devices in the throne room of the imperial palace, driven by water - they were supposed to capture the imagination of foreign ambassadors.
Compiled teaching aids in medicine. To teach the art of medicine, in the 11th century, a medical school (the first in Europe) was created at the hospital of one of the monasteries in Constantinople.
The development of crafts and medicine gave impetus to the study of chemistry; Ancient recipes for making glass, paints, and medicines were preserved. “Greek fire” was invented - an incendiary mixture of oil and tar that cannot be extinguished with water. With the help of “Greek fire,” the Byzantines won many victories in battles at sea and on land.
The Byzantines accumulated a lot of knowledge in geography. They knew how to draw maps and city plans. Merchants and travelers wrote descriptions different countries and peoples.
History developed especially successfully in Byzantium. Vivid, interesting works by historians were created on the basis of documents, eyewitness accounts, and personal observations.
3. Architecture. The Christian religion changed the purpose and structure of the temple. In an ancient Greek temple, a statue of the god was placed inside, and religious ceremonies were held outside in the square. That's why appearance They tried to make the temple especially elegant. Christians gathered for common prayer inside the church, and the architects cared about the beauty of not only the external, but also its internal premises.
The Christian church's plan was divided into three parts: the vestibule - a room at the western, main entrance; nave (ship in French) - the elongated main part of the temple where believers gathered for prayer; an altar where only clergy could enter. With its apses - semicircular vaulted niches that protruded outwards, the altar faced the east, where, according to Christian ideas, the center of the earth Jerusalem is located with Mount Golgotha - the site of the crucifixion of Christ. In large temples, rows of columns separated the wider and higher main nave from the side naves, of which there could be two or four.
A remarkable work of Byzantine architecture was the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Justinian did not skimp on expenses: he wanted to make this temple the main and largest church of the entire Christian world. The temple was built by 10 thousand people over five years. Its construction was supervised by famous architects and decorated by the best artisans.
The Church of Hagia Sophia was called “a miracle of miracles” and was sung in verse. Inside it amazed with its size and beauty. A giant dome with a diameter of 31 m seems to grow from two half-domes; each of them rests, in turn, on three small semi-domes. Along the base, the dome is surrounded by a wreath of 40 windows. It seems that the dome, like the vault of heaven, floats in the air.
IN X-XI centuries instead of an elongated rectangular building, a cross-domed church was established. In plan, it looked like a cross with a dome in the middle, mounted on a round elevation - a drum. There were many churches, and they became smaller in size: the inhabitants of a city block, a village, or a monastery gathered in them. The temple looked lighter, directed upward. To decorate its exterior, they used multi-colored stone, brick patterns, and alternated layers of red brick and white mortar.
4. Painting. In Byzantium, earlier than in Western Europe, the walls of temples and palaces began to be decorated with mosaics - images made of multi-colored stones or pieces of colored opaque glass - smalt. Smalt
reinforced with different inclinations in wet plaster. The mosaic, reflecting the light, flashed, sparkled, flickered with bright multi-colored colors. Later, the walls began to be decorated with frescoes - paintings painted with water paints on wet plaster.
There was a canon in the design of temples - strict rules for the depiction and placement of biblical scenes. The temple was a model of the world. The more important the image was, the higher it was placed in the temple.
The eyes and thoughts of those entering the church turned primarily to the dome: it was represented as the vault of heaven - the abode of the deity. Therefore, a mosaic or fresco depicting Christ surrounded by angels was often placed in the dome. From the dome the gaze moved to the upper part of the wall above the altar, where the figure of the Mother of God reminded us of the connection between God and man. In 4-pillar churches, on sails - triangles formed by large arches, frescoes with images of the four authors of the Gospels were often placed: Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Moving around the church, the believer, admiring the beauty of its decoration, seemed to be making a journey through the Holy Land - Palestine. On upper parts On the walls, artists unfolded episodes from the earthly life of Christ in the order as they are described in the Gospels. Below were depicted those whose activities are connected with Christ: prophets (messengers of God) who predicted his coming; apostles - his disciples and followers; martyrs who suffered for the sake of faith; saints who spread the teachings of Christ; kings as his earthly governors. In the western part of the temple, pictures of hell or the Last Judgment after the second coming of Christ were often placed above the entrance.
In the depiction of faces, attention was drawn to the expression of emotional experiences: huge eyes, a large forehead, thin lips, an elongated oval face - everything spoke of high thoughts, spirituality, purity, holiness. The figures were placed on a gold or blue background. They appear flat and frozen, and their facial expressions are solemn and concentrated.
The flat image was created specifically for the church: wherever a person went, he everywhere met the faces of saints turned to him.
In medieval art there was a special idea of perspective. The masters tried to draw attention to the most important things in the image with their sizes. The figure of Christ was depicted as larger than the rest, and towers, trees, buildings - smaller in size than the people standing nearby.
Icons were placed in churches and dwellings - picturesque images of God, the Mother of God, scenes from the Bible on smooth wooden boards. Unlike mosaics and frescoes, an icon can be moved from place to place, sent as a gift, or taken with you on a hike. One of the most revered icons - “Our Lady of Vladimir” - was brought to Rus' from Byzantium. It was not by chance that paintings, icons and frescoes, and sculptures of churches were called the “Bible for the illiterates”: after all, ordinary people could not or did not know how to read the Bible. This is even more true in Western Europe, where the Bible was copied and read in Latin, and not in the local languages spoken by the people. Only church images and sermons of priests introduced ordinary people to the content of Christianity.
5. Cultural connections of Byzantium. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Byzantium was the most cultural country Europe. Kings, princes, bishops of other countries, and most of all Italy, invited architects, artists and jewelers from Byzantium. Inquisitive young men went to Constantinople to study mathematics, medicine, and Roman laws. Architects and artists from European countries studied with Byzantine masters.
Byzantine culture had a particularly strong influence on the culture of the Slavs. Bulgaria, Serbia and Rus' adopted the Christian faith from Byzantium. Slavic alphabet The Bulgarians who studied with the Greeks brought it to Rus' (see below). WITH Greek language Many books were translated into Slavic. The first stone churches in Rus' were built and decorated by craftsmen invited from Byzantium. The culture of Armenia and Georgia, where Christianity established itself at the end of the 4th century, also experienced the strong influence of Byzantium. In Byzantium, many manuscripts of Greek, Roman and Eastern scientists and writers were preserved and thanks to this have come to us.
In the Middle Ages arose and developed three cultures: Byzantine, Arab and Western European, which sharply separated from each other. During the era of the fall of the empire in the West, Byzantium remained the main custodian of ancient education, but little by little this culture itself changed greatly, and its classical legends fell into oblivion. At the end of its existence, Byzantine education froze in once accepted forms and began to differ greatly conservatism. Arab culture, which had already reached great brilliance at a time when Western Europe was still immersed in barbarism (9th–10th centuries), also grew on the soil ancient Greek education, the remnants of which the Arabs became acquainted with in Syria, Egypt and Asia Minor. But the era of prosperity of Arab culture was short-lived. Western European, Romano-Germanic education developed later than Byzantine and Arab, and its most characteristic medieval features were expressed most sharply only in the era of the Crusades. Spiritual physiognomy of the Middle Ages in the West was the complete opposite of classical culture, but it was here more forward movement than in Byzantium, and the movement itself turned out to be more durable, than the Arabs. The three main languages of medieval culture were: Greek in Byzantium, Arabic in the Muslim world, Latin in the West. These were languages, so to speak, international, and none of the new folk languages could equal them in importance. To what extent were these three cultures sometimes disunited between each other and what in a roundabout way there were influences from one to the other, which can best be seen from the fact that in the West the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle were known not in the original and not in translations directly from Greek, but in Latin translations made from Arabic translations. Before the beginning flight of the Byzantine Greeks to Italy During the conquest of the Balkan Peninsula by the Turks, it was almost impossible to find a Greek teacher in Italy. The mutual alienation of the three cultures was, of course, greatly facilitated by religious enmity, which was especially strong during the era of the Crusades.
262. Philosophy in Byzantium
Mental activity in the Byzantine Empire was concentrated mainly on solving religious issues. From the advent of Arianism to the fall of iconoclasm, i.e. from the 4th to the mid-9th century. there were always different heresies, which caused theological controversy both in society and in literature. The struggle against iconoclasm had barely ended when it began division of churches, which gave rise to a whole incriminating literature against the Latins. In all their theological studies, the Byzantines used Greek philosophy, trying to adapt it to the understanding of Christian truths. (What in the West is called scholasticism, originated, as a matter of fact, in Byzantium). Since, however, in the 11th century it was discovered that some representatives of philosophy disagreed with the established teachings of the church, it was decided against free philosophical thinking under the Komnenians very strict measures. Only under the Palaiologos did some revival of philosophical studies take place in Byzantium, and in the 14th and 15th centuries. came here followers of Plato and Aristotle, were arguing among themselves. But the immediate successors of the Byzantine Platonists and Aristotelians were already Italians XV–XVI centuries
263. Scientific activity of the Byzantines
In other branches of knowledge, the Byzantines were more collectors, compilers and interpreters old material than independent researchers and creators of new ideas. Many Byzantines were distinguished great learning with perfect, however, lack of originality. This was the case in the middle of the 9th century. patriarch Photius, who compiled a large encyclopedic collection containing rich material from the works of ancient authors. In the 10th century in the same field of collecting diverse information, the emperor glorified himself Konstantin Porphyrogenitus, and in the 11th century. a very great scientist, but without any ideological creativity he was Mikhail Psell. Medieval Byzantine science was generally purely bookish, and in nature study The Byzantines not only did not advance the knowledge of the ancient world, but even lagged behind it,
264. Byzantine historiography
Much higher value has Byzantine literature historical, ethnographic and political content. Modern events, the way of life and customs of alien peoples, the state of the empire and its administration, all this served as the subject of detailed narratives and detailed descriptions. The reign of Justinian the Great found its historian in his contemporary Procopius, secretary and legal adviser to Belisarius. He described the history of the troops of that time, and also left an essay entitled “The Secret History” (Ανέκδοτα or Historia arcana), where he depicted the despotism of Justinian and the depravity of Theodora in the darkest form. His writings also include news of ancient life Slavs Then they started writing world chronicles, which became a model for Russian chronicles, since translated into Slavic(chronicles John Malala in the 6th century And George Amartola in the 9th century). This type of everyday life writing developed mainly in monasteries, where it also flourished hagiography, i.e., the literature of the lives of saints. In the 10th century emperor Konstantin Porphyrogenitus partly he wrote himself, partly he wrote several works of a historical and descriptive nature. He compiled works on public administration, about Byzantine themes (regions) and court ceremonies, and in his writings there are also information about the Slavs. During the Komnenos era, Byzantine historiography exposed talented writers in the face Anna Comnena, daughter of Emperor Alexei I, whose time she described, and in the person of Nikita Akominata, who brought the history of Byzantium under the Komnenos to the conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders. Under the Palaiologos, Byzantine historiography was already in decline.
265. Byzantine jurisprudence
Before the revival of academic jurisprudence in Western European universities - which happened only during the era of the Crusades - Byzantium was the only custodian of the tradition of Roman law. The legislative activity of the times of Justinian (Corpus juris), the iconoclast emperors (the laws of Leo the Isaurian and his son Constantine) and the Macedonian dynasty (Basiliki) required remarkable mental strength and great learning. But even in this area, the general features of Byzantinism make themselves felt. Justinian the Great already wanted to enclose the science of law within strictly defined boundaries and therefore, under pain of punishment, forbade the preparation of any interpretations to his code. This prohibition, however, began to be violated during the reign of Justinian himself; but all Byzantine legal literature consists mainly of simple commentary and compilation. Based on the model of the Justinian code in the 6th century, they began to compile collections of church (canonical) law, that is, mainly the decrees (canons) of ecumenical councils and imperial laws (νόμοι) on church affairs. From the merger of both, one was formed Nomocanon, which also influenced law of Slavic peoples.
266. Poetic literature in Byzantium
Even in the first centuries of our era, Christian writers made attempts use ancient poetic forms to convey biblical stories. For example, Gregory of Nazianzus is credited with the drama “The Suffering Christ,” in which they even find many verses taken entirely from the Greek tragedian Euripides. Only some births poetic creativity received independent development in Byzantium. This was mainly the area church hymns, in which they became famous mainly Roman Sladkopevets(VI century) and John of Damascus(VIII century). Byzantium did not create anything great in secular poetry.
267. Byzantine art
While the barbaric invasion of the West was accompanied by a decline in culture and artistically, Byzantium again remained guardian of aesthetic ideals.Byzantine art served mainly religious purposes, architecture - to the building of temples, and painting - to the decoration of churches with sacred images. IN architecture a special Byzantine style(cruciform plan and dome crowning the building). The development of Byzantine architecture opens the temple of St. Sofia, built by Justinian the Great. This style spread not only to Armenia, Georgia and Russia, but partly also to the West. Sculpture could not develop in Byzantium, because the Eastern Church always had an unfavorable attitude toward statues that resembled pagan idols, and in the era of the restoration of icon veneration statues were completely banned. But painting found in the religious life of Byzantium wide application in decorating temples with wall images made with a brush or mosaic, in the manufacture of portable icons and in illustrating manuscripts with miniatures. And painting developed its own special byzantine style, but from the middle of the 9th century, when the final victory over iconoclasm was won, artistic creativity has become shy the need to invariably follow old models, and two hundred years later even a mandatory canon was established on how to paint certain icons (originals). Little by little, icon painting began to be done exclusively by monks, who tried to give the images of saints exaggerated features of asceticism, that is, they always painted them thin and emaciated.
268. General features of Byzantine culture
Byzantine culture grew by Greek based, but in it antique the element was increasingly giving way church principles, as it was, however, in the West in the Middle Ages. Another feature of Byzantinism is lack of personal originality, who, both in the field of abstract thinking and in the field of artistic creativity, was shy established forms, supported by both the authorities (both state and church), and public opinion, and the whole way of life with the predominance of traditions and customs.
269. The sphere of distribution and fate of Byzantine culture
The main sphere of distribution of Byzantine culture were the countries in which it was dominated eastern church(Balkan Peninsula, ancient Rus', Georgia), or neighboring countries (Italy in Europe, Armenia in Asia). The Eastern Church did not impose the Greek language on the peoples belonging to it, as the Western Church did in relation to the Latin language. Already in the 9th century. soon after accepting Christianity Bulgaria in this country a wide literary activity developed, consisting mainly of translations of Greek books into Slavic. The Bulgarians were also the main intermediaries in the transfer of Byzantine culture to the then Rus'. All ancient Russian education had its source in the Byzantine culture of the second half of the Middle Ages, when this culture had already acquired a completely finished form. Influence Byzantine education in the West became noticeable only during the fall of Constantinople, but it concerned more forms than mental content. At the end of the Middle Ages, Byzantine culture did not show the ability to develop further. One of the reasons for this was the sad fate of Byzantium itself and the peoples that developed under its influence. For two and a half centuries (XIII-XV) Rus' was under the Tatar yoke; in the XIV century. The South Slavic kingdoms were conquered by the Turks in the 15th century. The Byzantine Empire itself fell. The conquerors of the states of Eastern Europe were real barbarians, culturally immeasurably inferior to the vanquished; at the same time, they themselves turned out to be incapable of assimilating higher culture.
Byzantium occupies a special place in the history of European culture. Its culture arose in a state that existed from the end of the 4th to the middle of the 15th century. With the capital Constantinople (now Istanbul) after the division of the Roman Empire into two parts - eastern and western. The state received its name later; The Byzantines themselves proudly called themselves Romans. The uniqueness of the culture that formed in the east of the Roman Empire lies in the fact that it arose and existed in a kind of border situation. Byzantium was part of the ancient world, but it was there, in Byzantium, that the Orthodox branch of medieval culture arose and reached its greatest flowering. The culture of Byzantium is characterized by both solemn pomp and spirituality, grace of form and depth of thought. The features of Byzantine culture include:
1) Synthesis of Western and Eastern elements with the primacy of Greco-Roman traditions;
2) Preservation of the traditions of ancient civilization, which later served as the basis of European culture of the Renaissance;
3) Strong state foundations that contribute to the preservation of secular artistic creativity;
4) the formation of Orthodoxy, which influenced philosophical and theological views, the system of Christian ethical and aesthetic values.
In the works of Byzantine thinkers of the early period - Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, in the speeches of John Chrysostom, one can see a combination of the ideas of early Christianity with Neoplatonic philosophy. Fierce theological debates unfolded among philosophers. The question was raised about the meaning of human existence, man’s place in the universe, and his capabilities.
Byzantine thinkers energetically advocated using the best that was given to humanity by ancient culture. Christian theologians, writers, preachers borrow from the treasury of Greco-Roman culture the simplicity and diversity of philosophical thought, Heraclitean dialectics, Aristotelian logic, skillfully using the practicality and eloquence of ancient rhetoric. In all spheres of knowledge, in literature and art, there is an amazing mixture of pagan mythology and Christian mysticism. In artistic creativity The combination of mysticism with the vitality of everyday color and piety is increasingly noticeable.
Based on the traditions of ancient aesthetics, the Byzantines saw art primarily as an instrument for a targeted positive impact on the spiritual world of man. In the understanding of Byzantine thinkers, music, painting, architecture, and verbal arts act as mediators of the comprehension of truth, are sources of moral improvement of a person, contribute to the removal of negative emotions and ultimately lead to spiritual transformation.
The architectural forms of medieval Christian churches have changed greatly compared to ancient ones. In ancient temples of the classical type, their external plastic design played a very large role and the internal space played a very small role. Inside, in the twilight, there was a statue of the deity, and all the rituals and celebrations took place outside, in the square. Purpose christian church differently: it is conceived not as the abode of God, but as a place where a community of believers gathers. The organization of internal space becomes main task architects, and the appearance of the building is decided rather as a derivative, as a shell. Two architectural forms prevailed in church architecture: basilica and cross-domed.
An example of a rare and brilliantly resolved combination of both constructive principles is the Council of Constantinople Saint Sophia. This temple does not seem too big from the outside, but inside it amazes with the volume and weightlessness of the gigantic (30 meters in diameter), as if floating, dome. White marble lace capitals, inlaid colored marble of exquisite delicate shades, shimmering multi-colored mosaics, excellent acoustics - all this is evidence of the amazing skill of Byzantine architects and artists. The Hagia Sophia remains the highest achievement of Byzantine architecture.
The main forms of Byzantine painting- monumental temple painting (mosaic and fresco), icons; book miniatures, which are also highly revered. Mosaic- a type of monumental painting, image or pattern made of multi-colored stones, smalt; received special significance in the artistic culture of Byzantium. Time has almost no power over the mosaics of ancient masters. The oldest Byzantine mosaics are found in the temples and tombs of Ravenna, a city on the Adriatic coast, once the capital of the Ostrogothic kingdom, then a major cultural center of Byzantium. Here, in a rough, thick-walled mausoleum, lie the ashes of Theodoric, the first Ostrogothic king. Dante is buried here. Ravenna preserves a unique complex of Byzantine monuments from the 5th to 7th centuries. That turning point when Rome and Byzantium, antiquity and the Middle Ages met at the crossroads of history. The mausoleum of Galla Placidia, a Byzantine queen of the 5th century, is decorated inside with amazing mosaics: figures of Christian martyrs draped in an antique style emerge from the thick shimmering blue, fabulous landscapes of paradise with golden deer and birds spread out. Here in Ravenna, in the church of San Vitali, there are majestic colorful mosaic images of the Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora with their retinues.
In Byzantium, icon painting, Christian easel religious painting, was formed, which gave the church the opportunity to exert a powerful ideological influence on large sections of the country's population and brought in considerable income. But it was here, in Byzantium, that the first clash between state and church took place, reflected in Iconoclasm. Iconoclasm- in a broad sense, a socio-political and cultural-religious movement directed against the cult of icons. In a narrower and more vital meaning - the struggle of the military landowning nobility and part of the trade and craft circles of Constantinople to limit the power of the church. Iconoclastic aesthetics was based on the idea of the impossibility of reflecting a single supreme deity by realistic means, characteristic of Judaism and Islam. The struggle ended in victory for the icon-worshipers, but in fact a compromise was reached between the state and the church: the church hierarchs were subordinated to the imperial power. The Byzantine emperor became the recognized head of the Orthodox Church.
The iconoclasts caused significant harm to the cultural development of Byzantium in the 8th-9th centuries, destroying a number of works of art..
Unprecedented sophistication was achieved in Byzantium and art crafts. The art of enamels, inlays with precious stones, and bone carving flourished. Byzantine culture is characterized by an interest in generalizing accumulated knowledge. Encyclopedias on history, agriculture, and medicine were created, and important reforms were carried out in the field of law, public relations and church politics. The treatises of Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus (913-959) “on government”, “on the ceremonies of the Byzantine court” are an extensive encyclopedia of valuable information about the political and administrative structure of the Byzantine state. At the same time, it contains colorful material of an ethnographic and historical-geographical nature about the countries and peoples adjacent to the empire, including the Slavs.
Culture of Byzantium.
The Byzantine Empire made an invaluable contribution to the development of world culture. Religion occupied an important place in the culture of Byzantium. This state played a key role in the spread of Christianity in the West and East. After the split of the church into Orthodox and Catholic, Byzantium became a real symbol of the Orthodox faith. In Byzantine culture, a lot is connected with religion. Religion is wonderful spiritual food for people. However, in addition to religious teachings, statutes and canons in it important role plays the art of magnificent beauty. In Byzantium, many extraordinarily beautiful temples were built, many amazing icons were painted, and a large number of beautiful mosaics and frescoes were created.
Architecture. Among the attractions of Byzantine culture one can highlight the majestic Saint Sophia Cathedral (Temple of Divine Wisdom) in Constantinople. During the time of Constantine the Great, churches began to be built in the form of a basilica (a rectangular building divided into several longitudinal naves by rows of pillars or columns). The nave is the longitudinal part of a Christian church, usually divided by a colonnade or arch into a main, wider and higher nave and side naves. In the eastern part of the basilica, ending in a semicircular protrusion - an apse, there was the most revered part of the temple - the altar.
The temple was built in 532-537 by Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Thrall. The interior of the Cathedral is a grandiose under-dome space with a dome ring raised to a height of 55 meters, and a ring diameter of 31.5 meters, the length of the temple is 77 meters. In 415 the temple burned down, but in the 6th century. under Emperor Justinian it was rebuilt. St. Sophia Cathedral was for a long time the most majestic and largest temple in the Christian world. However, in 1453, Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks. After which the St. Sophia Cathedral was converted into a mosque, which was named Hagia Sophia. Since 1935 it has had the status of a Museum. In the 9th – 10th centuries. another type of temple triumphed - cross-domed.
The Athos Monastery occupies an important place in Byzantine culture. It is located on the territory of the Orthodox state of Greece and attracts a large number of pilgrims.
The Byzantine Empire made a great contribution to the development of Russian and world culture. Even during the times of Ancient Rus', St. Sophia Cathedrals were built in its cities, following the example of Constantinople - in Kyiv, Novgorod and Polotsk (later in Vologda).
Painting. The walls of temples and palaces were decorated mosaics(images made of multi-colored pebbles or pieces of opaque glass - smalt). Frescoes- painting with water paints on wet plaster. In temples and dwellings they placed icons ( an object of veneration, a canonical and symbolic image of God, the Virgin Mary, saints, made on a smooth wooden board).
In the VIII-XII centuries. a special musical and poetic church art . Thanks to his high artistic merits, the influence of folk music on church music, whose melodies had previously penetrated even into the liturgy, has weakened. To further isolate musical fundamentals Divine services from external influences, the canonization of the mode-tonal system - "octoecho" (eight voices) was carried out. Ikos represented certain melodic formulas. However, musical theoretical monuments allow us to conclude that the ikos system did not exclude scale understanding. The most popular genres of church music were the canon (musical and poetic composition during a church service) and the troparion (almost the main unit of Byzantine hymnography). Troparions were composed for all holidays, all solemn events and memorable dates.
The progress of musical art led to the creation of musical notation, as well as liturgical handwritten collections in which chants were recorded (either just the text or text with notation).
Fashion: Straightforward and opaque. After the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great converted to Christianity in 313 and moved his residence to Byzantium in 330, a new center of the Eastern Roman state arose here. But in the vast history of Byzantium there are several periods: early Byzantine, middle Byzantine and late Byzantine, at the end of which, in 1453, Constantinople was finally captured by the Turks.
During all periods cultural life The Byzantine state was influenced by a huge staff of courtiers and remained within the narrow framework of a forever defined ceremonial. Traditions associated it with clothing from the era of the Roman Empire, but to all this was added the diverse influence of the East.
Both men and women remained faithful to ancient Roman clothing. The main components of the Byzantine costume were a long shirt-skirt with sleeves, called a tunic or chiton, and a cloak, which was thrown over the top and fastened with an agraph on the right shoulder. This cloak was similar to the Roman sagum or, as it was also called, lancerna (an outer, mainly travel, dress with a hood), but was somewhat longer. For noble people, such a cloak was made of expensive materials with rich decoration and a quadrangular insert on the chest, which was a sign of high status. The courtiers wore a narrow cape fastened to the chest, which covered even their hands and was without a single fold.
The motif of envelopment in clothing becomes more and more evident over time. Gradually, even the tunic down to the toes and with sleeves becomes completely smooth, without folds, and resembles a bag. In addition to the tunic, they also wore another cloak, which, according to legend, was worn only by Jesus Christ and the apostles. It had that ideal form that is preserved in Christian images of modern art.
Such antique forms of clothing were complemented by oriental motifs, which included rich decoration, a variety of colors and shiny materials. Eastern silk fabrics were embroidered in Byzantium with patterns and ornaments, mostly with Christian symbols. The entire surface of the clothing was covered with rich trimmings of gold stripes, decorated with precious stones and pearls, which enhanced the impression of straightforwardness and rigidity.
This is what the outfit of a noble Byzantine woman looked like. Her underwear was a tunic (or stola), which reached to the feet, fit tightly to the neck, with long sleeves tapering towards the wrist. A second one was worn over the tunic, but with short open sleeves. Both of these tunics were richly decorated with embroidery and trim along the edges, so they almost completely lost their antique character. However, what brought the cloak closer to antiquity was that it was placed at the back on both shoulders, and the ends were thrown back crosswise at the front. Among the outerwear one could also find a penula with a cutout for the head (these were worn by women from Theodora’s retinue).
Depending on the class, fashion provided for different options for outerwear. However, the general mood of Byzantine fashion is the complete impermeability of clothing. Arms, shoulders, neck - everything is tightly closed. The clothes tried to hide everything and completely neglected the body. Before Byzantium, the legislators and creators of fashion history were the Germans of the Roman Empire.
The connection between the culture of Byzantium and the culture of Ancient Rus'.
Acceptance of Christianity.
The culture of Kievan Rus inherited the culture of the East Slavic tribes that formed the core of the state. She was undoubtedly influenced by the nomadic peoples of the Steppe and especially Byzantium, from which Christianity came to Rus'.
In 988, under Vladimir Svyatoslavich, Christianity was adopted as the state religion. Christianity, as the chronicler says, has been widespread in Rus' since ancient times. At the beginning of our era, the Apostle Andrew the First-Called - the elder brother of the Apostle Peter - went to Scythia. As the Tale of Bygone Years testifies, the Apostle Andrew rose to the middle reaches of the Dnieper, erected a cross on the Kyiv hills and predicted that Kyiv would be “the mother of Russian cities.” The chronicler's further route lay through Novgorod, where, according to the chronicler, he was amazed by the Russian bathhouse, to the Baltic and further around Europe to Rome. Stories about subsequent baptisms of certain groups of the population of Rus' show that Christianity gradually entered the life of the ancient Russian people.
The adoption of Christianity was of great importance for further development Rus'. Christianity, with its idea of the eternity of human life, affirmed the idea of equality of people before God. According to the new religion, the path to heaven is open to both rich nobles and commoners, depending on their honest performance of their duties on earth.
“God's servant” - the sovereign was, according to Byzantine traditions, both a fair judge in domestic affairs and a valiant defender of the borders of the state. The adoption of Christianity strengthened state power and territorial unity of Kievan Rus. It had great international significance, in that Rus', having rejected “primitive” paganism, was now becoming equal to other Christian countries, ties with which had expanded significantly. Finally, the adoption of Christianity played a big role in the development of Russian culture, which was influenced by Byzantine, and through it, ancient culture.
The adoption of Christianity in the Orthodox tradition has become one of the determining factors in our further historical development. Vladimir was canonized by the church as a saint and for his services in the baptism of Rus' is called equal to the apostles.
Culture.
The Middle Ages period is of particular importance in the history of Russian culture. The era of the Middle Ages in Russia lasted longer than in others European countries, and our culture experienced its “echoes” until the beginning of the 19th century, when the “indigenous” archaism of the province “meets” the imaginary Middle Ages of romanticism.
The beginning of a new era was laid with the adoption of Christianity at the end of the 10th century (989), when the Russian principalities entered the Byzantine area and adopted one of the most developed types of culture in the world at that time. The choice made by Prince Vladimir had serious reasons; It would not be an exaggeration to say that he predetermined the entire subsequent history of Russian culture. Byzantine craftsmen built the first stone churches in Rus', the interiors of which were decorated with mosaics and fresco paintings; The first examples of pictorial art - icons and miniature manuscripts - were brought from Constantinople to Kyiv and other cities.
Christianity in Rus' is just over a thousand years old, and the art of icon painting has equally ancient roots. The icon (from the Greek word meaning “image”, “image”) arose before the emergence of ancient Russian culture, and became widespread in all Orthodox countries. Icons in Rus' appeared as a result of the missionary activity of the Byzantine Church at a time when the importance of church art was experienced with particular force. What is especially important and what was a strong internal motivation for Russian church art is that Rus' adopted Christianity precisely in the era of the revival of spiritual life in Byzantium itself, the era of its heyday. During this period, nowhere in Europe was church art as developed as in Byzantium. And at this time, the newly converted Rus' received, among other icons, as an example of Orthodox art, an unsurpassed masterpiece - the icon of the Mother of God, which later received the name of Vladimir.
Through fine art, ancient harmony and a sense of proportion become the property of Russian church art and become part of its living fabric. It should also be noted that for the rapid development of the Byzantine heritage in Rus' there were favorable preconditions and, one might say, already prepared soil. Recent research suggests that pagan Rus' had a highly developed artistic culture. All this contributed to the fact that the cooperation of Russian masters with Byzantine ones was extremely fruitful.
The newly converted people turned out to be able to accept the Byzantine heritage, which nowhere found such favorable soil and nowhere gave such results as in Rus'.
Since ancient times, the word “icon” has been used for individual images, usually written on a board. The reason for this phenomenon is obvious. Wood served as our main building material. The overwhelming majority of Russian churches were wooden, so not only mosaics, but also frescoes (painting on fresh wet plaster) were not destined to become a common decoration of church interiors in Ancient Rus'.
With their decorativeness, ease of placement in the church, the brightness and durability of their colors, icons painted on boards (pine and linden, covered with alabaster primer - gesso) were the best suited for decorating Russian wooden churches.
It was not without reason that it was noted that in Ancient Rus' the icon was the same classical form of fine art as relief was in Egypt, sculpture was in Hellas, and mosaic was in Byzantium. Old Russian painting - painting Christian Rus'- played a very important and completely different role in the life of society than modern painting, and this role determined its character. Rus' received baptism from Byzantium and with it inherited the idea that the task of painting is to “embody the word”, to embody the Christian doctrine in images. Therefore, the basis of ancient Russian painting is the great Christian “word”. First of all, this is the Holy Scripture, the Bible (“Bible” in Greek - books) - books created, according to Christian doctrine, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
It was necessary to embody the word, this grandiose literature, as clearly as possible - after all, this incarnation was supposed to bring a person closer to the truth of this word, to the depth of the creed that he professed. The art of the Byzantine, Orthodox world - all countries included in the sphere of cultural and religious influence of Byzantium - resolved this problem, developing a deeply unique set of techniques, creating an unprecedented and never repeated artistic system, which made it possible to embody the Christian word in an unusually complete and clear way. picturesque image.
For many centuries, ancient Russian painting brought to people, embodying them unusually brightly and fully in images, the spiritual truths of Christianity. It was in the deep revelation of these truths that the painting of the Byzantine world, including the painting of Ancient Rus', the frescoes, mosaics, miniatures, icons created by it, acquired extraordinary, unprecedented, unique beauty.
Soon after the completion of the main temple of Rus' - Sophia of Kiev (whose dedication repeated the name of the main church of the capital of Byzantium - Constantinople), Metropolitan Hilarion’s “Sermon on Law and Grace” was written, which had the goal of establishing the foundations of a new Christian worldview. Thus, at the end of the 10th century, the lands of Kievan Rus entered the area of the Christian world, falling under the influence of Byzantium. The metropolitanate, founded in Kyiv, was subordinate to the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Russian principalities were introduced to Byzantine culture at a time when the peak point of the eastern empire had already been overcome, but its decline was still very far away. Byzantium remained the only direct heir of the Hellenistic world to apply the artistic achievements of antiquity to the spiritual experience of Christianity; its culture was distinguished by its refinement and sophistication, its art by the depth of its religious content and virtuosity of formal techniques; The main achievement of Byzantine theology was the writings of the holy fathers of the church. Such a high level of Greek teachers posed difficult tasks for Kievan Rus. However, the art of the Russian principalities of the 10th century differed from the Byzantine prototypes of the same time. The features of the first works created by the Greeks - scale and representativeness - demonstrate the ambitions of the young state and princely power. In addition, Byzantine influence could not quickly spread over such a vast territory; The Christianization of Russian lands dragged on for several centuries. In the Suzdal and Rostov lands, uprisings took place until the 12th century, led by “magi” - pagan priests.
There are different ideas about the relationship between Christianity and pagan beliefs in Ancient Rus': among them is the concept of “dual faith” - the coexistence and interpenetration of two religions - “folk” and “official”. Folk culture, especially in lands distant from Kiev, was undoubtedly determined for a long time by pagan beliefs, and subsequently (as in the culture of Western Europe) by a simplified interpretation of Christianity and superstitions. However, our ideas about folk culture after Christianization are largely based on indirect data and assumptions. At the same time, the culture of the spiritual and secular elite is known from monuments that do not provide grounds for confident conclusions about the penetration of paganism into the religious ideas of Ancient Rus'. It would be more accurate to talk about the parallel development of folk and “elite” culture, not forgetting the role of the ancient traditions of the East Slavic (and Finno-Ugric) tribes, but also without exaggerating their importance in shaping the specifics of the culture of Ancient Rus'.
With the adoption of Christianity, the Russian principalities were introduced to book culture. We must not forget that the development of Russian writing, which became the basis for the emergence of literature, was also associated with Christianity - although writing was known in the Russian lands earlier, only after the baptism of Rus' did it become widespread and, more importantly, based on a developed cultural tradition Eastern Christianity. Extensive translated literature became the basis for the formation of its own tradition. The early period is characterized by the development of such genres as sermons, lives of saints (among them the lives of the first Russian saints Boris and Gleb), descriptions of military campaigns (the famous Lay of Igor's Campaign); At the same time, Russian chronicle writing began (The Tale of Bygone Years).
Having become part of the Christian world, the Russian principalities acquired ample opportunities for the development of political and cultural ties not only with Byzantium, but also with European countries. Already at the end of the 11th century, the influence of Romanesque architecture became noticeable. The white-stone churches of the Vladimir Principality, decorated with sculpture, appeared thanks to Andrei Bogolyubsky’s invitation to masters “from all lands.” According to the Russian historian Tatishchev (who lived in the 18th century), the architects were sent to Vladimir by the German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. However, these churches are not identical to the Romanesque buildings of Catholic Europe - they represent a unique synthesis of the Byzantine typology of the cross-domed church and the Romanesque technique of white stone construction and decoration. Such a mixture of Greek and Western European traditions became possible only on Russian soil, and one of its results was the famous masterpiece of Vladimir architecture - the church.
The Church of the Intercession on the Nerl is now known to everyone as a symbol of the cultural identity of Ancient Rus'. At the stage of the early Middle Ages, the Russian principalities were close to other European states in terms of the type of culture and direction of historical development. In the future, the paths of Russia and Europe diverge. One of the first reasons for this is the schism, or division of the churches into Western and Eastern, which occurred in 1054. Almost imperceptible in the 11th century, this gap made itself felt two centuries later in the opposition of the Novgorodians to the Teutonic Order. The middle of the 12th century marks the beginning of the disintegration of Kievan Rus (not all historians consider it possible to call it a state in the full sense of the word) into separate principalities. In the middle of the 12th century, Andrei Bogolyubsky actually transferred the grand-ducal throne from Kyiv to Vladimir (carrying with him the icon of the Mother of God, which later received the name of Vladimir). Almost every principality began to form its own architectural and painting schools. A turning point in the history of Russian statehood and culture was the ruin of Batu and the subsequent subordination to the Horde. The actual entry into the Mongolian state imposed on Russian history other, different from Western European, principles of government - in particular, it instilled the principle of universal subordination and unity of command (fundamentally different from the vassalage system that developed in Western Europe). The devastation of the Russian lands at the beginning of the 13th century, a monument to which was the “Crying and the Captivity and Final Devastation of the Russian Land,” became the reason for the weakening of Byzantine influences on art, which resulted in the development of features of originality in Russian art of this century (one example is the icon called “ Yaroslavl Oranta"). From this time we can begin counting down the “own path” of Russian culture. Only by the end of the 13th century were the Russian lands able to recover from devastation. The first were Novgorod and Pskov, which the Horde troops did not reach. These trading cities-“republics” with veche administration created a unique version of culture, which was formed not without some participation of their western neighbors - the Baltic countries. In the northeastern lands, at the beginning of the next 14th century, the dominant role began to shift from the Vladimir to the Moscow principality, which, however, had to defend its primacy at Tver for another century. Moscow was part of the Vladimir lands, being one of the border fortresses of northeastern Rus'. In 1324, Metropolitan Peter left Vladimir and settled in Moscow, thus moving here the residence of the head of the church authorities of the Russian lands (it is interesting that Metropolitan Maxim’s move from Kiev to Vladimir took place quite shortly before this - in 1299). At the end of the 14th century, the main shrine of the “old” capital, the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, was transported to Moscow. Vladimir became a model for the Moscow principality.
The painting of the late XIV - early XV centuries is illuminated by two major phenomena of Russian (and world) culture - the work of the Byzantine master Theophanes the Greek and the Russian icon painter Andrei Rublev. Feofan’s style (with which we are familiar from the frescoes of the Church of the Savior on Ilyin Street in Novgorod) is distinguished by a monochromatic palette, the use of sharp spaces, rare expressiveness of laconic spots and lines, under which one can discern a complex symbolic subtext, close to the teaching of hesychasm, widespread at that time in Byzantium. Rublev’s icons, in their softness of color and interpretation of form, creating a mood of soft lyricism and tranquility, are closer to the late Byzantine painting of the Balkan countries of the 15th century. The end of the 14th century marks the most important event in Russian history - in 1380, in the Battle of Kulikovo Field, the army united by Prince Dmitry Ivanovich under the “hand of Moscow” won the first serious victory over the Horde. The activities of the abbot of the Trinity Monastery Sergius of Radonezh played an exceptional role in this. The name of St. Sergius, who later became in the minds of the Russian people the protector and patron of the Moscow state, is of great importance for the culture of Russia. The monk himself and his followers founded more than 200 monasteries of the new cenobitic charter for Rus' at that time, which became the basis for the so-called. “monastic colonization” of underdeveloped northern lands. The Life of Sergius of Radonezh was written by one of the outstanding writers of that time - Epiphanius the Wise; for the cathedral of the Sergius Monastery Andrei Rublev wrote famous icon Trinity is the greatest masterpiece of the Russian Middle Ages. The middle of the 15th century was marked by a difficult internecine war for the Moscow grand-ducal throne. Only by the end of this century did Ivan III manage to unite the Russian lands around Moscow (which cost the ruin of Novgorod and Pskov) and finally put an end to subordination to the Horde - the bloodless stand of troops on the Ugra River (1480), which later received the poetic name of the “belt of the Virgin Mary,” marked the emergence of an independent states led by the Moscow prince.
Culture Byzantium (2)Abstract >> Culture and art
Introduction 3 Development of artistic culture V Byzantium 4 Features of Byzantine aesthetics 7 Art Byzantium 9 List of used... unique, much instructive. Development of artistic culture V Byzantium Byzantine art genetically went back to...
At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Byzantium did not experience such a cultural decline as Western Europe. She became the heir to the cultural achievements of the ancient world and the countries of the East.
1. Development of education. In the 7th-8th centuries, when Byzantium's possessions declined, Greek became the official language of the empire. The state needed well-trained officials. They had to competently draw up laws, decrees, contracts, wills, conduct correspondence and court cases, respond to petitioners, and copy documents. Often educated people achieved high positions, and with them came power and wealth.
Not only in the capital, but also in small towns and large villages, children of ordinary people who were able to pay for education could study in primary schools. Therefore, even among peasants and artisans there were literate people.
Along with church schools, public and private schools were opened in cities. They taught reading, writing, arithmetic and church singing. In addition to the Bible and other religious books, the schools studied the works of ancient scientists, the poems of Homer, the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the works of Byzantine scientists and writers; solved quite complex arithmetic problems.
In the 9th century, a higher school was opened in Constantinople, at the imperial palace. It taught religion, mythology, history, geography, and literature.
2. Scientific knowledge. The Byzantines preserved ancient knowledge of mathematics and used it to calculate tax amounts, in astronomy, and in construction. They also widely used the inventions and writings of great Arab scientists - doctors, philosophers and others. Through the Greeks, Western Europe learned about these works. In Byzantium itself there were many scientists and creative people. Leo the Mathematician (9th century) invented sound signaling for transmitting messages over a distance, automatic devices in the throne room of the imperial palace, driven by water - they were supposed to capture the imagination of foreign ambassadors.
Medical textbooks were compiled. To teach the art of medicine, in the 11th century, a medical school (the first in Europe) was created at the hospital of one of the monasteries in Constantinople.
The development of crafts and medicine gave impetus to the study of chemistry; Ancient recipes for making glass, paints, and medicines were preserved. “Greek fire” was invented - an incendiary mixture of oil and tar that cannot be extinguished with water. With the help of “Greek fire,” the Byzantines won many victories in battles at sea and on land.
The Byzantines accumulated a lot of knowledge in geography. They knew how to draw maps and city plans. Merchants and travelers wrote descriptions of different countries and peoples.
History developed especially successfully in Byzantium. Vivid, interesting works by historians were created on the basis of documents, eyewitness accounts, and personal observations.
3. Architecture. The Christian religion changed the purpose and structure of the temple. In an ancient Greek temple, a statue of the god was placed inside, and religious ceremonies were held outside in the square. Therefore, they tried to make the appearance of the temple especially elegant. Christians gathered for common prayer inside the church, and the architects cared about the beauty of not only the external, but also its internal premises.
The Christian church's plan was divided into three parts: the vestibule - a room at the western, main entrance; nave (ship in French) - the elongated main part of the temple where believers gathered for prayer; an altar where only clergy could enter. With its apses - semicircular vaulted niches that protruded outwards, the altar faced the east, where, according to Christian ideas, the center of the earth Jerusalem is located with Mount Golgotha - the site of the crucifixion of Christ. In large temples, rows of columns separated the wider and higher main nave from the side naves, of which there could be two or four.
A remarkable work of Byzantine architecture was the Church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Justinian did not skimp on expenses: he wanted to make this temple the main and largest church of the entire Christian world. The temple was built by 10 thousand people over five years. Its construction was supervised by famous architects and decorated by the best artisans.
The Church of Hagia Sophia was called “a miracle of miracles” and was sung in verse. Inside it amazed with its size and beauty. A giant dome with a diameter of 31 m seems to grow from two half-domes; each of them rests, in turn, on three small semi-domes. Along the base, the dome is surrounded by a wreath of 40 windows. It seems that the dome, like the vault of heaven, floats in the air.
In the 10th-11th centuries, instead of an elongated rectangular building, a cross-domed church was established. In plan, it looked like a cross with a dome in the middle, mounted on a round elevation - a drum. There were many churches, and they became smaller in size: the inhabitants of a city block, a village, or a monastery gathered in them. The temple looked lighter, directed upward. To decorate its exterior, they used multi-colored stone, brick patterns, and alternated layers of red brick and white mortar.
4. Painting. In Byzantium, earlier than in Western Europe, the walls of temples and palaces began to be decorated with mosaics - images made of multi-colored stones or pieces of colored opaque glass - smalt. Smalt
reinforced with different inclinations in wet plaster. The mosaic, reflecting the light, flashed, sparkled, flickered with bright multi-colored colors. Later, the walls began to be decorated with frescoes - paintings painted with water paints on wet plaster.
There was a canon in the design of temples - strict rules for the depiction and placement of biblical scenes. The temple was a model of the world. The more important the image was, the higher it was placed in the temple.
The eyes and thoughts of those entering the church turned primarily to the dome: it was represented as the vault of heaven - the abode of the deity. Therefore, a mosaic or fresco depicting Christ surrounded by angels was often placed in the dome. From the dome the gaze moved to the upper part of the wall above the altar, where the figure of the Mother of God reminded us of the connection between God and man. In 4-pillar churches, on sails - triangles formed by large arches, frescoes with images of the four authors of the Gospels were often placed: Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Moving around the church, the believer, admiring the beauty of its decoration, seemed to be making a journey through the Holy Land - Palestine. On the upper parts of the walls, artists unfolded episodes from the earthly life of Christ in the order as they are described in the Gospels. Below were depicted those whose activities are connected with Christ: prophets (messengers of God) who predicted his coming; apostles - his disciples and followers; martyrs who suffered for the sake of faith; saints who spread the teachings of Christ; kings as his earthly governors. In the western part of the temple, pictures of hell or the Last Judgment after the second coming of Christ were often placed above the entrance.
In the depiction of faces, attention was drawn to the expression of emotional experiences: huge eyes, a large forehead, thin lips, an elongated oval face - everything spoke of high thoughts, spirituality, purity, holiness. The figures were placed on a gold or blue background. They appear flat and frozen, and their facial expressions are solemn and concentrated. The flat image was created specifically for the church: wherever a person went, he everywhere met the faces of saints turned to him.
In medieval art there was a special idea of perspective. The masters tried to draw attention to the most important things in the image with their sizes. The figure of Christ was depicted as larger than the rest, and towers, trees, buildings - smaller in size than the people standing nearby.
Icons were placed in churches and dwellings - picturesque images of God, the Mother of God, scenes from the Bible on smooth wooden boards. Unlike mosaics and frescoes, an icon can be moved from place to place, sent as a gift, or taken with you on a hike. One of the most revered icons - “Our Lady of Vladimir” - was brought to Rus' from Byzantium. It was not by chance that paintings, icons and frescoes, and sculptures of churches were called the “Bible for the illiterates”: after all, ordinary people could not or did not know how to read the Bible. This is even more true in Western Europe, where the Bible was copied and read in Latin, and not in the local languages spoken by the people. Only church images and sermons of priests introduced ordinary people to the content of Christianity.
5. Cultural connections of Byzantium. At the beginning of the Middle Ages, Byzantium was the most cultural country in Europe. Kings, princes, bishops of other countries, and most of all Italy, invited architects, artists and jewelers from Byzantium. Inquisitive young men went to Constantinople to study mathematics, medicine, and Roman laws. Architects and artists from European countries studied with Byzantine masters.
Byzantine culture had a particularly strong influence on the culture of the Slavs. Bulgaria, Serbia and Rus' adopted the Christian faith from Byzantium. The Slavic alphabet was brought to Rus' by the Bulgarians who studied with the Greeks (see below). Many books have been translated from Greek into Slavic. The first stone churches in Rus' were built and decorated by craftsmen invited from Byzantium. The culture of Armenia and Georgia, where Christianity established itself at the end of the 4th century, also experienced the strong influence of Byzantium. In Byzantium, many manuscripts of Greek, Roman and Eastern scientists and writers were preserved and thanks to this have come to us.