ЗОГРАФ 41 (2017) [227–248]
Byzantine Heritage and cal context. The authors examine the material culture of
Serbian Art. 3 vols, editors-in-
chief Ljubomir Maksimović
and Jelena Trivan, edited by
Danica Popović and Dragan
Vojvodić
Vol. I: Processes of
Byzantinisation and Serbian
Archeology, ed. Vesna Bikić
(212pp; 114 illustrations);
Vol. 2: Sacral Art of the
Serbian Lands in the Middle
Ages, eds. Dragan Vojvodić
and Danica Popović (630pp;
466 illustrations); Vol. 3:
Imagining the Past. The
Reception of the Middle Ages
in Serbian Art from the 18th
to the 21st Century, eds. Lidija
Merenik, Vladimir Simić and
Igor Borozan (252pp; 148
illustrations). In Serbian and
English
Belgrade: The Serbian
National Committee of
Byzantine Studies, Službeni
glasnik, Institute for Byzantine
Studies, Serbian Academy of
Sciences and Arts, 2016
Cloth. Pp. 1094; 728
illustrations; maps [Nebojša
Šuletić]; chronological
tables; list of abbreviations;
bibliography; list of
contributors; ISBN 978–86–
519–2004–5
Gorgeously produced, the three-volume book enti-
tled Byzantine Heritage and Serbian Art is a monumental
work that highlights the role of Byzantine cultural models
among the Serbs from the seventh century to more recent
times. Prepared on the occasion of the 23rd International
Congress of Byzantine Studies held in Belgrade 2016, this
book greatly surpasses a focus on Byzantine studies alone.
This work will be a major reference not only for students
of Byzantine and Serbian culture and arts, but also highly
relevant to scholars and a general audience interested in
the rich cultural heritage of Serbia and the Balkans. Lav-
ishly designed and illustrated with more than 700 brilliant
color images and maps, written in Serbian and accompa-
nied by an identical three-volume English translation, the
seventy-seven essays in this book, devised by more than
sixty emerging and established scholars, offer condensed,
but still substantive, compelling and methodologically
and discipline-wise diverse, arguments and analyses of the
Serbian-Byzantine relations and their post-Byzantine ech-
oes in the visual arts and architecture.
The entire publication is divided into three vol-
umes, which are chronologically and thematically organ-
ized. Each volume starts with an introductory essay that
230 positions the material presented within its larger histori-
the Serbs within integrative discussions of political and
church history, socio-economic circumstances, religion,
archeology, visual arts, and architecture.
The first volume, Processes of Byzantinisation and
Serbian Archeology, opens with seven solid and richly il-
lustrated essays by Srdjan Pirivatrić, Mihailo St. Popović,
Stanoje Bojanin, Bojana Krsmanović, Marko Popović,
Gordana Simić, Ivana Popović, Ivan Bugarski, and Milica
Radišić, who in each of their papers respectively canvas
the broad historical, geographical, administrative, urban,
monastic, and archaeological landscapes within the shift-
ing socio-political and physical territories of medieval
Serbs, examining them through the lenses of Serbian-Byz-
antine relations roughly from the seventh to the fifteenth
centuries. A comparative analysis of these first seven es-
says outlines how, while the Serbian-Byzantine relations
are attested to in historic texts and monastic culture early
on, it was only by the end of the thirteenth and early four-
teenth centuries that we can detect a fully defined Serbian
oekumene (polity, state) through its spatial syntax (Mi-
hailo St. Popović), state apparatus (Stanoje Bojanin and
Bojana Krsmanović), and cities and urban life (Marko
Popović). An especially well-articulated, sharp, and clear-
ly written account in that regard is the essay by Bojanin
and Krsmanović, who elucidate the long tradition of pat-
rimonial understanding of the state among the Serbs with
no developed state apparatus and domestic foundations
of the administrative system and with no significant in-
fluence from Byzantium until the end of the thirteenth
century. The shift seemingly happens with Serbia’s south-
ward expansion and annexation of Byzantine territories
and especially within the short-lived Empire of “Serbs and
Greeks” under Stefan Uroš Dušan (r. 1331–1355), when
the Serbs adapted Byzantine institutions and formally
emulated Byzantine administrative practices. The major
conclusions of this essay written in the best tradition of
socio-political schools in historical studies are nicely com-
plemented by the innovative scholarship by Mihailo St.
Popović, who includes results from computer-generated
spatial syntax geographical analysis in his essay. Popović,
in my opinion, rightly argues that the choice of Skopje as
the capital city of the new empire, amid intense relations
between Serbia and Byzantium, was done by almost me-
chanical adoption because Skopje was an important previ-
ous Byzantine capital in this region. He further hypoth-
esizes that some other cities would have had offered better
geo-political and strategic options for medieval Serbia,
such as Prizren (which indeed served as a kind of sec-
ond capital). The discussions on urban and monastic cul-
tures supported by archaeological evidence provided by
Marko Popović and Gordana Simić similarly outline that
Serbian society was essentially agrarian until the twelfth
century, with fully articulated infrastructural and archi-
tectural stratification of cities and monasteries occurring
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Texts by Ivana
Popović, Ivan Bugarski, and Milica Radišić on archeologi-
cally confirmed settlements, graves, and minor finds such
as jewelry additionally canvas the major shifts in the cul-
tural landscape of the territories of modern Serbia from
its late antique Roman-early Byzantine landscape, its de-
population in the seventh and eight centuries, to the sta-
bilization of Slavic communities in the tenth century on-
wards, with abundantly attested Slavic-Byzantine cultural
interactions starting in the eleventh century.
 Прикази
By focusing on the province and city of Braničevo
(established near Roman Viminacium in relative vicinity
of Belgrade), in the Byzantine territory highly contested
by the Kingdom of Hungary, Second Bulgarian Empire,
and medieval Serbia, the next four essays by Predrag Ko-
matina, Dragana Spasić-Djurić, Gordana Milošević Jevtić,
and Vesna Bikić, highlight political, military, administra-
tive, religious, urban, and socio-economic features of pro-
to-urban centers in central Balkans between the eleventh
and early thirteenth centuries, when the city of Braničevo
reached its economic and political peak. In his highly rel-
evant and well-documented essay on the objects for pri-
vate worship such as reliquaries and other devotional ob-
jects with primarily apotropaic functions, Perica Špehar
confirms their production in Constantinopolitan and
other major urban and pilgrimage centers, and how they
reached far-flung corners of the Balkans.
The cultural interactions between Serbs, other Slavs,
and Byzantines as well as with the Western Europeans and
Jews in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are detailed
in an essay on the cosmopolitan milieu of Serbian towns
(Marko Popović). This section on multicultural social and
artistic milieu of the late medieval Serbia is complement-
ed by a smartly written text on Serbian medieval coinage
that blended “the Christian character of authority, and the
ideal of the warrior-ruler” (Marina Odalak Mihailović,
p. 144), as well as by texts on the artistic and archeologi-
cal references to nobility (Miloš Ivanović and Uglješa
Vojvodić), artistic features of Serbian medieval pottery
(Vesna Bikić), and extremely refined golden jewelry and
bowls (Emina Zečević and Mila Gajić).
The substantial second volume, Sacral Art of the Ser-
bian Lands in the Middle Ages is comprised of thirty-nine
essays that, in contrast to the essays in the first volume,
focus exclusively on religious arts. This volume opens
with a dense overview of still preserved Serbian medieval
art and architecture that reached its peaks in the period
between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries under the
Nemanjić dynasty and palpably embodied the cultural
and sacred frameworks of Serbian identity in actual reli-
gious accomplishments well until the seventeenth centu-
ry and remained vividly alive until the present. Through
carefully selected well– and less-known references and
superb photographs of medieval cultural heritage of the
Serbs pulled by major Byzantine, Roman Catholic, and
Islamic forces, Dragan Vojvodić explains the creative syn-
thesis of Serbian medieval art. He places Serbian medieval
art and architecture and some of its most representative
examples such as Studenica monastery, Gradac, Dečani,
Resava, the Patriarchate of Peć, Cathedral of St. Tryphon
in Kotor, church of St. Michael in Ston, modern day Cro-
atia, or Mateič in Skopska Crna Gora, FYROM, in their
intimately revealed local contexts while never loosing
grasp of their position in the larger contemporaneous and
comparable cultural landscapes, hence reaffirming the
highest artistic and cultural values of these monuments
and their international recognition. Bojana Krsmanović
and Ljubomir Maksimović in their historical scrutiny of
the formation of Serbian medieval arts meticulously un-
pack the independency of Serbs and their position within
Byzantine political and cultural realms. They effectively
explain how “the penetration of Byzantine cultural influ-
ences progressed irrespectively of the military-political
entanglements between Serbia and Byzantium” (p. 48) as
well as how following strong marital and diplomatic ties,
“by adopting the Byzantine idea of universalism ... [t]his
epoch can easily be summed up ... Byzantium in Serbia
and Serbia in Byzantium (p. 55).”
Indeed, subsequent essays written predominantly
by art historians highlight these aspects of Serbian me-
dieval art, which developed following Byzantine models,
or the influence of Serbian art, its patrons, and artists in
Byzantium. Miodrag Marković competently enumerates
many contributions, from luxurious and valuable objects
of applied arts through illuminated manuscripts and icons
to entire chapels and churches, which Serbian patrons
endowed in Byzantine territories. He further emphasizes
how these objects commissioned by Serbian ktetors were
mostly done by the Byzantine artists, hence revealing
dynamic artistic exchange between the Serbs and Byz-
antines, while precluding “interaction of [their respec-
tive] national styles” (p. 74). Miroslava Kostić and Miloš
Živković further trace the multiple paths of Byzantine art
and its reception in Western Europe by the way of Ser-
bia and various artistic, political, military, and commer-
cial networks. Especially captivating are diligently written
sections about precious reliquaries and relics that reached
European Christian territories to the west and north af-
ter the collapse of Serbian state under Islam. Liturgist
Vladimir Vukašinović emphasizes the need for integral
studies of religious arts within their original liturgical
context as the embodiment of a medieval culture. Du-
bravka Preradović and Ljubomir Milanović in their es-
say masterfully explain how by accepting and venerating
pan-Christian saints, the Serbs joined fully the Christian
community united by its sophisticated religion and civili-
zation. Simultaneously, by choosing to particularly revere
certain saints and by developing their individual connec-
tion to these saints by the way of onomastic, toponyms, or
ideals relative to their immediate surroundings and life,
the Serbs forged their own identity. The ultimate case in
point, as Milanović and Preradović rightly single out, is
“krsna slava,” the unique practice of choosing and cel-
ebrating the patron saint of the family, which over time
became the prime expression of religious freedom and
national spirituality. In her two essays on national saints
and on relics and reliquaries in medieval Serbia, Danica
Popović convincingly details their role in the foundation
of the autonomous Serbian medieval state and church as
well as their role both in individual quests towards the di-
vine and in positioning Serbs and Serbia in the Christian
oikoumene and sacred history. Miodrag Marković effec-
tively presents arts and architecture in the Serbian lands
from the ninth to the twelfth centuries in his two meticu-
lous essays. Equally thorough are Jadranka Prolović, who
showcases Serbian medieval illuminated manuscripts, and
Miloš Živković in his essay on Studenica, the masterpiece
of architecture and arts, and rightly dubbed in the title of
Živković’s essay “the corner of [Serbian] church and state
independence.” Four essays on thirteenth-century art and
architecture by Branislav Todić, Milka Čanak-Medić, Dra-
gana Pavlović, and Tatjana Starodubcev elucidate stylistic
and thematic features of the formative phases of the so-
called “Raška school,” often considered the “golden age” of
Serbian arts and history. 231
 ЗОГРАФ 41 (2017) [227–248]
The remaining essays in the second volume chrono-
logically follow the stylistic, thematic, religious, and ideo-
logical trends of the visual arts and architecture in the Ser-
bian territories or in their former territories under Islamic,
Ottoman rule, from the fourteenth to the seventeenth cen-
turies. These essays are rightly grouped in this volume as
they demonstrate the perseverance of medieval features
and their conservative use in religious art well into the sev-
enteenth century. All the essays are remarkably cohesive
and consistent in methodology and the high quality of their
scholarship. Several scholars such as Ivan Stevović and Du-
bravka Preradović actively engage with innovative meth-
odologies and more recent scholarship. In this volume,
well-known material is beautifully juxtaposed with material
less known to non-Serbian scholars. Hence, Marka Tomić-
Djurić presents the arts from the Serbian peripheries, deep
in the south-west, in the territories of the Balšić, Kosača,
and Crnojević noble families who commissioned art and
architecture in Zeta (near lake Skadar), Hum, and Bosnia.
Similarly, Vladimir Džamić focuses on the accomplish-
ments to the north, in Fruška Gora, where the descendants
of Branković family established the Serbian Holy Mountain.
The survival and renewal of Christian identities in the arts
and architecture of Serbs, and based on Byzantine politi-
cal theory as defined and outlined in the essay by Branislav
Cvetković, under the Ottoman rule are further knowledge-
ably detailed in the essays by Zoran Rakić, Svetlana Pejić,
Mirjana Matić, Mila Gajić, Irena Špadijer, Branislav Todić,
and Ljiljana Ševo.
The third volume, Imagining the Past, The Recep-
tion of the Middle Ages in Serbian Art from the 18th to the
21st Century, highlights the break in political and cultural
realities of the Serbs, who after the Great Turkish War
(1683–1699), when they sided with the Austrian army,
massively migrated to the north and settled in the territo-
ries of the Habsburg Monarchy. Vladimir Simić explains
that even if the Serbs were granted privileges for politi-
cal and religious autonomy, they were often at odds with
their new Roman-Catholic lords and their religious art.
The perception of the glorious past, especially during the
Nemanjić dynasty and the establishment of the cult of
Holy Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović and Vidovdan (St. Vi-
tus Day) that marked the Battle of Kosovo, after which
the Serbs ultimately lost their state and became Ottoman
vassals, shaped Serbian collective memory and identity as
well as their expectations for the restitution of their old
state, as vividly reflected in religious patriotism of ba-
roque poetry, applied arts, visual arts, and architecture.
In the process, the nuances of Serbian-Byzantine idiosyn-
crasies were often lost and understood as a unique and
immutable whole. However, the visual language of these
baroque accomplishments as well as of more recent ones
varied and is nicely interpreted in the subsequent essays.
Ljiljana Stošić, Ana Milošević, and Aleksandra Kučeković
consider Serbian traditional and icon painting in its his-
torical context of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
century, including during the short-lived “Kingdom of
Serbia” (1718–1739). Miroslava Kostić examines Serbian
art in the light of the renewal of the medieval political tra-
232
dition in the Metropolitanate of Karlovci, which was the
spiritual, political, and cultural center of the Serbs, while
Dragana A. Grbić further highlights the reception of me-
dieval past in Serbian enlightenment literature. Often de-
tached from historical accuracy, the medieval past contin-
ued to be utilized in the service of the nineteenth-century
Serbian monarchy and nobility. It marked a monumental
lithographic publication Serbian Monuments by Anas-
tas Jovanović, the works by Serbian symbolists, as well as
churches of the Serbs outside their territories, as in Croa-
tia. These themes are effectively presented in the essays by
Igor Borozan, Danijela Vanušić, Jovana Nikolić, Jasna Jo-
vanov, Dragan Damjanović, and Tijana Borić.
This volume closes with eight essays written by Irena
Tomić, Aleksandar Kadijević, Mileta Prodanović, Lidija
Merenik, Katarina Mitrović, Srdjan Marković, and Milan
Popadić, who either canvas larger trends of Byzantine lega-
cy in the arts and architecture of Serbia from the nineteenth
century up to present, or detail selected case studies of il-
lustrious architects and architects whose work engages with
Byzantine heritage and Serbian medieval past. This section
also allows for comparative analysis of how Byzantine evo-
cations were used differently in visual arts and architecture
and interpreted by contemporaneous Serbian scholars. In
his text, Aleksandar Kadijević presents architecture in-
spired by Byzantine models as suspended between nostal-
gic artistic and utopian civilizational values. Scholars deal-
ing with visual arts emphasize the role of a Byzantine icon
as critical for both traditionalistic and avant-garde trends in
Serbian as well as international milieu. Especially inspiring
are the references to artists whose work moved beyond the
surface and substance of Byzantine artworks, and trans-po-
sitioned their powerful language and essence in command-
ing ways that allowed those avant-garde artists to strongly
voice their own sensibility in regards to highly relevant
contemporary issues as seen in the memorable drawings,
paintings, sculptures, and installations by Lazar Vozarević,
Ljubinka Jovanović, Mileta Prodanović, Rada Selaković,
Kosta Bogdanović, Aleksandar Tomašević, Čedomir Vasić,
Aleksandar Rafajlović, Svetomir Arsić Basara, or Zoran
Furunović.
Byzantine Heritage and Serbian Art demonstrates
excellence in scholarship and creates a model for future
investigations of dynamic and long-lasting importance of
Byzantine studies; it is a tribute to its most capable and
thoughtful editors and the expertise of all the contribu-
tors. Because the authors in this three-volume colossal
book examine Byzantine legacy and Serbian medieval past
within wide-ranging scholarly terrain that, in addition to
visual arts and architecture, includes the disciplines of po-
litical and church history, socio-economic, political, and
religious studies, as well as traditional and innovative in-
tegrative scholarly methodologies, Byzantine Heritage and
Serbian Art, will be an authoritative reference for every-
one interested in the overwhelming number of topics on
Byzantine and Serbian arts and their contexts, which are
presented in this major publication.
Jelena Bogdanović, Iowa State University