The East in the Byzantine Commonwealth: the Balkans & Russia, Syria & Palestine (Historiographical Notes)

The article concerns the problem of the chronological and territorial enlargement of the concept of the Byzantine Commonwealth proposed by D. D. Obolensky as a system of coexistence and mutual relations of orthodox states included in the Byzantine sphere during the standard East European Middle Ages. These states were, besides Byzantium itself, also Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia, orthodox communities of Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Palestine, Syria, etc. Yet according to the studies by S. S. Averintsev, the proper notion of Byzantium and its culture appears to be a complex and multifaceted category, inasmuch as it involves in its very core so many inhabitants of the East born in Cappadocia, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, the Pontic region, Armenia and Georgia. Over time, into this community comes to be included as well the so-called “Russian Palestine”, investigated foremost by N. N. Lisovoy. Having gradually emerged in the Holy Land, it comprised the points of Russian pilgrimage in Palestine, Syria, Egypt and elsewhere throughout the Near East. Accordingly, these entities do not disappear from history with the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, but continue their existence and development under the ‘Turkocracy’ in the Christian centres of Ottoman and Arab states up to the early 19th cent., and later on after the resurrection of the Greek state and the emergence of Israel. The present article is a collection of historiographical notes concerning the genesis and development of the issue.