A scientific project brought together young scientists at BNRU

Graduate students and students from Belgorod, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Tula take part in the summer school. Byzantologists conducted scientific events, seminars and master classes dedicated to the study of written sources, archaeological monuments, the peculiarities of the Greek language of Byzantine time, the transformation of the late-antique world into medieval times.

Moderators were the leading scientists of the Historical Faculty of the Moscow State University Mikhail Gratsiansky and Pavel Kuzenkov. In the course of the seminar, the issues of economics, political development, the church-historical tradition of the Byzantine regions and peoples, as well as coverage of the history of this state in the media space are considered.

Coordinator of the Belgorod branch of the Byzantine club, head of the department of general history of the history and Philology department of BNRU Pedagogical Institute professor Nikolai Bolgov said that Byzantology Summer School is the second such project in Russia and the first one that acquired regularity and periodicity:

“At BNRU, a school on Byzantology for young scientists is being held once a year within the framework of the scientific direction ‘Classical and Byzantine Tradition’. They are interested in the actual problems of the history and culture of Byzantium - the millennial Christian empire at the junction of the West and the East built on the basis of Roman law and political tradition, city government that has absorbed the foundations of Greek culture and education, which is the immediate civilizational predecessor of Russia. In many respects, the technical parameters that existed from the II to the V century, were achieved again only in the XVIII-XIX centuries”.

As Mikhail Gratsiansky, a leading researcher at the historical faculty of the Moscow State University, noted, Byzantine studies exist as a scientific discipline only in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Belgorod.

Participants of the summer school find political or economic parallels between Byzantium and Russia, draw conclusions, offer their intellectual ideas. Visiting the second time the school of Byzantologists, graduate student of the Institute of History of St. Petersburg State University Evgeny Miroshnichenko defined it as a kind of ‘academy of Plato’, where leisure helps the growth of intellect and culture, exchange of opinions, communication.

According to the results of the summer school, the publication of a collection of scientific articles ‘Ergastiri’ and Almanac of the ‘Byzantine Club’ is planned.