History of Byzantium (from Constantine the Great to the Battle of Manzikert)
Keywords:
Textbook, history, ByzantiumSynopsis
I decided to write a university textbook due to the fact that students at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Banja Luka, who attend and take the course History of Byzantium I, do not have an appropriate textbook that would enable them to more easily master the material outlined in the syllabus for this course. Since the establishment of the faculty in 1994, the primary source of knowledge about events and processes in Byzantine history has been the handbook History of Byzantium, written by Georgije Ostrogorski (1902–1976). Although it is an extremely valuable work, authored by one of the most important Byzantinists of the 20th century, this handbook is aimed at established scholars rather than students.
Moreover, Ostrogorski’s handbook was written 85 years ago. While it is still highly regarded in academic circles, some factual information has long been outdated and needs to be updated based on more recent research. On the other hand, for second-year students to acquire adequate knowledge of the most important events in the political, social, and church-political history of the Byzantine Empire, the material they study must be adapted to their age and prior knowledge, and must have a clear pedagogical function—something a textbook, unlike a scholarly handbook, must provide.
My textbook History of Byzantium (from Constantine the Great to the Battle of Manzikert) does not question the undisputed quality of Georgije Ostrogorski’s handbook History of Byzantium. The experience I gained over more than two decades of teaching at the Faculty of Philosophy in Banja Luka helped me write a textbook that will allow students following the syllabus for this course to acquire the necessary knowledge about Byzantine history more easily and accessibly, and thus pass their exams more smoothly.
In addition to the main text, the textbook includes excerpts from primary sources and a glossary of foreign terms, which will further assist students in understanding the material.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Categories
License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
