Balkans and the Byzantine World before and after the Captures of Constantinople, 1204 and 1453

Vlada Stankovic is professor of Byzantine studies and director of the Center for Cypriot Studies at the University of Belgrade.

• Introduction: In the Balkans “Without” Constantinople: Questions of Center and Periphery, Vlada StankovicPart I: In a World Without a Center: Remaining ByzantineChapter 1: Byzantium’s Retreating Balkan Frontiers during the Reign of the Angeloi (1185–1203): A Reconsideration, Alicia SimpsonChapter 2: Discontinuity and Continuity of Byzantine Literary Tradition After the Crusaders' Capture of Constantinople: The Case of "Original" Byzantine Novels, Dušan PopovicChapter 3: The Divided Empire: Byzantium on the Eve of 1204, Radivoj RadicChapter 4: The Fate of the Palaiologan Aristocracy of Thessalonike after 1423, Nicholas Melvani Chapter 5: Paintings of Donor Portraits in the State of Epirus: Aesthetics, Fashion and Trends in the Late Byzantine period, Katerina KontopanagouChapter 6: Monastic Foundation Legends in Epirus, Christos StavrakosPart II: The Peripheries: In the Shadow of Constantinople and Its InfluenceChapter 7: Studenica and the Life Giving Tree, Jelena ErdeljanChapter 8: Reth

This volume faces the difficult task of exploring southeastern Europe during the period contiguous to the Fourth Crusade, and that when the Ottoman Empire replaced the Byzantine one—with Constantinople becoming Istanbul—, while the contributors are cognizant of a contemporary Balkan region and its devastations . . . This is not a history well-known beyond its research specialists, thus the volume is of value to scholars in this particular field as well as interdisciplinary studies.