Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th – early 20th c.)
Beyond Epistemic Nationalism and Eurocentrism Transregional Approaches to Western Balkan Modernities during the Nineteenth Century Conference at the University of Saragevo
Routes of Icons, 17th- 19th century: Art and Technology Exhibition at the Museum of Greek Culture, Drama, Greece
The exhibition explores the stylistic and technical diversity of the icons that circulated in the Greek Orthodox space from the 17th to the 19th century, through the collections of the Benaki Museum. The concept of space is treated not only as a geographical entity but, above all, as a social construction that is consistent with the notion of community created by the Orthodox identity and shared by populations with different traditions, political status, even language. The common Byzantine background created a unified legacy of iconographic themes and technical solutions that were constantly enriched in a variety of ways in each centre of production. However, this artistic polyglossy did not erode the common foundation that allowed the transfer of icons from place to place and their common use in the same place of worship from Russia and Ukraine to the Ionian Islands, Crete, and Asia Minor.
A section of the exhibition is dedicated to the technology and conservation of Russian icons and devotional metal objects, presenting the recent findings of the European research project ERC RICONTRANS.
ART READINGS 2024 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OLD ART MODULE – ART AND HISTORY Institute for Art Studies, BAS, Sofia, April 11-13, 2024
Between 11 and 13 April 2024, the traditional international scientific conference Art Readings, Old Art Module, took place in Sofia. The purpose of the forum, organized by the Institute of Art Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, is to bring together scholars with interests and expertise in the field of art from Antiquity to the early modern period. More than 40 specialists from leading scientific and cultural institutions in Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Romania participated, and the topic of the module, defined this year as Art and History, provided unlimited space for discussions and exchange of knowledge and ideas related to the methodology, approaches, and problems in the study of various art manifestations in an extremely wide time range. The working languages of the conference were Bulgarian and English. The papers of the conference will be published by the end of this year in a collective volume.
Many RICONTRANS team members participated with an entire panel and talks.
The Art Readings International Scientific Conference was held in the meeting rooms in the building of the Institute for Art Studies, BAS, Sofia, 21 Krakra Str., Tel: +359 2 489 03 57; +359 2 489 03
3rd RICONTRANS Workshop Athens, 5 March 2024 Russian Religious Art in Bulgaria
The 3rd RICONTRANS Workshop on “Russian Religious Art in Bulgaria” took place in Athens on Tuesday, 5 March 2024, at the Historical Archive of the University of Athens, Skoufa 45, at 9:30-14:00.
The first public lecture, in the context of the RICONTRANS Project, was given by Professor Nenad Makuljevićof the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade,onWednesday, December 6 at 5 p.m. at the Sekulić Icon Collection, at the Museum of the City of Belgrade.
The public lecture by Professor Nenad Makuljević “Russian icons in Serbian church culture of the new century: contexts and functions,” was dedicated to the transfer of Russian sacred visual culture to Serbian Orthodox churches.
During the new century, numerous icons, books and numerous religious objects were brought from the territory of the Russian Empire. The ideals of Orthodoxy were found in Russian icon-painting, which led to the intensive import of icons, the arrival of Russian painters and the training of Serbian painters in Russian icon-painting schools. In addition to religious, Russian sacral culture also had a political character. Gifts of icons and iconostases from Russia simultaneously denoted Russian support for the Serbian people.
The second public lecture was given on Thursday, December 14 at 5 p.m. at the Sekulić Icon Collection by Associate Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, Dr. Ana Kostić.
The title of the lecture was: “The memorial church in Gornji Adrovac as a symbol of political, cultural and artistic ties between Serbia and Russia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century”
During the Serbian-Turkish wars (1876–1877/1878), a Russian volunteer, Colonel Nikolai Nikolayevich Rajevsky, died in the battle on Goli Brdo, a place near the village of Gornji Adrovac, near Aleksinac. In his honor, a memorial church dedicated to the Holy Trinity was built at the place of his death at the beginning of the 20th century. The processes of memorializing the figure of Nikolay Nikolajevic Rajevsky and the construction and decoration of the memorial church in Gornji Adrovac will be viewed in the light of political circumstances and national ties between Russia and Serbia during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. As the visual shaping of the temple was carried out according to plans and sketches sent from Russia, and the iconostasis itself was imported from there, the temple in Gornji Adrovac represents a kind of transfer of contemporary Russian church art to Serbian soil, which also achieved the aesthetic ideal in the church art of that time.
The exhibition “Russian Icons form Transylvania” took place at the National Museum of the Union. The opening of the exhibition was on June 10, 2023, at 10:00.
The hands-on workshop “Religious art, visual culture and collective identities in Central and South-Eastern Europe (16th-early 20th century)” took place in Alba Iulia, Romania, on June 20-23, 2023.
The workshop took place at the “1 Decembrie 1918” University of Alba Iulia in Apor Palace, Str. Gabriel Bethlen 5.
The exhibition “Russian Icons form Transylvania”, in conjunction with the workshop, took place at the National Museum of the Union. The opening of the exhibition was on June 10, 2023, at 10:00.
RICONTRANS Workshop: Routes of Icons – routes of people in the Orthodox space from Russia to the Balkans (16th – 20th c.)
Athens, Benaki Museum, Pireos 138, January 25, 2023
The workshop Routes of Icons – routes of people in the Orthodox space from Russia to the Balkans (16th – 20th c.) took place in Athens, at the Benaki Museum, Pireos 138, on January 25, 2023, 10:00-17:00.
The workshop organized by the Benaki Museum (second beneficiary of the RICONTRANS Project) was in conjunction with the Benaki Museum exhibition: “Routes of Icons 17th-20th century”
Exhibition: “Routes of Icons 17th-20th century” Benaki Museum, Athens December 8, 2022 – February 5, 2023
The exhibition explores the iconographic, stylistic and technical diversity of icons that circulated in the Greek Orthodox space between the 17th and 19th centuries, sourcing material from the collections of the Benaki Museum.
The concept of ‘Greek Orthodox space’ is approached not merely as a geographical entity but, above all, as a social construction, sustained by the close community ties generated by the Orthodox identity that was shared by populations with different traditions, political loyalties, even language. The shared Byzantine background created a uniform legacy of iconographic themes and technical solutions that were constantly enriched in each centre of production in a variety of ways. However, these common components were not dissolved; rather, they allowed the transfer of icons from place to place and their coexistence within the same places of worship, from Russia to the Ionian Islands, Crete, the Aegean and Asia Minor.
A special section of the exhibition presents new technical data that emerged from the ongoing ERC RICONTRANS research project, granting the public unique in-depth access to selected works through the stereomicroscope.
This exhibition is part of RICONTRANS Project, which has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 818791).
Organised by the Benaki Museum
Curated by Anastasia Drandaki
Opening night: December 5, 2022, at 20:00
Pireos 138, Athens
Duration: December 8, 2022 – February 5, 2023 Please check museum opening times for the day you intend to visit the exhibition
Talk by Dr. Yuliana Boycheva at the 13th International Congress of Cretan Studies
Dr. Yuliana Boycheva, Principal Investigator of the RICONTRANS Project gave a talk on “Russian ecclesiastical vestments in Crete: from imperial donations to the vast circulation of mass-produced vestments” during the 13th International Congress of Cretan Studies, organised by the Society of Cretan Historical Studies.
The 13th International Congress of Cretan Studies was hosted this year in Agios Nikolaos, Crete, at the Wyndham Grand Crete Mirabello Bay Hotel. Dr. Yuliana’s talk was given in room ZEUS/Γ (C. Modern and Contemporary Period) on Friday, 7 October, 2022, on 19:00.
