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Alexei Lidov, Hierotopy. Spatial Icons and Image-Paradigms in Byzantine Culture

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Alexei Lidov, Hierotopy. Spatial Icons and Image-Paradigms in Byzantine Culture UDC 930.85(4–12) ISSN 0350–7653 SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES BALCANICA XLII ANNUAL OF THE INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES Editor DUŠAN T. BATAKOVIĆ Editorial Board FRANCIS CONTE (Paris), DJORDJE S. KOSTIĆ, LJUBOMIR MAKSIMOVIĆ, DANICA POPOVIĆ, GABRIELLA SCHUBERT (Jena), BILJANA SIKIMIĆ, ANTHONY-EMIL TACHIAOS (Thessaloniki), NIKOLA TASIĆ (Director of the Institute for Balkan Studies), SVETLANA M. TOLSTAJA (Moscow) BELGRADE 2011 REVIEWS Alexei Lidov, HIEROTOPY. SPATIAL ICONS AND IMAGE-PARADIGMS IN BYZANTINE CULTURE. Moscow 2009, pp. 351. (with an English summary, black-and-white and colour illustrations, a glossary, and an index) Reviewed by Danica Popović* For the Byzantinological and medi- Christian Church. Liturgy and Art (1994); evalist community, Alexei Lidov hardly The Miracle-Working Icon in Byzantium needs an introduction. An art historian and Old Rus’ (1996); The Ikonostasis. Ori- and theorist, the founder and director of gins – Evolution – Symbolism (2000); East- the Research Centre for Eastern Chris- ern Christian Relics (2003); Hierotopy. The tian Culture in Moscow (since 1991), a Creation of Sacred Space in Byzantium and corresponding member of the Russian Medieval Russia (2006); New Jerusalems: Academy of Arts (since 2007), Lidov is a The Translation of Sacred Spaces in Chris- prolific scholar widely published outside tian Culture (2006); Spatial Icons. Perform- Russia, and a captivating lecturer whose ativity in Byzantium and Medieval Russia presence at leading universities in Europe (2011). Apart from an undeniable schol- (Sorbonne, Oxford, Cambridge) and the arly breakthrough that they have made, USA (Princeton, Harvard, Columbia) the Moscow conferences have greatly unfailingly elicits great attention from contributed to a vigorous and productive the academic community. Over the last intellectual dialogue between different two decades Lidov has been an influential scholarly milieus such as Western Europe, presence in the field of medieval studies North America, Japan, Russia and other as the driving force and moving spirit of Slavic countries, Serbia included. ground-breaking projects, both in terms Serbia owes a particular debt of grati- of research topics and, especially, method- tude to Alexei Lidov. His energetic sup- ology. These projects, broadly devoted to port to the preservation of the heavily en- the foundations and key phenomena of dangered Serbian heritage in Kosovo and medieval visual culture, have been realized Metohija, immediately threatened in a through a series of international confer- period between the beginning of the 1999 ences held at regular intervals in Moscow war and the 2004 March Pogrom, will cer- since 1991. The research results have been tainly be remembered. Lidov considered published in extensive thematic volumes this commitment a matter of professional conceptually framed and edited by Lidov. and personal ethics, and stood up for his Their fresh and innovative quality is obvi- ous from their very titles: Jerusalem in Rus- sian Culture (1994 and 2005); The Eastern * Institute for Balkan Studies, Belgrade 218 Balcanica XLII values in his various capacities and on a nomenon as sacred space. In all that, Lidov, variety of occasions: he was active “on the rather than discarding the methods and re- ground”, as a UNESCO envoy, addressed sults of traditional disciplines such as the the general public through the media, took history of art, architecture or religion, ar- part in a number of Russian and interna- chaeology and many others, simply points tional conferences and forums. A lasting to their limitations or, more precisely, their achievement of his committed effort is inability to recognize all layers of meaning the lavishly illustrated, bilingual English/ present in some of the phenomena of visu- Russian book Kosovo. Orthodox Heritage al culture. Consequently, in his view, one of and Contemporary Catastrophe, published the major problems encountered in studies in Moscow in 2007. In addition to the focused on sacred space is the lack of ap- instructive preface on the cultural genocide propriate and precise terminology. committed in present times and “in the Hierotopy is both the central concept presence of authorities”, it contains a list and the broadest research framework of of the completely destroyed or damaged this book. The basic premises of the new Serbian heritage, and an exhaustive cata- method are expounded in the introduc- logue of all Orthodox Christian churches tory chapter, “Hierotopy: The creation in Kosovo and Metohija. of sacred spaces as a form of creativ- The book presented here holds a spe- ity and subject of cultural history” (pp. cial place in Alexei Lidov’s work. It assem- 11–38), and in the concluding study, bles ten studies published between 2001 “Images-paradigms as a new notion of and 2008, whose common denominator visual culture: A hierotopic approach to and core concern is hierotopy, the study of art history” (pp. 293–305). Lidov defines sacred space — its manifestations, forma- hierotopy both as the making of sacred tion mechanisms, functions and reception. spaces seen as a distinctive form of hu- So, hierotopy is the study of one of central man creativity and, at the same time, as a phenomena of medieval culture in gen- field of historical studies concerned with eral, and its visual aspect in particular. It discovering and analyzing some products should be noted right away that the book of that creativity. This particular kind is so much more than a mere collection of of creativity is deeply rooted in human articles brought together under one title. nature and constitutes a form of man’s Even the reader familiar with Lidov’s work knowledge of himself as a spiritual being, cannot help being at least a little surprised while the purposely created sacred places by its sophisticated conception and pro- are spaces intended for human commu- grammatic integrity. Namely, what we find nication with the transcendent. Pointing there is a theoretically well-grounded and, to the fact that sacred space has often been it deserves a special emphasis, factually an object of attention in human sciences corroborated explication of the author’s in recent times, but as a rule from narrow basic methodological premises, which have specialist perspectives, Lidov highlights crystallized over the past two decades. For the few “integrated” approaches in order this purpose, Lidov introduces several new to highlight the distinctiveness and func- concepts into scholarly discourse, as well tionality of the hierotopic method. This as a new pertinent vocabulary. It should be method, Lidov argues, cannot be reduced emphasized that these innovations are not to the concept of synthesis of the arts, an end unto themselves. On the contrary, very influential in art theory and prac- they result from a patient and steadfast tice in the age of modernism, including quest for a suitable method for interpreting such remarkably profound and original such an important and multilayered phe- achievements as that of Pavel Florensky, Reviews 219 who looked at the sacred space of an Or- — that the Byzantines saw as trustworthy thodox Christian church as a “synthesis confirmation of the divine presence. of the arts” and emphasized the essential Lidov further explicates his theoreti- “aesthetic” quality of all components of cal premises, outlined here only briefly, the liturgy. Lidov draws a clear distinc- using concrete examples. This aspect of tion between his own concept of hierotopy Lidov’s work demonstrates his vast erudi- and that of hierophany as conceived of by tion and knowledge of medieval culture, Mircea Eliade, his famous predecessor in both Eastern and Western Christian, as the study of the phenomenon of sacred- shown by the broad chronological and ness. While hierophany is the revelation geographical span that his considerations of the divine in a certain place or space, are based upon. Given the framework of which thereby assumes sacred qualities his concerns — sacredness and the sphere and becomes marked off from the pro- of the miraculous — it comes as no sur- fane, hierotopy is the form of human prise to see that miracle-working icons creativity which lastingly materializes the and relics, a widely popular research topic memory of a hierophany. over the last twenty years, are the focus of Lidov uses two more important con- his attention. cepts as helpful instrumenta studiorum. The concepts of hierotopy and spatial One of them is the spatial icon, which icons are particularly exhaustively elabo- he describes as an image endowed with rated in the chapter “Spatial icons: The iconic qualities and existing not only as miraculous performance of the Hodege- a flat plane but emanating into the space tria of Constantinople” (pp. 36–69). Based as a “vision”, bonding the image and the on the written sources, Lidov offers a new viewer together in an essential way. The interpretation of the well-known rite image functions in reality as a constantly known as the “Tuesday miracle”. Namely, changing and pulsating iconic space and every Tuesday, on the square in front of dynamic structure. It integrates a variety the monastery of Hodegon, the miracle- of elements: the rite and its participants, working double-sided icon of the Virgin the light, the scent, the sound. Lidov Hodegetria and the Crucifixion would makes the observation, as perceptive as it “fly” into the air, marking out a distinctive is accurate, that the concept of the Byzan- iconic space created as much by the icon tine spatial icon finds it typological analo- and elements such as the light, smells and gies in modern art forms such as per- sounds, as by the participants in the event. formances and multimedia installations. Lidov’s well-argued interpretation sug- The other concept used by Lidov is the gests that the ritual re-enacted the failed icon-paradigm, a sort of icon-idea, which, siege of Constantinople in 626, through although incorporating a wide range of the recurring iconic presence of the Vir- literary and symbolic associations, cannot gin, the city’s miracle-working protectress.
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