engleski

The Refashioning of Historical Reality: three stories by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus and the early medieval history of Croatia

It is needless to stress that the De Administrando Imperio or On the Administration of the Empire, udoubtedly the most famous work that carries the name of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, offers a real abundance of material that can be scrutinized on different levels and with various reasearch goals and objectives. In many respect, as it has been recognized a long ago and reiterared many times since, the De Administrando Imperio is the narrative for the reconstruction of the earliest history of the Slavic principalities in southeastern Europe. It provides the unique information and a particular perspective. And it brings forth legendary elements that, with its elusive nature, constitute a genuine challenge when tried to be fit into a scholarly historiographical discourse. This paper aims at presenting and discussing three examples of the legendary elements found in the De Administrando Imperio and relating one way or the other to the early Croatian history, namely, the story of the capture of Salona that is narrated in two separate chapters (DAI, c. 29, 14-53, c. 30, 14-61), the story of the revolt of the Croats against the Franks (DAI, c. 30, 78-90), and the story of a saintly man by the name of Martin (DAI, c. 31, 42-57). The stories will be first treated as narrative texts, i.e. they will be subjected to the narratological analysis, and then to the historiographic analysis. An attempt will be made to (re-)interpret the content and meaning of the stories, the role that they might have had in the collective memory, and how and why they might have been refashioned and/or used to correspond to the Byzantine cultural/ideological/political needs. The last is stated bearing in mind that the stories cannot be so easily dismissed as mere literary ploys, invented traditions and ideological-propagandistic tools for wider dissemination since the De Administrando Imperio seems to have been, for all intents and purposes, a secret document not intended for general public.

early middle ages ; Croatia ; the De administrando imperio ; narratological analysis ; historiographic analysis

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