A Handbook to Classical Reception in Eastern and Central Europe

Central and Eastern Europe s rich and longstanding history of classical receptions is largely unknown beyond its borders. A Handbook to Classical Reception in Eastern and Central Europe is the first comprehensive English language study of the reception of classical antiquity in Eastern and Central Europe. This groundbreaking work offers detailed case studies of twelve countries that are fully contextualized historically, locally, and regionally.

This handbook is divided into chapters by country. Case studies delve into the pre–national and national receptions of classical literature and material culture Croatia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bosnia–Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria, Russia, Armenia and Georgia. This volume features contributions from scholars based both within and beyond the region, providing an invaluable range of perspectives which help to extend reception studies into histories, literatures, and cultures previously inaccessible to English speakers.

This handbook unveils ways in which specific national cultures have engaged with classical Greece and Rome and helps readers understand, in turn, how classical antiquity contributed to the idea of nation building in the region. 

List of contributors

I. Croatia
Neven Jovanovi

1. Classical Reception in Croatia: an Introduction

2. Pula And Split – The Early Modern Tale(S) Of Two Ancient Cities
Jasenka Gudelj

3. Croatian Neo–Latin literature and its uses
Neven Jovanovi

4. Humanists and the Classics in Venetian Dalmatia before the Age of Print
Luka poljari

5. The Swan Song of the Latin Homer
Petra o tari

II. Slovenia
Marko Marin i

6. Classical Reception in Slovenia: an Introduction
Marko Marin i

7. Collecting Roman inscriptions beyond the Alps: Augustinus Tyfernus
Marjeta a el Kos

8. Sta Maria sopra Siwa: Inventing a Slavic Venus
Marko Marin i

9. Images From Slovenian Dramatic And Theatrical Interpretations Of Ancient Drama
Andreja N. Inkret

III. Czech Republic
Jan Ba ant

10. Classical Reception in Croatia: an Introduction
Jan Ba ant

11. Classical Antiquity in Czech Literature between the National Revival and the Avant–Garde
Daniela adková

12. The Classical Tradition and Nationalism: Art and Architecture of Prague, 1860 1900
Jan Ba ant

13. The Case of Oresteia: Classical Drama on Czech Stage 1889–2012
Alena Sarkissian

IV. Poland
Dorota Dutsch

14. Classical Reception in Poland: an Introduction
Dorota Dutsch

15. From Fictitious Letters to Celestial Revolutions: Copernicus and the Classics
Dorota Dutsch and François Zdanowicz

16. Respublica and the Language of Freedom: The Polish Experiment
Anna Grze kowiak–Krwawicz

17. Two Essays On Classical Reception in Poland
Jerzy Axer

18. Greece as Poland in Juliusz S owacki s oeuvre
Maria Kalinowska

V. Hungary
Farkas Gábor Kiss

19. Classical Reception in Hungary: an Introduction
Farkas Gábor Kiss

20. Classical Reception in Sixteenth–Century Hungarian Drama
Ágnes Juhász–Ormsby

21. Truditur dies die: Reading Horace as a political attitude in nineteenth and twentieth century Hungary
Ábel Tamás

22. The Shepherdess and the Myrmillo
Nóra Veszprémi

VI. Romania
Dana Munteanu

23. Classical Reception in Romania: an Introduction
Radu Ardevan, Florin Berindeanu and Ioan Piso

24. Loving Vergil, Hating Rome: Co buc as Translator and Poet
Carmen Fenechiu and Dana Munteanu

25. Noica s Becoming within Being and Meno s Paradox
Octavian Gabor

26. Reception of the Tropaeum Traiani: Former Paths and Future Directions
Allison L.C. Emmerson

VII. Serbia–Montenegro
Nada Ze evic

27. Classical Reception in Bosnia–Herzegovina and Serbia: an Introduction
Nada Ze evic and Nenad Ristovi

28. Classical Antiquity in the Franciscan Historiography of Bosnia (18th c)
Nada Ze evi

29. Innovative Impact of the Classical Traditionon the Early Modern Serbian Literature
Nenad Ristovi

30. Classical Heritage in the Serbian Lyric Poetry of the 20th Century
Ana Petkovi

31. The Ancient Sources of Njego s Poetics
Darko Todorovi

VIII. Bulgaria
Yoana Sirakova

32. Classical Receptions in Bulgaria: An Introduction
Yoana Sirakova

33. Bulgarian Lands in Antiquity: A Melting Pot of Thracian, Greek, and Roman Culture
Mirena Slavova

34. In the Labyrinth of Allusions: Ancient Figures in Bulgarian Prose Fiction
Violeta Gerjikova

35. Bulgarian Orpheus between the National and the Foreign, between Antiquity and Postmodernism
Yoana Sirakova

36. Staging of Ancient Tragedies in Bulgaria and Their Influence on the Process of Translation and Creative Reception
Dorothea Tabakova

IX. Russia
Judith Kalb

37. Classical Reception in Russia: an Introduction
Judith E. Kalb

38. Men in Cases: The Perception of Classical Schools in Prerevolutionary Russia
Grigory Starikovsky

39. Homer in Russia
Judith E. Kalb

40. Vergil in Russia: Milestones of Identity
Zara Martirosova Torlone

41. Russian Encounters with Classical Antiquities: Archaeology, Museums, and National Identity in the Czarist Empire
Caspar Meyer

X. Armenia and Georgia
Zara M. Torlone

42. Classical Reception in Georgia: an Introduction
Ketevan Gurchiani

43. The Greek Tragedy on the Georgian Stage: 20th Century
Ketevan Gurchiani

44. Armenian Culture and Classical Antiquity
Armen Kazaryan and Gohar Mouradyan

45. Medieval Greek–Armenian Literary Relations
Gohar Muradyan

46. Classical Trend of Armenian Architectural School of Ani (10th–11th centuries): the Greco–Roman Model and the Conversion of Medieval Art
Armen Kazaryan

Zara Martirosova Torlone is Professor in the Department of Classics at Miami University, USA. She is the author of Russia and the Classics (2009) and Vergil in Russia (2015), editor of Classical Reception in Eastern Europe (a special issue of Classical Receptions Journal), and co editor of Insiders and Outsiders in Russian Cinema (with Stephen Norris, 2008). She has written numerous articles concerning classical literature and its reception, especially in Russian culture.

Dana LaCourse Munteanu is Associate Professor in the Department of Greek and Latin at Ohio State University, Newark, USA. She is the author of Tragic Pathos: Pity and Fear in Greek Philosophy and Tragedy (2012) and the editor of Emotion, Genre and Gender in Classical Antiquity (2011). She has written several articles on Greek philosophy, tragedy and the reception.

Dorota Dutsch is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. She is the author of Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy: On Echoes and Voices (2008), and co editor of Women in the Drama of the Roman Republic (with David Konstan and Sharon James, 2015), Ancient Obscenities (with Ann Suter, 2015),and The Fall of the City in the Mediterranean (with Ann Suter and Mary Bachvarova, 2016).