Chapter 6 - From Helleno-Christian Civilisation to Roman Nation

Summary

Against the backdrop of turbulent political developments with deep cultural implications – civil war, military dictatorship and post-1974 liberalisation – the chapter discusses the changes in Greek historiography, with impact on the treatment of Byzantium as part of the Greek national history, after World War II. It scrutinises the impassioned debate on the historical premises of Greek identity, which erupted in the late 1960s and spilled into the 1980s, between three British holders of the Korais Chair of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language and Literature at the University of London, on the one side, and Greek and Greek-American scholars, on the other. The final section discusses at some length a contemporary debate pro and contra the Byzantine empire as a nation-state between Greek diaspora byzantinists.