Half a century ago, the Greek academic Era Vranoussi presented Balkan and Byzantine studies with a new theory. She argued that the people named Albanoi in Michael Attaleiates’ History were not Balkan Albanians, but rather Normans in southern Italy. A debate ensued with French Byzantinist Alain Ducellier that was never resolved. More recently, some notable scholars have begun to incorporate Vranoussi's hypothesis into their work. This article re-examines Vranoussi's arguments and concludes that the evidence favours the traditional reading of Albanoi as Balkan Albanians over the interpretation of this ethnonym as an obscure reference to Norman mercenaries in territories south of Rome.

After the recapture of Constantinople (1261) artistic production in Byzantium experienced a recovery. In the capital of Byzantium itself this period is marked by the mosaic panel of the Deesis in the Hagia Sophia. This work constitutes a ‘one-off’ in Byzantine art. This fact poses a series of questions concerning the dating, the creator and the patron of the mosaic, as well as the reasons for its creation, given that no source makes any reference to these matters. The present study attempts to re-examine these issues.

This article argues that coherence in medieval narratives was perceived differently than it is in modern literature, offering an analysis of coherence principles in Digenes Akrites which seem to have been more relevant for its original audiences. Drawing on contemporary narratology and recent research on comparable western works, the author does not search for one sole superordinate principle, but rather for so-called structures of mid-range coherence. The article contains some examples of such ‘centres of gravity’ – the schema, the scene and the meaning – in the G version.

In this article, the socio-economic and cultural identity of Chalcis is traced through, and combined with, the story of its material culture and, in particular, of its impressive pottery production and consumption. Through this lens, the historical conditions and daily life over more than ten centuries (from the ninth to the early twentieth century) of this relatively unknown provincial town are closely examined. This makes it possible to detect one field in which local communities reacted to, adjusted to, took advantage of, survived or sometimes succumbed to the wider turmoil of the Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek eras.

The most direct and definite expression of Philhellenism during the Greek War of Independence (1821–9) was military action by European volunteers, generally officers, on the side of the revolutionaries. This article discusses the Philhellenes’ military action at the Battle of Peta in 1822, as recorded in the diary of one of the few survivors, the physician Johann-Daniel Elster. Elster's information is compared with other Greek and European sources about the battle and the conditions of the campaign in Epirus and the circumstances that led to the Philhellenes’ defeat re-evaluated.

Since Roman times the representation of monarchy as an antidote to anarchy was a strong form of legitimization for the monarchical institution. In modern Greece, this formula dates back to 1821. The Greek Revolution and its republican constitutions were identified by European statesmen with anarchy and demagogy. Thus, a foreign monarch, alien to Greece's internal factions, was deemed the ideal remedy for internecine strife, and the best guarantor of internal unity as well as stability in the Near East. This image of monarchy proved its usefulness again during the First World War, when a controversy between the premier Eleftherios Venizelos and King Constantine over foreign policy and constitutional issues led to the National Schism (1915–17).

This article examines the German reaction to the abduction by the SOE (Special Operations Executive) of General Kreipe in Crete in May 1944 and questions whether the operation should have been launched. Observance of the Laws and Customs of War as defined at the time had been compromised by SOE's charter from the outset, and the reaction of the occupying powers – Germany and Italy – to partisan warfare evolved accordingly. The article concludes by highlighting the legal findings of the American Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg trial of the ‘Balkan Generals’ and contrasts them with the Athens trial of Generals Müller and Bräuer.