Browsing by Author "Boycheva, Yuliana"
  • Item
    'From the Orthodox Megalopolis of Moscovy of Great Russia': Russian heirlooms from the monastery of Tatarna, Sixteenth-Seventeenth Centuries
    (Ιερά Μητρόπολις Σταγών και Μετεώρων, Ακαδημία Θεολογικών και Ιστορικών Μελετών Αγίων Μετεώρων, 2022) Boycheva, Yuliana ; Resh, Daria
    This article examines Russian artifacts donated to the Monastery of the Virgin of Tatarna (Evrytania, Central Greece) by Archbishop Arsenios of Elassona (1550-1625) and clergymen from his entourage. A monastic site since the Byzantine period, Tatarna emerged as an important religious center in the late sixteenth century because of its special status as a patriarchal monastery (stavropegion), granted to it almost immediately after its foundation by monks from Thessaly. The donation of a large number of Russian artifacts includes a manuscript, icons, and a pectoral panagiarion-encolpion, some of which are associated directly with Arsenios through inscriptions, while others are attributable to the clerics carrying the artifacts to the monastery. Overall, this is one of the very interesting ensembles of Russian ecclesiastical art to have survived in its original context in Greece. It is distinguished not only by the excellent craftsmanship of the objects comprising it, but also by the questions it raises as a historical source.
  • Item
    Orthodox Hegemony and Art. Transfer of Russian Religious Art to the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (late 16th-early 20th centuries)
    (Institute for Mediterranean Studies - F.O.R.T.H., 2026) Boycheva, Yuliana
    The volume comprises eighteen studies authored by project members and external scholars, originally presented and discussed at the final RICONTRANS conference which was held at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies-FORTH premises in Rethymno in January 2025. Together, these papers encapsulate the project’s principal research directions and offer critical reflections on their outcomes. The contributions are organized around six broad thematic axes: 1) Alms Collection Missions as a books, and vestments — objects essential for the worship life of the monasteries. These cult objects Channel for Art Mobility and Exchanges in the Orthodox World; 2) Russian Miraculous Icons in the Balkan Context - Transfer, Veneration, Transformations; 3) The Dissemination of Russian Icons in the Balkans; 4) Artefacts and Written Evidence - Russian or Ukrainian? Defining the Origins of Art Objects, Visual Models and Professional Skills transferred to the Balkans; 5) Supporting Orthodoxy in the Balkans: Russian Donations to Churches and Monasteries in the Balkans during the 19th Century; 6) Sacred Objects out of Ritual Context - Russian Icons in Museum Collections
  • Item
    Religious Art and Soft Power: transfer and reception of Russian Art in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean (late 16th- early 20th cc)
    (Institute for Mediterranean Studies - F.O.R.T.H., 2026) Boycheva, Yuliana
    This monograph considers Russian icons and liturgical objects not as static artefacts of devotion, but as mobile objects whose meanings were constantly reshaped through circulation, mediation and reception within various Orthodox settings. It examines icons and liturgical objects from Russia that have been preserved in the Balkans and the Mediterranean, considering them as mobile artefacts embedded in networks of transfer, mediation and reception. Rather than considering these objects solely as devotional objects or works of religious art, the study foregrounds their trajectories, the agents of their transfer, and the visual knowledge they convey. By tracing the routes of their mobility and the processes of artistic transmission and local recontextualisation alongside them, the study conceptualises the transfer and reception of these objects as interconnected stages in their social life.
  • Item
    Studying Russian Icons in the Balkans
    (ISTORIYA, 2021-06-21) Boycheva, Yuliana
    The Russian religious artefacts - icons, liturgical utensils, veils, vestments and books and objects of private piety, held in museums and church or monastery collections in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean constitute a body of valuable art objects, and important material evidences related to the historical development of the relations between Russia and large region of South-Eastern Europe. This piety objects comes continually to the region for a long period through official, unofficial and private donations, or by pilgrimage and trade. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent theoretically challenging openings of art history into visual studies and social anthropology RICONTRANS studies them not simply as religious or artistic artefacts, but as mediums of cultural transfer and political and ideological influence, which interacted with and were appropriated by receiving societies. Their transfer and reception is a significant and poorly studied component of the larger cultural process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways.