Religious Art and Soft Power: transfer and reception of Russian Art in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean (late 16th- early 20th cc)

Abstract

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.