The Georgian-Byzantine literary interaction in the eleventh century

Seminar with Professor Christian Høgel, Lund Universitet.

After the Georgian nobleman Ioane Tornike supported the young Byzantine emperor Basil II against pretenders to the Byzantine throne, Georgians became much closer connected to Byzantine politics and to Byzantine text culture. The establishment of the Iviron monastery in mount Athos turned out a most productive translation center but also became an aristocratic setting of Georgians within the Byzantine world. Our extant text material witnesses both this Byzantine-Georgian literary exchanges and gives us valuable information on different text cultures along the Silk Road.

Bio

Christian Høgel is professor of Greek and Latin at LU since 2023. He has published widely on Byzantine hagiography and on translations – on the early Greek translation of the Qur’an and on translations from Georgian. He is co-director of the Retracing Connections research programme (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond).