RICONTRANS | Visual Culture, Piety and Propaganda: Transfer and Reception of Russian Religious Art in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean (16th to early 20th Century)

Summary
The Russian religious artefacts (icons and ecclesiastical furnishings) held in museums, church or monastery collections in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean constitute a body of valuable monuments hitherto largely neglected by historians and historians of art. These objects acquire various interrelated religious/ideological, political and aesthetic meanings, value and uses. Their transfer and reception is a significant component of the larger process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. It is at the same time a process reflecting the changing cultural and political relations between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the Balkans over a long period of time (16th-20th century). In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways.
The aim of RICONTRANS is to investigate, for the first time in a systematic and interdisciplinary way, this transnational phenomenon of artefact transfer and reception. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent challenging openings of art history to visual studies, this project aims to: map the phenomenon in its long history by identifying preserved objects in the region; follow the paths and identify the mediums of this transfer; analyse the dynamics and the moving factors (religious, political, ideological) of this process during its various historical phases; study and classify these objects according to their iconographic and artistic particularities; inquire into the aesthetic, ideological, political, and social factors which shaped the context of the reception of Russian religious art objects in various social, cultural and religious environments; investigate the influence of these transferred artefacts on the visual culture of the host societies.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/818791
Start date: 01-05-2019
End date: 31-10-2025
Total budget - Public funding: 1 914 670,00 Euro - 1 914 670,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

The Russian religious artefacts (icons and ecclesiastical furnishings) held in museums, church or monastery collections in the Balkans and Eastern Mediterranean constitute a body of valuable monuments hitherto largely neglected by historians and historians of art. These objects acquire various interrelated religious/ideological, political and aesthetic meanings, value and uses. Their transfer and reception is a significant component of the larger process of transformation of the artistic language and visual culture in the region and its transition from medieval to modern idioms. It is at the same time a process reflecting the changing cultural and political relations between Russia and the Orthodox communities in the Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the Balkans over a long period of time (16th-20th century). In this dynamic transfer, piety, propaganda and visual culture appear intertwined in historically unexplored and theoretically provoking ways.
The aim of RICONTRANS is to investigate, for the first time in a systematic and interdisciplinary way, this transnational phenomenon of artefact transfer and reception. Applying the cultural transfer approach in combination with the recent challenging openings of art history to visual studies, this project aims to: map the phenomenon in its long history by identifying preserved objects in the region; follow the paths and identify the mediums of this transfer; analyse the dynamics and the moving factors (religious, political, ideological) of this process during its various historical phases; study and classify these objects according to their iconographic and artistic particularities; inquire into the aesthetic, ideological, political, and social factors which shaped the context of the reception of Russian religious art objects in various social, cultural and religious environments; investigate the influence of these transferred artefacts on the visual culture of the host societies.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

ERC-2018-COG

Update Date

27-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
ERC-2018
ERC-2018-COG