Valerii Zema

Valerii Zema

Senior Research Fellow, Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Title of Research

Reflections on the Origins of the Polemic Between Byzantium and the West in the Renaissance

Abstract

The new interpretations of the relations between Byzantium and the West proposed an upgraded image of the past, inspired by the Renaissance search for ancient sources and the thirst for historical reconstructions. In the age of early modern scholarship, the discovery, copying, and publication of polemical and historical treatises became an essential feature of the culture that stimulated "professional" research of documents and the past. In early modern disputes between different denominations, the past of Christianity and historical sources became a contentious point.

The reception of medieval polemics between Byzantium and the West in the realms of religious dogmas, rites, and customs in the early modern works of theologians and historians is the focus of my research project. It will study how these contradictions and polemical treatises were discovered, analyzed, and published. Moreover, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these writings or texts influenced the Church union processes. I will cover the books published in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Western Europe.

Biography

Valerii Zema is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of History, National Academy of Science of Ukraine. He completed his doctoral studies (aspirantura) at the the Hrushevs’kyi Institute of Ukrainian Archeography and Sources Studies, focusing on Ruthenian manuscripts, and took courses at the University of Warsaw and John Paul II Catholic University of Lubin. He has published two books of sources and manuscripts descriptions and has completed a monograph devoted to the influences of conciliarism in Kyivan metropolitanate.

Contact Information

At HURI Spring 2023