The Byzantine Memories of Sofia
The Byzantine Memories of Sofia

Summary/Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to reconstruct, so far as is possible, some aspects of the medieval cultural identity of one of the emblematic cities in the Byzantine oecumene, namely the city of Sofia. Undoubtedly, medieval Sardica/ Serdica/ Sredets/ Triaditsa/ Sofia was neither a real factor nor an imaginary topos of the rank of Constantinople. However, for part of the Balkan population, the town functioned in much the same way, especially at the level of Christian eschatology and political teleology. That is why the reconstruction of its cultural memory could create sound grounds for reconstructions of the memory of other Balkan towns whose history and/or identity were connected with those of Serdica/ Sredets/ Sofia. Last but not least, studying these issues will make it possible to comprehend more correctly the mechanisms of functioning of Byzantine memory, because the way in which the ‘golden age’ (if the archaeologists are to be trusted) of Sofia – the period between the 4 th and 6th centuries AD – was conceived of and memorialized was totally dependant – that is, at the level of the official historiography – on the short-term purposes and long-term projects of the ideologists of Constantinople, the New Rome.

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