Download PDF | Martin Hurbanič - The Avar Siege of Constantinople in 626_ History and Legend-Springer International Publishing_Palgrave Macmillan (2019).
364 Pages
New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture publishes high-quality scholarship on all aspects of Byzantine culture and society from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, presenting fresh approaches to key aspects of Byzantine civilization and new studies of unexplored topics to a broad academic audience. The series is a venue for both methodologically innovative work and ground-breaking studies on new topics, seeking to engage medievalists beyond the narrow confines of Byzantine studies.
The core of the series is original scholarly monographs on various aspects of Byzantine culture or society, with a particular focus on books that foster the interdisciplinarity and methodological sophistication of Byzantine studies. The series editors are interested in works that combine textual and material sources, that make exemplary use of advanced methods for the analysis of those sources, and that bring theoretical practices of other fields, such as gender theory, subaltern studies, religious studies theory, anthropology, etc. to the study of Byzantine culture and society.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The present book is primarily dedicated to the memory of my teacher, Professor Alexander Avenarius (1942—2004), who in his later years could once again vigorously support Byzantine studies at many Slovak universities once the ban imposed on him by the former Communist regime had been lifted. Professor Avenarius, a prominent expert on the history of Avars, sparked my interest in them many years ago.
Even though this publication came to life over the course of two years, it is a product of fifteen years’ worth of research. I would like to point out that the final version’s completion, including the English translation, was made possible mainly thanks to the financial support provided by the many projects sponsored by the Slovak Ministry of Education which I have taken part in, particularly KEGA 042UK-4/2018, VEGA 1/0814/18, KEGA 004UK¥F-4/2018, and APVV-18-0333.
I would also like to express my gratitude to all the people who have provided me with their help while working on this manuscript, especially to Florin Curta, Peter Buttler, Vratislav Zervan, Ivan Varso, Adam Sitar, Alice Sullivan, Peter Ivanié, Vlastimil Drbal, Dugan Zupka, Marek Mesko, Dragan Vojvodi¢, and Aleksandr Preobrazhensky, and to all my other colleagues and friends who have been helpful with their advices and comments, and who have undeniably contributed to the substantial improvement of the present publication.
Special thanks are due to the former and present heads of the Department of General History at Comenius University in Bratislava— Miroslav Danis and Vincent Muicska—for their various forms of support, selfless help, and kind approach.
Naturally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my family, particularly to my wife and my mother, for their great patience and love.
A NOTE ON THE TRANSCRIPTION
When transcribing most of the historical Greek proper names, I tended to opt for the original forms as opposed to their traditional Latinized or anglicized forms. Exceptions include first names that have been used in English over a long period of time as well as names of several famous persons of Byzantine history. In that case, I decided to go with their more common anglicized transcriptions. The same method was applied for several well-known topographic names and often used specific terms. The rest are written in their Greek forms.
When dealing with the Russian personal names, I based their transcription on the English system of converting letters from Cyrillic (e.g., § = sh, z = zh, j = y, and others). In the case of Serbian, Bulgarian, and Macedonian names, however, I went with their more commonly used forms of transcription (e.g., Barisié instead of Barishich, Barigic, or Barishic; KaSev instead of Kashev; and others). The titles of books and scholarly papers written by Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Macedonian authors were left in their original forms to aid interested readers in searching for them.
Introduction
The Byzantines never forgot the first siege of Constantinople. In the hot summer days of 626, their capital was besieged by a huge horde of the Avars, Slavs, Bulgars, and others from land and sea. Moreover, the allied Persian army, led by the victorious commander Shahrbaraz, stood on the opposite side of the Bosphorus, ready to engage in this hard fight. The heroic ten-day-long defence lasted from Tuesday, 29 July, to Thursday, 7 August. The final victory of the Roman forces on the last day of the siege had a significant impact on contemporaries and transformed this historic event into a legend.
Its most visible sign was—more than anything else—the total destruction of the large “fleet” of dug-out canoes of the enemy in the bay of the Golden Horn. All people of the capital believed that this miraculous rescue of Constantinople was caused by the unexpected action of the Virgin Mary. The 7 August began to be regularly commemorated in the Byzantine liturgy and the short historical notices highlighting that divine help was read out in the church of Blachernai, the major Marian shrine in the capital, and later in other churches of Byzantium as well. This local commemoration was later replaced by the splendid Feast which united the memory of the three historical sieges of Constantinople.
The people of the empire were told how the Mother of God had saved the Byzantine capital not only from the Avars but also from their successors, the Arabs, who twice unsuccessfully tried to conquer that God-protected city. This intense feeling was felt by all who entered the sacred space and listened to the Akathistos, the most famous Marian hymn ever. It was due to popularity of this song that this homonymous feast soon crossed the borders of the Byzantine empire and became part of the shared cultural heritage of all countries of the Byzantine ozkoumene. In such a way, the memory of the Avar attack is regularly reflected in the Byzantine liturgy and permanently preserved on frescoes and icons in various countries of the Greek Orthodox world. All these aspects make this event a unique historical moment in history: a moment in which the modern story overlaps with legend, with far-reaching ideological effect.
For the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire, these two liturgical commemorations on the siege of 626 provided the only tangible memory on the Avars and their continuous devastating raids on the cities and provinces of the Balkans lasting from the second half of the sixth to the early seventh century.! The common belief that the divine protectors would again come to help Constantinople became a repeatedly experienced reality with every new threat.
It gradually found reflection not only in the Byzantine liturgical texts but also in various other literary genres. The story of the Avar attack, as an unforgettable event in the history of Constantinople, was repeatedly recalled in times of trouble and military threat. But its written history soon emerged in a new garbled form. Instead of the Avars, the more amorphous Scythians appeared in the sources, while the Slavs, Bulgars and Gepids were often omitted from them. And in some cases, only the Persians are referred to as the only actors of that siege.”
The echoes of the Avar siege were still present in Constantinople centuries later, even though they had gradually adopted blurred contours. An anonymous Latin visitor of the Byzantine capital from the end of the eleventh century mentioned an attack of two armies, both on land and sea.* In the middle of the fourteenth century, a pious Russian pilgrim saw a stack of exposed human bones near the disused harbour of Vlanga at the Marmara coast.
He heard, probably from a local guide, that these remnants belonged to dead Persian soldiers who had perished when their vessels crashed against the city walls after the glorious intervention of the Mother of God.* This story could not be true, but the inhabitants of Constantinople did not put much stress on the individual attacks of the barbarians.° They rather focused on the spiritual presence of the Mother of God in “her” city as one anonymous Byzantine literate from the beginning of the fifteenth century.
He even ascribed to her the ultimate victory of the last great nomad conqueror Timur (Tamerlane) over the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid in the glorious battle of Ankara in 1402. The anonymous author mentioned that this miracle was greater than all the previous ones, including the one that had occurred during the attack of the Scythians (the Avars) and the Arabs on Constantinople, when the Mother of God “immersed them into the depth of the sea, destroyed them with death and hunger, and scourged them with other violent punishment”.
The author of these words was convinced that the present hopeless situation of the Byzantines could not be compared to previous misfortunes because the recent miracle of the Virgin Mary surpassed all previous ones. Not only the arch-enemy, Bayezid, was captured, but also the innumerable hordes of Timur were later decimated by plague which prevented them to attack Constantinople. Even during the last hours of the Christian city on the Bosphorus, the ordinary people reportedly implored for divine help against the Turks, recalling the previous interventions of their patroness against the (Avar) khagan and the Arabs.”
All these reflections have their origin in the final day of the Avar siege. After departure of the Avars and their allies from the city, the people of Constantinople gathered in the main Marian shrine at Blachernai. In the interior of this sacral space, they thanked their patron whom they attributed the complete destruction of the enemy. Here begins the story of how the Avar attack became a part of the Byzantine identity. The transformation of this historical event into a legend is already visible in the works of two contemporary witnesses of the siege—George of Pisidia and Theodore Synkellos. They both definitively created the concept of a city protected by God with its chief patron in the person of the all-holy Mother of God. For Synkellos, Constantinople became the New Jerusalem, in other words, the better spiritual centre of the New Christian Israel.
Such claims were further reinforced by every subsequent attack on the Byzantine capital. In the final days of Constantinople, its inhabitants placed all their hope in the miraculous power of their Heavenly Patroness, especially in the time of the growing expansion of the Ottoman Turks. According to the common belief, the power of the Mother of God was mainly concentrated in her sacred icons. One of them, the Hodegetria, was considered as the most sacred palladion of Constantinople.
At least from the eleventh century onwards, it was believed that it had been rescuing the city continuously since the first major attack by the Avars in 626. When this sacred image was destroyed on 29 May 1453 by Ottoman forces, it seemed as if the legend of the God-protected capital and the Avar siege had come to an end. Strangely enough, this did not happen even though the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist. The legend reappeared in bizarre forms on the walls of monasteries, churches, and icon on Mount Athos as well as in today’s republics of Macedonia, Romania, and Russia.
It presented only a garbled memory of the Avar siege, perhaps except for the motif of the heavenly destruction of the enemy after the intervention of the most effective helper, the Mother of God, who, as in Constantinople, could demonstrate her power in cases of need. Its central element is the mystical belief in a miracle which mirrors the state of humanity at a time of crisis and existential threat.
But, the Avar attack on Constantinople is not only a peculiar testimony of Byzantine identity for its importance lies primarily in history. It is rightfully one of the most significant events of the seventh century and one of the key milestones of late antiquity. Undoubtedly it represents the peak of the expansion of the Avars to the Balkan provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire. This lasted for decades and caused a disruption to its political, military, economic, and religious structures. It would surely not be correct to perceive the Avar siege just as a heroic struggle of civilization against barbarism or as a fight between noble savages and the decadent and fragmented Roman Empire.
It was not a mere consequence of the predatory politics of the Khaganate, nor was it an isolated, spontaneous, or unpredictable action. The Avars and their allies surrounded Constantinople at the time of the last great rivalry culminating between the traditional powers of late antiquity—the Eastern Roman Empire and Persia. The main adversaries—Emperor Herakleios and King Khusro I1—made every effort to draw other actors into this conflict.
The results of the siege meant a considerable blow to the power of the Khaganate and a definitive end of Avar hegemony in Southeastern Europe. On the other hand, from the perspective of the Eastern Roman Empire, this was the first serious attack and an attempt to destroy Constantinople, its capital city. It became a turning point of the last Roman—Persian war, also called the last great war of antiquity, a war that helped preserve the remains of the past Roman Empire in a new form—the Byzantium in the era, characterized by the expansive power of Islam. Therefore, it is not possible to properly interpret the history of the Avar attack unless the whole military and political context of this conflict is taken into consideration.
This book represents the first complex and interdisciplinary synthesis of the history and the legend of the Avar attack on Constantinople in 626 in the historiography. It introduces a comprehensive view of complicated relations between the Avars and other groups of warriors that took part in the attack. Their mutual relations and interaction before and during the siege are outlined. It is followed by careful observations of the international situation in the world of late antiquity with its two dominant powers—the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persia. The monograph intends to answer the question of the extent to which the Avars and others were part of the “great power” policy of those times.
Beside of that, the military aspects of the siege have been discussed in detail, including those which have not been given due attention to so far. Therefore, two extensive chapters dedicated became inherent in the book. In the first, the structure of the Avar army is described. Possible relations between the Avars, Slavs, and others that participated in the attack are explored and suggested; the questions of weaponry and tactics of all troops belonging to the Avar army are elaborated. In the second chapter, the defence of Constantinople during the attack is analysed—not only its fortification but also the structure of the defence and its weaponry. In the core part of the book, the author attempts to answer questions about the aspects of the siege that have been omitted so far and reconstructs the story to the smallest detail.
Some statements regarding topographical objects that are mentioned during the siege are examined in detail. The first attempt is made to clarify some partial aspects of the naval defence of the city. Only through the evaluation of all the aspects, it is possible to answer the questions regarding the process and the effects of the siege in their complexity, not only from the military but also from the political perspective.
The second part of the book deals with the process of the continuous transformation of the historical event of the siege into a legend. The author of presented book follows this development in accordance with the chronological perspective (focussing on the gradual transformation of liturgical commemoration of the Avar attack) and with the thematic perspective (iconography of the Avar attack, liturgical processions and sacred relics used during the siege). Inherent in the monograph is a detailed commentary of all sources on the Avar siege and a critical assessment of the conclusions of historiography.
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