IMC 2022: Sessions

For more than two millennia, Southeast Europe (SEE) has represented a border line between Europe's East and West. Initially instituted as a line dividing the Roman Empire (formalised by Emperor Theodosius I, 379-395), the region's bordering feature remained embedded in the continent's political, religious, ethnic, and cultural delineations, leaving a distinctive mark even on the area's outlook today. To the historical polities that developed there, the border character of SEE brought substantial and long-term change. Resulting from diverse interests of various, often clashing political factors, during the late Middle Ages these polities were involved in frequent direct conflicts, while their stability was additionally challenged by some less apparent, 'mediated' transgressions. Aiming at exploring the role and the significance which these transgressions had in balancing power in the region, this session will focus on three situations in which their key actors - people coming from different ethnic, social, and cultural milieus - challenged the area's 'formal' governing structures, their organisational settings, and their key ideologies. A particular attention will be put on the devices and strategies by which these transgressions were justified in order to manipulate and legitimise some new forms of subversion, submission, and control.