Byzantine studies in Ukrainian scholars’ dissertations, 2012-2023 (non-historical sciences)

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V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Kharkiv

Byzantine studies in Ukrainian scholars' dissertations, 2012-2023 (non-historical sciences)

M.Ye. Domanovska, PhD (History)

Ukrainian Studies Department

Abstract

The article reviews the dissertations on Byzantine studies, which have been defended in Ukraine over 2012-2023 in non-historical specializations (Aesthetics, Musicology, Theory and History of Culture, Pedagogy, Fine Arts, Religious Studies). Byzantine studies in Ukraine recently have started to develop in institutional centers, among which are the National University `Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,' M.P. Drahomanov National Pedagogical University, M.V. Lysenko Lviv National Academy of Music (where a school of research in the history of Byzantine music has taken shape under the leadership of Yuri Yasinovsky), Lviv National Academy of the Arts, A.V. Nezhdanova Odesa National Academy of Music, I.P. Kotliarevsky Kharkiv National University of the Arts, Kharkiv State Academy of Design and the Arts, etc. The range of dissertations of an interdisciplinary nature is expanding, in particular, historical, theological, historical and philosophical topics are gaining popularity, and art criticism and musicology are becoming popular.

The review points out, that the number of dissertations on non-historical Byzantine studies has increased in comparison with the previous period 2007-2011 and even after full-scale invasion of Russian Federation into Ukraine, and our scientists continue studying such complex interdisciplinary issues. The studies presented in the review are original, based on the latest methods and achievements of world science, and they determine further vectors of the development of Ukrainian Byzantine studies in the near future.

Keywords: Byzantine studies, non-historical Byzantine studies, dissertation research, 2012-2023.

М.Є. Домановська, канд. істор. наук, старший викладач кафедри українознавства, Харківського національного університету імені В.Н. Каразіна, Харків

Візантиністика в дисертаційних студіях науковців України, 2012-2023 (неісторичні науки)

Анотація

dissertation byzantine studies

У статті розглядаються дисертації з візантиністики, захищені в Україні упродовж 2012-2023 років за неісторичними спеціалізаціями (естетика, музикознавство, теорія та історія культури, педагогіка, образотворче мистецтво, релігієзнавство). В цей період візантійські студії почали набувати популярності в інституційних центрах, серед яких Національний університет «Києво-Могилянська академія», Національний педагогічний університет імені М.П. Драгоманова, Львівська національна музична академія ім. М.В. Лисенка (тут під керівництвом Юрія Ясиновського оформилася наукова школа студій з історії візантійської музики), Львівська національна академія мистецтв, Харківський національний університет мистецтв імені І.П. Котляревського, Харківська державна академія дизайну і мистецтв та ін. Поступово розширюється коло дисертацій міждисциплінарного характеру, зокрема набувають популярності богословські, історико-філософські, музикознавчі теми.

В огляді зазначено, що кількість візантинознавчих дисертацій, захищених з неісторичних спеціальностей, помітно зросла порівняно з попереднім періодом 2007-2011 рр., і навіть після повномасштабного вторгнення РФ в Україну наші вчені продовжують вивчати складні міждисциплінарні питання. Дослідження, представлені в огляді, є оригінальними, ґрунтуються на новітніх методах і досягненнях світової науки, а також визначають подальші вектори розвитку українських візантійських студій.

Ключові слова: візантиністика, візантійські студії, дисертаційні дослідження, неісторичні спеціальності, 2012-2023.

This overview The study was completed with the support of the following grant programs: the Dumbarton Oaks Mentorship Program and Research Grants for Scholars Affected by the Conflict in Ukraine (2022, Washington DC, USA) and the Shevchenko Emergency Fund to support Ukrainian scholars and artists displaced by war (Shevchenko Scientific Society, New York, USA). We are grateful to our American colleagues for their support during the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War. continues an earlier publication in which we attempted to briefly analyze the body of dissertations defended by Ukrainian Byzantine scholars during 2012-2022 in historical specializations within the field of `historical sciences,' as well as review essays on dissertation-level studies in Byzantine subjects defended in Ukraine from 2007 to 2011 [4; 5; 6].

The last decade has witnessed a fall in the production of history dissertations in Byzantine studies; however, a notable phenomenon has been the appearance of a significant number of dissertations in Byzantine subjects defended in non-historical specializations (Aesthetics, Musicology, Theory and History of Culture, Pedagogy, Fine Arts, Religious Studies). Scholars are increasingly exploring Byzantine music, icon painting, monumental and decorative art, aesthetics and religious philosophy, the legacy of Ukrainian art historians, and the like [4, p. 91].

Understanding the importance of bringing this body of research in non-historical specializations into the institutional orbit of Byzantine studies, we should note that this essay will probably not cover all the works in this vast area. However, those left out will certainly be considered in subsequent reviews. The Byzantine studies dissertations defended in non-historical specializations during 2012-2022 can be broken down into several groups: Byzantine religious philosophy and theology, Byzantine music, fine and decorative arts, art history, and history of literature.

The group `Byzantine religious philosophy and theology' includes the doctoral dissertation of Andriy Tsarenok [20], Candidate's theses of Yevhenia Chornomorets [21] and Mykhailo Khromyak [19], and dissertation of Taras Tymo - one of the few Doctors of Theology in Ukraine whose degree of Sacrae Theologiae Doctoratus has international and ecclesiastical recognition [3].

Andriy Tsarenok's doctoral dissertation “The Aesthetic Dimensions of Byzantine Asceticism” was defended in 2019 in the specialization 09.00.08 - Aesthetics. It analyzes the aesthetic potential of the Byzantine ascetic tradition [20]. The author distills and systematically investigates the main philosophical and aesthetic aspects of ascetic teachings that developed in different periods of Byzantine history, and clarifies the influence of Byzantine implicit aesthetics on the aesthetic thought of Kyivan Rus'. Based on the analysis of the works of Antony the Great, Athanasius the Great, Ephrem the Syrian, Basil the Great, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, and others, Andriy Tsarenok posits the existence in Byzantium of a religious-aesthetic doctrine consistent in its basic postulates, which he defines as a patristic, or ascetic, aesthetics. He further stresses the presence of the aesthetic dimension of Byzantine asceticism in the spiritual culture of Kyivan Rus' [20, p. 3, 27-30].

The Candidate's thesis of Yevhenia Chornomorets “The Theoretical Foundations of the Christian-Neoplatonic Aesthetics of Maximus the Confessor: Historical and Philosophical Analysis” was defended in 2019 in the specialization 09.00.05 - History of Philosophy. The researcher explores in depth and summarizes the main principles and features of the Christian-Neoplatonic aesthetics of the Byzantine theologian, philosopher, and Church Father Maximus the Confessor [21]. She focuses particularly on its impact on the theory of icon veneration in Byzantium. The dissertation emphasizes a direct connection between Maximus the Confessor's teaching on the symbol and the Neoplatonism of Iamblichus and Proclus. Yevhenia Chornomorets also considers John Damascene's doctrine of icon veneration, which largely shaped the Byzantine understanding of symbolism in general. She argues in her conclusions that the use of theories concerning the ontological foundations of symbolism by icon worshipers was fundamentally Neoplatonic and represented part of the debate with Christian Platonism, which denied the sacral role of sensual symbols and advocated the need for pure spiritualism [21, p. 3-4, 13-15].

Mykhailo Khromyak's Candidate's thesis “Reception of Gregory of Nyssa's Personalism in Modern Theology ” was defended in 2019 in the specialization 09.00.14 - Theology. Deftly combining a religiological and historical-philosophical approaches, the researcher shows cases the techniques of theological hermeneutics in his analysis of personalism and man's personalistic attitude towards God. The object of the study is the oeuvre of Gregory of Nyssa, one of the brightest representatives of Byzantine Neoplatonism, as well as the reception of his teachings in modern Orthodox and Catholic philosophical theology [19, p. 3].

The author argues that the `third reduction' and the concept of givenness in phenomenology, as well as the doctrine of epectasy and apophatic `entry into darkness' in the theology of Gregory of Nyssa, became means to overcome the metaphysical discourse in Christian theology. Mykhailo Khromyak observes that modern theoaesthetics, which criticizes rationalist ontotheological systems as unable to adequately represent theological discourse, is based in particular on the theological ideas of Gregory of Nyssa [19, p. 11-14].

In June 2023 at the Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv), Taras Tymo defended his thesis for the degree of Doctor of Theology on “`The Mystery of Theology.' The Teaching of Symeon the New Theologian on the Trinity and the Nature of Theology in His Polemical Works.” The study is devoted to hitherto little-studied aspects of the teaching of Symeon the New Theologian (944-1022), a prominent Byzantine mystic and spiritual writer. The author examines two closely related subjects - triadology and the doctrine of the nature of doctrine as developed by Symeon in the context of his polemic with Stephen of Nicomedia. Taras Tymo is one of the best Ukrainian translators of theological works from Medieval Greek, including theological hymns and poetry. As part of his dissertation project, he translated texts by Simeon the New Theologian into Ukrainian for the first time. Taras Tymo is also an original and distinctive academic theologian, able to generate new theological meanings, form a fresh voice of modern Ukrainian theological scholarship, and give a start to a Ukrainian theological school [3]. We can only regret that the dissertation is not more generally available to the public, and hope that it will be published as a monograph.

The dissertations of Ihor Sakhno [16], Maryna Lebedynska [9], Yevhenia Lazarevych [8], Ivan Mishchenko [11], and Anastasia Pater [12] belong to the group of studies on `Byzantine music.' Ihor Sakhno's Candidate's thesis “Byzantine Liturgical Chant Today: The Relationship between the Oral and Written Traditions” was defended in 2013 in the specialization 17.00.03 - Musicology [16]. The author rightly notes that, at the time of the study, there was very little research on Byzantine music in Ukraine. Ihor Sakhno focuses on describing and systematizing Byzantine chants, defining the basic features of their performance, and analyzing the relationship between melodies recorded in neumatic notation and the practice of singing [16, p. 4]. He stresses the presence of rhythmic and pitch parameters of intonation in the Eastern Christian tradition of liturgical singing, and considers the ways in which authentic performance exhibits a palette of melismatic ornamentation which, however, is not represented in neumatic notation. Ihor Sakhno also considers the functioning of the Byzantine tradition of liturgical singing in today's Ukraine and summarizes the local experience of mastering Byzantine canonical chant in Kharkiv and the region [16, p. 10-11].

The Candidate's thesis of Maryna Lebedynska “The Byzantine Tradition of Musical Education in the Church Ritual Practices of Kyivan Rus'” was defended in the specialization 13.00.01 - General Pedagogy and History of Pedagogy [9]. The goals of the work is to identify the Byzantine traditions of musical education in the church ritual practices of Kyivan Rus' and to consider the possible ways of using this historical-pedagogical experience today [9, p. 17]. This formulation is questionable, especially in combination with statements about the exceptional importance of choral church music in the moral education of Christians in Byzantium and Kyivan Rus' and the uncertainty regarding Christian musical education as a consolidating factor at the current stage of reforming the national education system. Maryna Lebedynska also repeatedly stresses that music was a mandatory discipline at all levels of education in Byzantium and Kyivan Rus', while it lacks this status in the system of higher professional education in modern Ukraine. The author, who is a specialist in neither Byzantine nor medieval studies, understands the issue of topic relevance literally, repeatedly asserting a direct connection between Byzantium and Rus' on the one hand and independent Ukraine on the other and often resorting to modernization of the early medieval material.

The researcher also commits serious errors, for example, in the classification of sources, wrongly distinguishing between sources and literature according to the principle of `published' versus `archival.' The dissertation includes a large number of appendices, but there is no list of them, and the appendices themselves, as a rule, lack references [9, p. 233-235, 236, 238, 241-244, 247, 248, 249]. Further, the author does not cite most of the appendices in the body of her work [9, p. 233-249]. She is not familiar with widely available recent Ukrainian works in Byzantine studies, including the textbooks and anthologies by Serhiy Sorochan, Leontiy Voitovych, and others. Thus, the only pedagogy dissertation on a Byzantium-related subject unfortunately suffers from many shortcomings. The Candidate's thesis of Yevhenia Lazarevych “M. Antonovych's Byzantine Choir in the Context of the Practice of European Choral Performance in the Second Half of the 20th Century ” was defended in 2018 in the specialization 17.00.03 - Musicology [8]. The work focuses on the performance tradition of the ancient sacred music of the Western and Eastern rites and its development in the second half of the 20th century as a component of the Ukrainian tradition of church music [8]. It is significant that M. Antonovych's choir was created and based in the Netherlands; it thus represents a unique phenomenon of the closest possible approximation to the traditional prototype of the performance of Ukrainian liturgical works not by bearers of this tradition, but by Dutch performers [8, p. 1, 16].

The most important sections of the dissertation from the point of view of Byzantine studies are those in which Lazarevych considers the chant tradition of Kyiv Pechersk Lavra as one of the sources of the liturgical performance practice of the Byzantine Choir, as well as defines the singing of the liturgy of the Byzantine rite as the main component of the choir's repertoire. The researcher also establishes that the training of the choir's performers necessarily involved not just familiarity with, but a scholarly study of, Byzantine liturgical music, which eventually brought them as close as possible to the authentic performance of works in this tradition [8, p. 8, 10, 11, 14].

Ivan Mishchenko's Candidate's thesis “Musical and Stylistic Features of the Development of Byzantine, Slavic-Rus', and Ukrainian Monody (The Case of the Stichera Idiomela of the Transfiguration)” was defended in the specialization 17.00.03 - Musicology in 2019. The chronological range of the study covers the period of the birth and formation of Byzantine hymnography (4th to 12th centuries) and its Slavic and Ukrainian receptions (11th to 17th centuries), as well as the modern practice of the Greek Orthodox Church (19th to 21st centuries) [11, p. 2]. Based on the latest research on the history and theory of Byzantine and Ukrainian music and a large number of Byzantine and Slavic sources, the author traces the evolution of the historiographical studies of Byzantine neumatic notation; analyzes Byzantine musical models of the stichera idiomela of the Transfiguration in retrospective; defines the basic principles of the Byzantine octoechos system in the context of theory and performance practice and the stylistic features of the stichera idiomela based on the evidence of Byzantine, Slavic-Rus', and Ukrainian monody; and introduces Byzantine musical texts from the collections of the V. Stefanyk Lviv Library, the National Library of Greece, and the Vlatades Monastery in Thessaloniki [11, p 2-3, 8, 9, 11-12].

The dissertation analyzes the basic principles of the Greek-Byzantine and Slavic-Rus' octoechos system and outlines the evolution of Byzantine semiography. Ivan Mishchenko traces the paths of the Slavic-Rus' reception of Byzantine chant, uses the stichera idiomela of the Transfiguration to explore the different traditions of reading neumatic notation, and considers the construction of the stichera idiomela of the Transfiguration, which opens up new possibilities not only for the study of the formal principles of Byzantine chant, but also for the detailed reading of individual musical compositions [11, p. 11-12].

Anastasia Pater's dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on the “Performative Dimensions of Ukrainian Sacral Music ” was defended in 2021 in the specialization 025 - Musicology [12]. Subsection 1.3, considering “Byzantine Culture as a Source of Ukrainian Sacral Chant,” is of particular importance for Byzantine studies [12, p. 41-56]. The researcher focuses on the fact that Byzantine hesychasm was the basis for Ukrainian sacral music at all historical stages of its development - from monody to the work of modern composers - as it embodies the feeling of God's omnipresence. Traditional Rus' irmologic singing, with its essential features of restraint, calmness, severity, epic majesty, and detachment from emotions, embodied the best traditions of Byzantine aesthetics [12, p. 4, 5]. In the liturgical tradition, music, represented by two main types, psalmody and antiphonal singing, is called upon to glorify God and convey the holiness of God's Word to the faithful. The Fathers of the Church viewed antiphonal singing as a particularly sublime element of liturgy, as it symbolically creates a feeling of a joint celebration of heavenly and earthly forces. Elements of psalmody and principles of antiphonal alternation underlie the melodic thematism of church music into the present day. In the Baroque era, modern Greek and Balkan Slavic monody, which also had Byzantine liturgical patterns as their basis, spread in Ukrainian musical culture [12, p. 42-46].

We should note that Anastasia Pater sets extremely broad chronological boundaries for her work (from antiquity to modern times), which makes a thorough analysis of each stage in the evolution of the performative tradition of Ukrainian music impossible. The author, who is dealing with not just a musicological, but also a historical subject, unfortunately does not distinguish between sources and academic literature. The entire list of materials used in the work is designated as `sources,' which are grouped not by content, as is customary in modern historical scholarship, but by medium or location (for example, archival and electronic). Further, the distinction between `printed sources' and `electronic sources' is not particularly productive, since the list of electronic sources also includes some published articles and books [12, p. 198-222]. In our view, it would have been appropriate to assign to one group the audio and video recordings, written sources, sheet music, and the like, and to another group - historical and musicological works (analytical materials).

Another category includes dissertations with a Byzantine component defended in the fields of `fine arts' and `religious studies.'

In 2015, Alyona Simonova defended her Candidate's thesis on “Byzantine Traditions in Orthodox Church Painting in Contemporary Ukraine (Late 20th and Early 21st Centuries),” specialization 17.00.05 - Fine Arts [17]. The researcher analyzes the concept of the Byzantine pictorial system and its components, examines specificities of artistic development across the countries of the Byzantine circle and Ukraine, and focuses particularly on the revival of Byzantine traditions in modern church painting in Ukraine and on connections between modern schools of church painting and sub-traditions of Byzantine church iconography (ancient Rus', Serbian, Georgian, and others) [17, p. 4-5].

Alyona Simonova argues that there are three main traditions of church painting in modern Ukraine: academicism, the Ukrainian Baroque, and Byzantine-Balkan style; a combination of several styles is also typical [17, p. 17]. The author notes that the uniqueness of the achievements of Byzantine decoration and their use in modern practice is evident in the ability to arrange ensemble components and combine standardized compositions. Continuators of the Byzantine icon painting tradition are faced with the problem of combining worldview, theology, and artistic process. Important are such questions as the relationship between architecture and wall painting, the correct approach to the study of the monumental church painting of the past, revival of various artistic styles, stylization and eclecticism in modern iconography, and the creation of new iconographies and new styles. Alyona Simonova emphasizes that in technical matters modern masters of church painting imitate and reconstruct old Byzantine traditions, while utilizing the latest materials and technologies [17, p. 16-18].

Nadiya Rusko's Candidate's thesis “Galician Icon Painting in the Late 19th to Early 20th Centuries: Philosophical and Religious Context” was defended in 2015 in the specialization 09.00.11 - Religious Studies [15]. The work focuses on the concept of `neo-Byzantism' as one of the key elements of Galician sacral art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to the author, the imagery of Galician icon painting embodies the archetypes, typical for Byzantine iconography, of the `anima' (images of Jesus Christ and Mother of God), the `Great Mother' (mother-protectress, Oranta, Protecting Veil of Our Lady), and the `shadow,' by which we understand the overcoming of evil (Saint George the Dragon Slayer, Saint Michael the Taxiarch), as well as the `World Tree' [15, p. 109, 115]. Medieval, baroque, and classicist traditions of the iconographic art of Galicia began to be combined in the late 19th century with a new style - modernism. Elements of the European style appeared in local icon painting; personalities of Ukrainian history and events of the Cossack era and struggles for national liberation began to be depicted on church walls. For the first time in the history of Ukrainian culture and church art, Romanticism, Byzantism, and the Ukrainian folk tradition come together; the spiritual and the national merged in synthesis, and icon painting acquired a patriotic meaning [15, p. 169].

Analyzing the `neo-Byzantine' iconography of Galicia, Nadia Rusko argues that Ukrainian artists introduced new features of their own into the established iconographic norms and models. In her view, neo-Byzantine icons are syncretic, combining ancient Byzantine models with Ukrainian tradition. Such icons were created on the national spiritual and cultural basis, going back to pre- Christian times; they incorporated themes from folk festive songs, such as carols and shchedrivkas, important for the national self-identification of Galicians [15, p. 169-170].

Mykhailo Pryimych's doctoral dissertation “Church Painting in Transcarpathia, Second Half of the 18th to First Half of the 20th Centuries: Folk Tradition, Byzantine Canonicity, and Influences of Western European Art ” was defended in 2018 in the specialization 17.00.05 - Fine Arts [14]. In subsection 2.3, “The Byzantine Tradition as a Feature of Cultural Identity,” the author argues that the hubs of the spread of the indirect influence of the Byzantine artistic tradition on the church art of Transcarpathia and of the borrowing by local artists of established schemes of post-Byzantine iconography in the 17th and 18th centuries there were the religious centers of Przemysl (Poland) and Suceava (Romania). The oldest example of Byzantine iconography in Transcarpathia is the icon of the Archangel Michael from the village of Krainykovo, Khust district (16th century) [14, p. 10]. Subsection 2.4 is devoted to meta-Byzantine artistic forms in the context of cultural and educational development in the diocese of Mukachevo [14, p. 10-11]. Mykhailo Pryimych singles out a large group of 18th-century icons that probably represent the last stage in the evolution of meta-Byzantine iconography in Transcarpathia. According to the author, the icon painting of this school, which is widely represented across Galicia (for example, the icons from the church of St. Archangel Michael in the village of Tysovets, Skoliv district, Lviv region), forms a single area with the forms found in the southern slopes of the Ukrainian Carpathians [14, p. 10]. This tradition is distinguished mainly by linear modeling, exaggeration of the facial part in relation to the cranial part, and the background that is often decorated with floral ornament embossed on the levkas and covered with silvering or gilding [14, p. 11].

Mykhailo Pryimych shows that the basis of Transcarpathian church painting was Byzantine iconography, interpreted by folk masters through simplification and ornamentalization. Meta-Byzantine artistic forms persisted almost until the end of the 18th century, which time marks the spread of compositions created by professional artists and oriented towards baroque art [14, p. 25]. Taras Lesiv defended his Candidate's thesis “Iconography in Galicia, Late 19th to Early 21st Centuries: Artistic Image and Theoretical Discourse” in 2021, in the specialization 17.00.05 - Fine Arts[10]. In addition to the study's other aims, the researcher set out to analyze the idea of Byzantism in the Greek Catholic Church and its influence on the iconography of Galicia in the interwar period. The return to the Byzantine tradition of icon painting, according to the author, is closely connected with various manifestations of the national consciousness and Eastern Christian identity of its practitioners and theorists [10, p. 2-4].

Taras Lesiv emphasizes that Christian art in the Ukrainian lands was open to intellectual and artistic trends that came here from both the East and the West. Until the second half of the 18th century, church painting in Galicia followed the Byzantine program. However, under the influence of Western European Classicism and academicism, the Byzantine tradition of icon painting was gradually marginalized. The symbolism of the icon, its abstract artistic and pictorial language was replaced by a realistic interpretation of images [10, p. 7 -8].

The dissertation considers the theoretical discourse of icon painting and the imagery of Galician icons in the late 19th to early 21st centuries. Drawing on a broad source base of iconographic works and theoretical writings (religious texts, church documents, sermons, interviews), the author outlines the stages and features of the development of the Eastern Christian icon painting tradition in Galicia, analyzes the influence of the national discourse on this tradition, and investigates the stylistic features of icon painting and the influence of the aesthetics of modernism and postmodernism on the work of the region's icon painters. The study explores the traditional and innovative strategies manifest in the development of the iconographic tradition of Galicia in the late 19th to early 21st centuries, considers works of iconographic art that have not previously been the subject of art historical study, and attributes and clarifies the authorship of several works from the first half of the 20th century. Taras Lesiv further considers the impact of the discussions surrounding ritual in the Greek Catholic Church on the icon painting tradition and compares the works of artists representing the oriental and occidental approaches to icon painting [10, p. 14-18].

The dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Oleksandra Barbalat on “The Byzantine-Kyivan Rus' Goldsmithing Tradition in the Jewelry Art of Today's Ukraine ” was defended in 2023 in the specialization 023 - Fine Arts, Decorative Arts, and Restoration [1]. The author is a well-known researcher and popularizer of Ukrainian jewelry art and organizer and participant of numerous exhibitions and cultural events. The work analyzes an exhaustive body of research and a selection of jewelry from many Ukrainian and foreign collections remarkable for both number and variety. The second chapter of the dissertation is dedicated to the Byzantine tradition of jewelry making. Here, Oleksandra Barbalat classifies artifacts of Byzantine goldsmithing art according to their functional purpose and form and characterizes the properties of precious materials used in Byzantine jewelry and its stylistics, symbolism, and technology. In addition, the author gives considerable attention to identifying the local centers of jewelry production in Byzantium and routes for the supply of raw materials [1, p. 63-134].

The researcher analyzes in detail the reception of the Byzantine jewelry tradition in Kyivan Rus' and modern Ukraine and explores the iconographic principles underlying modern jewelry art. Oleksandra Barbalat also considers the evolution of the leading schools of fine metal-working in Ukraine, describes in detail the technological aspects of the industry, and puts forward ideas for the improvement of educational programs in this type of decorative and applied art [1, p. 21-22]. The work is accompanied by a detailed glossary with explanation of terms, as well as numerous illustrated appendices. It is characterized by thoroughness and elegance of academic writing and features unique materials [1, p. 249-266]. It is actually the first study in Ukraine that offers an in-depth analysis of the Byzantine-Rus' goldsmithing tradition and its reflection in the jewelry art of modern Ukraine. The group of dissertations that we may categorize as `historiography and theory of art history' includes those by Svitlana Ivanenko [7] and Alla Sokolova [18].

Svitlana Ivanenko defended her Candidate's thesis “Ukrainian Art in the Scholarship of the Kharkiv School of Art History, First Third of the 20th century ” in 2018, in the specialization 26.00.01 - Theory and History of Culture [7]. The researcher analyzes the representation of Ukrainian art in the scholarly legacy of Kharkiv art historians, uncovers little-known facts from the history of the Kharkiv school of art history, and identifies the range of subjects that attracted particular scholarly attention in the late 19th and first third of the 20th centuries. Svitlana Ivanenko rightly points out that the scholars of the `elder generation' of art historians (Oleksandr Kyrpychnykov, Yehor Redin, Mykola Sumtsov, Oleksandr Biletsky, Fedir Shmit) focused primarily on the exploration of ancient Rus' and later medieval art from the standpoint of Byzantine studies [7, p. 3].

She argues that it was the scholars of this generation who developed an interest in Ukrainian art, while also departing from the positivism they were familiar with, striving for clarification of chronology and systematization, and turning to theoretical issues [7, p. 3, 104]. The researcher pays considerable attention to the study of the art historical legacy of the students of Fedir Shmit, who greatly enriched Ukrainian art history. The main directions of their work were the study of ancient Rus' art, Ukrainian art of the later Middle Ages and 17th to 19th centuries, Ukrainian decorative, applied, and folk art of the 20th century, and the artistic process of the early 20th century [7, p. 106-120].

Svitlana Ivanenko develops a new periodization of the history of the Kharkiv School of art history [7, p. 185-186], introduces little-known archival materials, and generally offers the first general study of an important and relatively neglected subject that has a direct connection with Byzantine studies in Ukraine in the first third of the 20th century.

Alla Sokolova's dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Art History “The Byzantine-Chivalric Phenomenon in the Religious and Cultural Traditions of Britain-EnglandandRus'- `Ukraine '” was defended in 2021 in the specialization 26.00.01 - Theory and History of Culture (Art History) [18]. The author draws bold parallels and identifies contacts between the `island' culture of Britain-England and mainland Ukraine. The author's attention is drawn to certain Renaissance-Baroque components in 17th-century culture (the `Shakespearean' and `Mohyla' eras) and the historical synchronicity of the processes of cultural flourishing during the first half of the 17th century in Britain-England and Rus'-Ukraine, including the Cromwellian revolution in England and the antiPolish war in Ukraine and the short-lived political and cultural stability during the English Restoration, which can be compared with the period of the late 17th and early 18th centuries when Ukraine, as part of Muscovy, maintained military and political autonomy and independent cultural significance. Sokolova seeks to bring to light the long-term contacts between Britain-England and Rus'-Ukraine starting with the shared Byzantine-Christian foundations of the undivided church and until the 19th century, based on the chivalric-aristocratic internal cultural relations in each of these nations [18, p. 18-20].

According to Alla Sokolova, the dissertation raises for the first time the problem of correlation between the cultural achievements of Britain-England and Rus'-Ukraine from the pre-Christian times through the Middle Ages and up to and including the 18th century, shaped by the Orthodox-Byzantine traditions of the Undivided Church, which took root in Britain during the 4th to 5th centuries and in Rus' in the 9th to 10th centuries and contributed to the formation of the Oxford movement in the 19th and Russophilism in the 20th century [18, p. 26-27].

The author puts an emphasis on the contacts between Britain, Rus', and Byzantium before and after the Norman conquests and throws light on the role of British-Celtic missionaries in the baptism of Rus', which influenced the musical instrumentalism of Rus' Orthodoxy and the hermitic principle of spiritual service in the Pechersk Lavra, as well as shaped the traditions of scholarly British monasticism for the Western and Eastern Rus' churches [18, p. 28].

Alla Sokolova describes in detail the intense cultural activity of the imperial court and aristocratic circles of Byzantium, which she compares with the hierarchical principles of the royal court and aristocracy of Britain-England and Rus'-Ukraine, where there existed a clear understanding of the monarchical essence of imperial power as the unity of spiritual and political factors on the one hand and of military republicanism for the patrician and chivalric circles on the other [18, p. 105108]. The author traced the roots of the work of Hryhoriy Skovoroda to the monastic and missionary pursuits of `travelling scholars' in Britain and Ireland and to the itinerant and poetic service of the bards that, starting in the 11th century, emigrated to Byzantium and spread across Orthodox countries, disseminating Greek-Byzantine knowledge in the Slavic world of the Renaissance era [18, p. 160162, 394].

The author stresses the presence of common features in the musical instrumentalism of Britain and Rus'-Ukraine, particularly in the legacy of the fib in Britain-Ireland and kobzars-bandurists in Ukraine. She also compares the origin of the English masque and Ukrainian vechornytsi (evening entertainments) in Druid gatherings, the pagan celebration of the Saturnalia, and the proto-salons of Byzantine court banquets and philosophical gatherings of aristocrats. She further draws parallels between the military-commercial operations of the Ukrainian chumaks and similar activities of medieval crusading knights [18, p. 398, 405-406].

Overall, Alla Sokolova offers a rich, wide-ranging, and deeply innovative study. The work is full of information that until now has not figured in scholarship on culture, art, and history, and generalizations that often go against the stereotypical perceptions of England and Ukraine. Dissertations on the history of literature also sometimes feature Byzantine themes. This group includes the works of Olha Bihun [2] and Olena Peleshenko [13].

Olha Bihun defended her doctoral dissertation “The Ambivalence of Byzantism in the Work of Taras Shevchenko ” in 2015, in the specializations 10.01.05 - Comparative Literature and 10.01.01 - Ukrainian Literature [2]. Discussing the relevance of her study, the author focuses on the fact that two contradictory trends meet in the work of Taras Shevchenko. On the one hand, many sources and typological correlates behind his texts (the iconic paradigm of the symbol, Christian ethics and aesthetics, the concepts of `holiness' and `communion,' the images of the book and the house of worship, the concept of `knowledge,' the Church Slavonic language, the mythologem of the `word,' and more) were formed under the influence of Byzantism. On the other hand, in Shevchenko's conscious engagement with the concept of `Byzantism' as a socio-cultural paradigm, symbols of the `alien' prevail. Thus Byzantism in Shevchenko's work is characterized by a fundamental ambivalence [2, p. 3].

The author explores the dialogue between Shevchenko and Kyivan-Rus' culture by involving a wide range of liturgical and spiritual literature, particularly Eastern Christian patristics, as well as painting (iconography), architecture, and more. This helps to make better sense of the ideological and aesthetic content of Shevchenko's work, inseparably linked with the Byzantine cultural heritage. Further, analysis of the socio-political aspect of the concept of `Byzantism' also extends our understanding of the semantic horizons of Shevchenko's worldview and the images and symbols that pervade his oeuvre [2, p. 4]. A multifaceted reading of the Byzantine intentions in the work of Shevchenko brings to light ideas received from outside and their artistic reception, and reveals an immanent layer of Byzantine tradition in the Ukrainian literature of earlier periods.

The researcher identifies the sources of Shevchenko's ideas about Byzantism and analyzes in detail the functioning of artistic images relating to the subject of `Byzantism.' She outlines the Shevchenkovian aesthetic and ethical paradigms in accordance with the Christian exegesis of the Eastern rite and explores the typological correspondences associated with Byzantine cultural and civilizational influence in the works of Shevchenko and Old Ukrainian literature [2, p. 38-39].

In 2023, Olena Peleshenko defended a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on “Voyage to Paradise as a Genre of Medieval Ukrainian Literature ” in the specialization 035 - Philology [13]. The work considers the genre structure of the corpus of Christian apocrypha of early Byzantine origin, in particular The Voyage of Agapius to Paradise, The Voyage of Zosima to the Rahmans, and The Tale of Macarius the Roman. The recognizable themes and morphology of `journeying to Paradize' crystallized throughout the Middle Ages. The `Paradise' apocrypha began to be translated into Church Slavonic in the 12th century, and were assimilated by Ukrainian medieval literature as an independent genre no later than the 15th century [13, p. 19-21].

Olena Peleshenko draws on the Byzantine `Paradise' apocrypha and Ukrainian medieval tales of pilgrimages to Paradise to propose and test her own epistemological theory of genres. She for the first time attempts to solve the problem of the genre nature of the voyages to Paradise through the prism of Jacques Derrida's theory of `trace' [13, p. 6, 40-42, 62]. The corpus of texts that includes The Voyage of Agapius to Paradise, The Voyage of Zosima to the Rahmans, and The Tale of Macarius the Roman is defined as an autonomous literary taxonomic unit and characterized at the morphological and thematological levels; its functioning in Byzantine donor-culture is described and the specificity of its reception by the genre system of Old Ukrainian literature and folklore is explored. The voyages to Paradise are compared to their Western European counterpart - the genre of the medieval Irish imram [13, p. 177-182].

The author demonstrates that the genre structures of the voyages to Paradise are determined by the trace of the continuous overlapping of various codes: pilgrimages, lives of saints, post-Homeric `odysseys,' patericons, geographical treatises of the Antiquity, and medieval utopias, which at the points of intersection create new hubs of semiosis. Olena Peleshenko explores the mechanisms of the reception of the image-motif complexes of the apocrypha about the journey to `Eden regained' in the Middle Ages, and offers a thorough textological analysis of the translation strategies of their Ukrainian versions. From the point of view of comparative genology, the author proves that the imrams (including The Voyage of St. Brendan) and Byzantine voyages to Paradise have the identical structure of a two-component suzerain genre, appeal to the same segment of human experience, compete for the same position in the genre hierarchy (canon), and use the same biblical thematic keys [13, p. 183-186].

The author hypothesizes that the makers of The Voyage of St. Brendan knew the Greek texts about the earthly paradise, but in Irish literature - unlike in Ukrainian - there was no need to assimilate them as a separate genre; the internal structure of the culture did not need foreign analogues of what was already well developed in it. Olena Peleshenko introduces the term `mirrored intergenre interaction' to denote the phenomenon in which relics of the worldview of another religious tradition, similar to elements of Humboldt's `internal form of language,' are `refracted' through the alien and cannot be meaningfully recoded in the signs of one's own tradition, and therefore are either removed from the semiosphere or replaced by images familiar to one's own cultural time-space [13, p. 25-26]. Summarizing this review of Byzantinological dissertations defended in non-historical specializations from 2012 to 2023, we should note clear positive developments. This period marks the appearance of studies in the history of Byzantine music and fine arts, theoretical issues of art history and history of literature, and more. All of them, having a direct relation to Byzantine studies, enrich the field, raise fundamentally new and important issues, and introduce new sources and methods. Overall, during this period, Ukrainian scholars defended 17 dissertations on Byzantine topics in non-historical specializations, and this group may be expanded. It is telling that Ukrainian researchers continue their work under the conditions of full-scale Russian invasion and defended at least three dissertations on rather arcane Byzantium-related subjects during 2022-2023.

The circle of institutions where this kind of research is carried out is expanding as well. Among them are the National University `Kyiv-Mohyla Academy,' National University `Chernihiv Collegium,' M.P. Drahomanov National Pedagogical University, National University `Ostroh Academy,' M.V. Lysenko Lviv National Academy of Music (where a school of research in the history of Byzantine music has taken shape under the leadership of Yuri Yasinovsky), Lviv National Academy of the Arts, A.V. Nezhdanova Odesa National Academy of Music, I.P. Kotliarevsky Kharkiv National University of the Arts, Kharkiv State Academy of Design and the Arts, and others.

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