Cyprus in the Middle Ages

Pre-requisites: MA course

Course objectives: Presenting rich and diverse history and culture of medieval Cyprus as a unique meeting point of the East and the West during the Middle Ages.

Course description: From the ancient time, the island of Cyprus represented a unique historical phenomenon. As the largest island in the Eastern Mediterranean, it was directly connected with the culturally and historically important regions of the Levant while belonging by his political and cultural character character strongly to the broader Hellenic world. As one of the regions where Christianity spread fastest, Cyprus became a part of a broader Byzantine world as a staunchly Christian province, despite the distance directly connected with Constantinople, the new center of the Christian world. The comprises the following thematic units: Early medieval Cyprus, between Aphrodite and Christ; Byzantine Cyprus (4th-7th c.); Between Byzantium and the Arabs (7th-11th c.); Short-lived political autonomy (11th-12th c.); Collateral damage of the Crusades--Cyprus under the Lousignans and Venice (12th-16th c.)

Learning Outcomes: Comprehending the specific geopolitical significance of Cyprus throughout the Middle Ages, during more than a millennium of internal political and cultural evolutions of the largest island in the Eastern Mediterranean, within a changing historical context from the fourth until the sixteenth centuries.

Literature/Reading:

• U dogovoru sa profesorom