27 May The Narrations of Hagia Sophia: an interview with Stephanos Efthymiadis
This spring, one of the Retracing Connections advisory board members, Stephanos Efthymiadis, has spent time at Dumbarton Oaks, working on his book project Hagia Sophia of Constantinople: its Political, Social, and Urban History (537-1453). Since Ingela Nilsson was there too, drafting the very first version of her narratological commentary on the Life of Theodore of Edessa, she took the opportunity to ask him a few questions about the narrative aspects of his book project.
Ingela: What makes the narration of a monument a narrative, rather than just information? Is it simply a question of age or are there other things that matter?
Stephanos: For the book I have been working on for some time now, narrations about Hagia Sophia constitute an important source. Those composed in the sixth century, that is, after the inauguration of Justinianic Hagia Sophia in 537, aim to verbally depict an architecturally and artistically magnificent church. The sixth-century excerpts from the historical and rhetorical works of Prokopios and Agathias, coupled with the elaborate poems of Paul the Silentiary, capture, in their detailed fabric, the uniqueness of the edifice. Despite the elegant style and sophisticated diction in which they were cast, they do not mix reality with myth and legend. In the narrations of Hagia Sophia produced after the end of late antiquity such adherence to a realistic representation of the monument is not at play. For instance, the Narrative (Diegesis) about the Construction of Hagia Sophia, a text that was compiled in the late ninth century and won wide popularity, clearly gears towards mythography, retaining only a loose connection with historical truth. The same may be suspected with other shorter narrations of hagiographical content.
Now, writing about the political and social history of a monument essentially identifies as an endeavour to explore and interpret the voices and views of the people who lived and experienced its design and space, exterior and interior, across time. Rather than treating them as sources providing information, the narrations of the Byzantines and of the foreign visitors we still possess about Hagia Sophia invite us to study them together so as to trace and reconstruct the monument’s own narrative for the long time-span of nearly 1,000 years. And for reaching this goal both documentary and fictional narratives matter alike!
Ingela: Could one say that the narrative of a monument like Hagia Sophia is a kind of biography?
Stephanos: It is a biography, first of all, in the sense that we deal with a living body with a remarkable longevity. And as such, it is rich in experiences, threats that endangered its existence and secrets that challenge anyone who aims to study it in some depth! Moreover, its narrative can read like a historical biography because, contrary to the impression it creates to its modern beholder, Hagia Sophia in Byzantium was not a static and serene monument. Rather, it was a living entity reflecting the shifts in attitudes of the people (emperors, patriarchs, clergymen, and the populace) who were engaged in its function as an imperial and patriarchal church and who were always prompt to treat it according to their proper interests. The three conversions it saw during the late Byzantine period (two into a papal church in 1204 and 1452 and one into a mosque in 1453) suffice to demonstrate its flexibility and accommodation vis-à-vis the new historical realities which Constantinople, the city of which it was the symbol, was confronted with.
Ingela: Are you the narrator of this narrative/biography, or does Hagia Sophia herself sometimes act as narrator or at least focalizer?
Stephanos: As I hinted at, there are periods when we hear a lot of Hagia Sophia and periods which, to our disappointment, are silent. Doing justice as it should to the ambitious Justinianic project of its reconstruction, the sixth century, for instance, is so rich and dense in descriptions of what was an architectural miracle. But there is a high degree of risk here to lose attention and neglect what the plethora of these discourses transmit between the lines, what was at stake for an emperor Justinian for creating such a miracle. One must then give voice to Hagia Sophia herself, try to understand what was behind a major or a minor intervention on its fabric, interpret precise events occurring in its space as an interaction between, on the one hand, its own needs and calls and those committed to defend it as a symbol and institution, on the other.
Ingela: What does the ideological charge of Hagia Sophia mean for your project? Do you simply leave at 1453 or do you take the later development into account?
Stephanos: Extending research on Hagia Sophia to its Late Byzantine period fell beyond my initial book planning. Yet my fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks in the spring semester of 2018 and the feedback I received from colleagues I met there proved persuasive enough to cross the line of 1204. Late Byzantium is a historical period for which documentation, though richer than the one we possess from and about previous centuries, is too disparate and diverse and thus less straightforward to handle. Pursuing the same kind of research beyond the landmark of 1453 would take me into deeper waters, yet it will be necessary at least to gain sight of developments occurring in the first decades of the Ottoman period.
Ingela: Last but not least, which is your favourite story of Hagia Sophia, among the many sources that you are looking at for your project?
Stephanos: My favourite story is a fairly short beneficial tale that we read both in the collection of Paul of Monembasia (tenth century) and the Synaxarion of Constantinople. It refers to a shoemaker named Zacharias who, together with his wife, eked out his living in one of the hovels located in the northern arcade of Hagia Sophia. The man is stalked by an imperial dignitary who discovers that Zacharias is a very pious man and ends up having meal with him and his wife at their humble dwelling in the same arcade. Thereupon the dignitary realizes that the shoemaker was a saintly figure indeed and promises not to reveal the man’s secret identity until the end of his life. Apart from the mystery it is wrapped up with, the story brings out the other, less impressive and more mundane, aspects of the Constantinopolitan cathedral.
Retracing Connections thanks Stephanos for his support and wishes him
best of luck –
we all look forward to reading his biography of Hagia Sophia!
For the wonderful Dumbarton Oaks online resources, see here!
