In the mid-9th century, the spread of Byzantine culture to Slavic residential areas reached a climax. At that time, Rasdislav, the Archduke of Moravia (reigned from 846 to 870), who was forced to form an alliance with the Byzantine Empire because of the invasion of the Frankish King Charlemagne, wanted to seek military and cultural support and asked Mikhail III to send missionaries to Moravia. Soon, Bulgarian King Bayless I (reigned from 852 to 889) also invited Byzantine Emperor Mikhail III to preach. In 862 AD, Cyril (826-869) and his younger brother meadows were invited to preach, helping Slavs to establish an independent church, creating Cyrillic characters by pinyin of Slavic dialects with Greek letters, and translating the New Testament and ancient Greek works with Cyrillic characters, thus laying the foundation for Slavic literature, and Cyrillic characters also became the origin of Slavic languages. This event is symbolic in the history of Slavic culture development and marks the beginning of Slavic national civilization.
Slavic culture with its own characters has developed rapidly and gradually formed an independent cultural system with distinctive features and rich contents. Due to the introduction of Byzantine culture and Christianity, Rastislav and Berlitz I were regarded as the founders of Slavic culture by later generations. Then, as an independent church actively advocated by local monarchs, it was recognized and supported by the Archbishop of Constantinople and gained legal status. Under the active organization of the church, many monasteries, schools and churches were established in Slavic countries, and a large number of foreign students were sent to study in secular schools in Constantinople.
Serbia later replaced Moravia to control the northwest Balkans, accepted Cyrillic script and eastern Christianity, and Croatia and Dalmatia accepted western Christianity. During the reign of Burleigh's son Simon (892-927), Bulgaria became the center of spreading Byzantine culture. Simon himself received a comprehensive education in Constantinople and was deeply influenced by Byzantine culture. After returning to China, he strongly supported cultural undertakings, took a series of measures to protect artists who were proficient in Byzantine art, and sent students to Constantinople to study Byzantine architecture and rebuild the capital. A large number of Byzantine and ancient Greek books were translated into Slavic. Since then, the ancient oral history of Slavs has been systematically sorted out for the first time. In addition, Simon also imitated Byzantine centralized bureaucracy, re-established government institutions, and established Byzantine tax system accordingly.
Byzantine culture also had a great influence on ancient Russians. Around the end of the 9th century, Novgorod and the Ryurik dynasty in Kiev came into contact with Byzantium and advanced culture. During this period, Byzantine missionaries began to visit Kiev, and Cyrillic characters were also circulated in ancient Russia. Therefore, before Russians formally accepted Christianity, Byzantine Christianity had been quietly changing Russian polytheism belief.
St. Dietrich Church in Vladimir, Russia (/KLOC-Byzantine architecture in the 0/2nd century). In 954 AD, Olga, the wife of Dagong Igor, converted to Eastern Christianity. Forty-five years later, a very important thing happened in Russian history. Archduke Vladimir (980- 10 15 reigned) forced all subjects to be baptized and accepted Christianity as the state religion. Since then, Russia has adopted Byzantine regime and widely accepted Byzantine culture. Therefore, Russian painting art and architectural style have gradually formed their own characteristics on the basis of Byzantine culture, and the thoughts of Byzantine church have gradually penetrated into the daily life of Russian people. Russian national literature takes Cyrillic characters as a tool, and on this basis, it gradually forms its uniqueness which is different from other countries' characters.
Slavs generally recognize Byzantine culture, and Constantinople is regarded as the center of its religious and cultural origin by Slavs in Eastern Europe. On the basis of Byzantine culture, they developed more rough and concise cultural characteristics. In the process of the decline of the Byzantine Empire, the cultural relationship between Byzantine intellectuals and Slavic peoples developed continuously, and gradually formed an Eastern European world with the same beliefs but different from Western Europe.
The influence of Byzantine culture on Arab culture preceded the rise of Islam, and frequent exchanges between the two cultures occurred after the rise of Islam in the middle of the 7th century. It can be said that Islamic culture was formed under the direct influence of Persian, Asia Minor, Byzantine and Indian cultures. The formation of Islamic culture has two main parts. Part of it was formed and developed with the large-scale military expansion of the Arab army, and it has extensive ties with conquered areas and belligerents. The other part mainly comes from other cultural factors, among which Byzantine culture is the object of early Islamic culture learning. There were many Byzantine cultural centers in the former Byzantine Empire occupied by Arab troops, including Antioch in Syria, Caesarea in Palestine and Gaza, among which Alexandria in Egypt was the most important. In these cities, scholars gather, libraries and museums have rich collections and strong cultural atmosphere, which are not available in other cities. As the new owners of these cultural centers, Arabs naturally have the superior conditions to accept Byzantine culture, and they began to learn about classical culture and Byzantine scholarship and art from these cultural centers.
In the first half of the 8th century, after the military expansion of Arabs was blocked, Arabs began to pay attention to cultural exchanges, which also eased the opposition between nationalities and religions, thus making great progress in cultural exchanges. At that time, the Byzantine emperor Leo even allowed Arabs to build mosques in Constantinople. The Archbishop of Constantinople also wrote to the Emir of Crete, saying that although the customs, lifestyles and religious beliefs of the two peoples are different, they should live together as brothers.
In fact, the expansion of Arabs in West Asia and North Africa also forced Byzantium to adjust its policy towards Arabs, and cultural infiltration was undoubtedly an important diplomatic means of Byzantine rulers, so most emperors attached great importance to cultural exchanges. Cultural exchanges were very frequent at that time. The envoys of the caliph were received by the Byzantine princes in the highest standard. On the list of foreign guests in the Byzantine court, the envoys from Baghdad and Cairo came before those from Western Europe, and the envoys of the Byzantine emperor were also warmly received by the Arab caliph. In peacetime, the caliph invited Byzantine scholars to give lectures in Baghdad as an important activity of his cultural activities. It is this kind of personnel exchange that promotes the exchange between the two cultures.
The cultural influence of Constantinople on the Islamic cultural centers of Baghdad and Có rdoba continued until 1 1 century. The Crusade War and the destruction of the Balkans and the Middle East by the Western European Crusaders completely changed the relationship between Byzantine culture and Islamic culture. At the same time, the continuous decline of the Arab Empire and Byzantine countries has also changed the political situation in West Asia, leading to the low tide of cultural exchanges between the two countries. Although Byzantium has been adapting to the changes of the times and environment throughout its existence, it still lacks the spirit of innovation. Even so, as the most civilized and civilized country in medieval Europe, Byzantine civilization still had a far-reaching impact on the cultures of all countries in the world.
Imitation Byzantine Illustrations in Syrian Ancient Books