Etnografický obraz Arabov v Byzancii 10. storočia

Abstract

Roman historians developed a tradition of placing ethno graphic information into their works. The “Other” was an everyday reality of the Roman state. With its expansion more nations came into its orbit and thus to the attention of its writers. Arabs were among many others whom the Romans confronted. The position of the Arabs changed rapidly since the emergence of Islam in the 7th century. From a peripheral nation they became the major superpower in the East. The Roman/Byzantine perception did change due to various factors, such as the emergence of new religion as well as military expansion of the newly founded Arab state. It was in this period when ethnographic tradition under went a major transformation. Ethnography was in decline with snippets of information throughout literary works instead of vast descriptions of the “Other” as known in antiquity. Merging the snippets, however, a more coher ent image may occur. The aim of this paper is to look on the ethnographic information about Arabs in three literary works of the 10th century Byzantium – the Taktika, De administran do imperio and History of Leo the Deacon. Arabs will be analysed under the scope of elements that affected Byzantine perception on them – religion, military, and ethnic stereotypes. With the analysis I intend not only to gain a more coherent picture about the ethnographic perception of the Arabs in Byzantium, but also the differ ence of the perception among its various social classes.