The Kokkalis Foundation was the proud sponsor of “Under the Emblem of the Eagle: Byzantine Studies in Romania until 1918” (Bucharest: Omonia Publishing 2005), a book written by Byzantine historian Leonidas Rados. The Kokkalis Foundation is pleased to report that the title was awarded the George Bratianu prize of the Romanian Academy in September 2007. The book has been acclaimed by critics as a study of the highest research value and a true premiere in Romanian historiography. The book is a historiography of the disciplines of Byzantine history and post-Byzantine Hellenism in the Romanian intellectual space, from its first expressions (end of the 17th century) until 1918. In parallel with the detailed presentation of Byzantine and post-Byzantine studies, the writer attempts to answer the following main questions: What is the extent of Byzantine tradition in Romania? What is the Romanian intellectuals’ image of Byzantium and of Hellenism in general? When and how were the academic disciplines of the field of Byzantine studies developed? What is the space that Byzantine studies occupy in Romanian culture? What is the contribution of Romanian Byzantine studies to European Byzantine studies? Leonidas Rados, a Romanian citizen of Greek origin, is a researcher at the Institute of History of the Alexandru Ioan Cuzza University of Iasi in Romania and has published extensively on Hellenic-Romanian relations.
