George Ostrogorsky

George Alexandrovich Ostrogorsky (; ; 19 January 1902 – 24 October 1976) was a Russian-born Yugoslav historian and Byzantinist who was widely known for his achievements in Byzantine studies. He was a professor at the University of Belgrade.

Early life and education

Ostrogorsky was born in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, the son of a secondary school principal and a writer on pedagogical subjects. His mother Aleksandra Konstantinovna Lehmann was of German-Swiss descent. His father, Aleksandar Yakovlevich Ostrogorsky, was of Jewish origin.

He completed his secondary education in a St. Petersburg classical gymnasium and thus acquired knowledge of Greek early in life. He then taught as Privatdozent in Breslau from 1928 and when the German Nazis gained power in 1933, he moved to Belgrade. Ostrogorsky concerned himself with three main areas of research: economic, social, and institutional history with a focus on Byzantine peasantry, Byzantine theology, and imperial ideology, and Byzantine-Slavic relations, in particular in the Balkans.

Career Ostrogorsky taught at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy, where he was the chair for Byzantinology.

Ostrogorsky made the Kingdom of Yugoslavia his permanent home and taught at Belgrade for 40 years until his retirement in 1973, leaving the Chair for Byzantinology to Božidar Ferjančić. He was made a Corresponding Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1946 and a regular member two years later. An Institute of Byzantinology was created within the Academy in 1948 with himself as director, a post he held until his death. He was chief editor of the Institute's house organ, the Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta, through its 16th volume which appeared in 1975. He also supervised the monograph series of the Institute of which the choice items were his own study Pronija (1951) and the multivolume collection of Byzantine Sources for the History of the Nations of Yugoslavia.

Ostrogorsky repaid in more than one way the hospitality he met with in his new country; he created a new generation of Yugoslav Byzantinists, broadened the horizons of Yugoslav historians by the example of his personal research, and provided for them closer contacts with the world scholarly community. Under his guidance, the Belgrade Institute became, along with Munich, Paris, and Dumbarton Oaks, a leading center of research in the field of Byzantinology. Ostrogorsky remained faithful to Belgrade to the very end, although over the years suggestions were made that he take up residence in an American or Soviet center of Byzantine studies.

His best-known work was the standard History of the Byzantine State , a work which saw three German editions (1940, 1952, 1963) and two editions in the English language (1st ed. 1956 (UK) and 1957 (USA), 2nd ed. 1968 (UK) and 1969 (USA)), and translations into more than 10 other languages.

Ostrogorsky died in Belgrade in 1976.

Selected works and editions

Die ländliche Steuergemeinde des Byzantinischen Reiches im X. Jahrhundert, in: Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Jg. 20 (1927), S. 1–108 [Dissertation] (Nachdruck 1969). Studien zur Geschichte des byzantinischen Bilderstreites. Breslau 1929 [Habilitation] (Nachdruck 1964). Geschichte des byzantinischen Staates. Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft XII.1.2, C. H. Beck, München 1940, 3. Auflage 1963. – Sonderausgabe ohne wissenschaftlichen Apparat unter dem Titel Byzantinische Geschichte 324 bis 1453, C. H. Beck, München 1965 (und Nachdrucke, ).