For more than one thousand years the monastic republic of Mount
Athos has been one of the most chronicled and yet least accessible
places in the Mediterranean. Difficult to reach until the last
century and strictly restricted to male visitors only, the Holy
Mountain of Orthodoxy has been known in the Eastern Christian world
and in western Europe more through representation than through
direct experience.
Most writing on Athos has focused on its Byzantine history and
sacred heritage. "Imagining Mount Athos" uncovers a set of
alternative and largely unexplored perspectives, equally important
in the mapping and dissemination of Athos in popular imagination.
The author considers Mount Athos as the site of pre-Christian myths
of Renaissance and Enlightenment scholarship, of shelter for Allied
refugees during the Second World War, and of a botanical and
sociological laboratory for early-twentieth-century scientists.
Each chapter considers a different narrative channel through which
Athos has entered Orthodox and western European imagination: the
mythical, the utopian, the sacred, the scholarly, the geopolitical,
and the scientific.
Della Dora has assembled a wealth of unique textual, visual, and
oral materials without ever having had the opportunity to visit
this holy place. In this sense, in addition to making an important
contribution to existing scholarship on Mount Athos, the book adds
to current theoretical debates in cultural geography and humanities
generally about the circulation of knowledge.
"Imagining Mount Athos"'s appeal is international and spans
Hellenic studies, cultural geography, environmental history,
cultural history, religious studies, history of cartography, and
art history. The book will be of interest to scholars as well as to
a general audience interested in this unique place and its
fascinating history.
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