10th Gunnar Hering-Lecture
10th Gunnar Hering-Lecture
Took place on April 21, 2026.
This year's invited speaker was
Virginia Mavrika (Art Historian, Greek Ministry of Culture Historical Archive of Antiquities and Restorations)
who was followed by Respondent:
Theodora Konstantellou (Byzantine Art Historian, ERC This_one_There, University of Vienna)
THE VARIOUS ASPECTS OF MILITARY ART IN GREECE DURING THE BALKAN WARS (1912-1913)
Abstract:
During and after the end of the Balkan Wars (1912–1913), there was an unprecedented development of the so-called military or war art in Greece. Alongside the popular naïve-style lithographs, numerous works were created by academic painters, engravers, and sculptors depicting historical events, expressing gratitude to the war dead, and praising the role of army leaders, especially King Constantine. Some of these artists participated in the Balkan Wars as soldiers, others followed the army as artists upon state invitation, while others produced studio works inspired by the war. Alongside the governmental or royal ideology, and sometimes propaganda, that runs through these artworks, they can also be studied as evidence of various other aspects of modern Greek history and art: the complementary or contradictory relationship between photography and painting in the documentation of historical events; the search for Greekness in the landscape painting of the newly acquired territories; the competition among artists over state commissions; the different cultural policies promoted by the government and the royal court; and, finally, the innovative presentation of the active role of women in war as field nurses.
Biography:
Virginia Mavrika holds a degree in History and Archaeology from the University of Athens, an MPhil in Classical Archaeology from Oxford, an MA in Ottoman History from the University of Crete (IMS/FORTHNET), and a PhD in Art History from the University of Athens (2005) on “Painted Ceiling and Wall Decorations in Public and Private Buildings of Athens, Greece: 1832–1930”. She has received fellowships from the Greek State Foundation. Virginia Mavrika taught Art History and Cultural Management at the University of Ioannina and the Hellenic Open University. She has held positions at the Museum of the City of Athens and, since 2010, the Greek Ministry of Culture, currently at the Historical Archive of Antiquities and Restorations. She has published widely on Greek architecture of the nineteenth century, late Ottoman architecture in Crete, and transnational cultural influences on early modern and modern Greek religious art. Her book, “The Fortress of Izzeddin and the Organization of Defense in the Gulf of Souda: Aspects of History and Architecture in Late Ottoman Crete”, will appear in 2026.
In cooperation with:
ÖGNS/Austrian Society of Modern Greek Studies
Department of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
Faculty of Historical and Cultural Studies of the University of Vienna
Contact: maria.stassinopoulou@univie.ac.at, ioannis.brigkos@univie.ac.at
