Team

Marija Vasiljević, PhD (research associate, Institute for Balkan Studies SASA), leads the FORMIDOX project. Her research focuses on studies of collective memory, inherent to the phenomena such as the cults of saints and historiographical writings, in late medieval and early modern Central Balkans. She is the author of the book Kultovi svetih na centralnom Balkanu u vreme osmanskih osvajanja [Saints’ Cults in the Central Balkans at the Time of the Ottoman conquests], Belgrade 2021. Throughout this project, she will analyse texts written for the veneration of saints and commemoration of the past in the Patriarchate of Peć in order to glean information about layered identities nurtured and (re)shaped between the middle of the 15th and the middle of the 17th century.

Ognjen Krešić, PhD (research associate, Institute for Balkan Studies SASA), is the coordinator of two work packages of the FORMIDOX project: “Bibliography and Corpus“ and “Research”. He is an historian whose main research topics concern legal position and cultural, religious and social practices of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Balkans (16th–18th centuries), with a special focus on the Christian Orthodox monasticism and monastic economy. He is the author of a monograph titled Манастир Хиландар и источни Балкан у XVIII веку: културне и економске везе [Hilandar Monastery and Eastern Balkans in the 18th Century: Cultural and Economic Ties], Belgrade 2021. In the project his task will be to research the processes of the (trans-)formation of identities by analysing the relations between monks and Ottoman authorities and their multi-layered ties with their coreligionists using mainly the Ottoman administrative documents.

In the project his task will be to research the role of monasteries in the processes of the (trans-)formation of identities of Orthodox Christians by analysing the relations between monks and Ottoman authorities and their multi-layered ties with their coreligionists using mainly the Ottoman administrative documents.

Irena Plaović, PhD, (assistant professor, Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade), is a member of the FORMIDOX project team and coordinator of the “Dissemination” work package. Her research fields include the theory and history of rhetoric and poetics of the Middle Ages, as well as research on manuscript heritage. She received her doctorate in 2023 with the topic Реторичко наслеђе српског средњовековља: слова и похвале [Rhetorical heritage of the Serbian Middle Ages: Orations and Encomia]. Her work within the project will be devoted to the analysis of encomiastic literature, with the aim of exploring and explaining the rhetorical aspects of the constitution of collective identity and community values.

MA Milena Davidović (assistant associate, Institute for Balkan Studies SASA), is a team member of the project FORMIDOX. As a doctoral student, she was involved in international projects, where she gained valuable experience. Her work is currently focused on researching the medieval institution of Cyrillic scriptoria in the Balkans. In addition to medieval literacy, her fields of research include textology and digital humanities. In the project her task will be to research the processes of (trans-)formation of identities by analyzing marginalia written by Christian scribes and book owners in contact with the Muslims.

Aleksandra Ivanović, MA (teaching assistant at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade) is a team member of the project FORMIDOX. She earned three master’s degrees: from the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade, the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Cologne, and the Faculty of Humanities of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow (double-degree master’s program “Cultural and Intellectual History: Between East and West”). Her main research fields include the poetics and textual criticism of Medieval Serbian and Slavic Literature. In the project, she will analyze the collective identities and cultural memory embedded within the hymnographical tradition.

Zoran Jovanović, MA (junior research assistant, Institute for Byzantine Studies SASA), is a team member of the project FORMIDOX. He is currently enrolled in PhD studies in the field of Late Byzantine epistolography. His research interests focus on the Late Byzantine and Post-Byzantine social and cultural history and primarily on the understanding of selfhood and collective identities in the works of authors from the Late Byzantine period. His project task will be analysis of the Post-Byzantine church histories and short chronicles considering the (trans-)formation of identities in the circles close to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.