ABSTRACT
It is with good reason that George Ostrogorsky became a worldwide legend during his lifetime.1 Today, as we look back on his life’s work from a sucient distance, we may rearm the impression his work left in those times. And the rewards he reaped then, as the material expression of acknowledging great achievement, followed in succession. Besides numerous Yugoslav and foreign awards and decorations for his scholarship (the highest of which was the famous German decoration Pour le mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste), I would like to mention just two honorary doctorates from the renowned universities of Oxford and Strasbourg, and membership in 11 academies of science (nine European, starting with the Serbian academy, and two American). His History of the Byzantine State, which was published several times in Yugoslavia and Serbia, has become a standard textbook worldwide and even in his lifetime it was printed three times (in the original German),2 then twice in English, twice in the American version, twice in
1 As regards the bibliography dealing with Ostrogorsky’s personality, I would like to mention just the following contributions: H. Hunger, Georg Ostrogorsky. Nekrolog, Österr. Akad. d. Wiss. Almanach für das Jahr 1977 (Vienna, 1978), pp. 539-44; B. Ferjančić, Georgije Ostrogorski (1902-1976), Glas SANU 372 (Beograd, 1993), pp. 57-95; Lj. Maksimović, Razvoj vizantologije (e Promotion of Byzantine Studies at the University of Belgrade) in Univerzitet u Beogradu (1838-1988) (Beograd, 1988), pp. 664-71; R. Radić, Georgije Ostrogorski i srpska vizantologija (George Ostrogorsky and Serbian Byzantinology), in Ruska emigracija u srpskoj kulturi XX veka 1(Beograd, 1994), pp. 147-53; S. Pirivatrić, Georgije Ostrogorski, in Rusi bez Rusije – Srpski Rusi (Beograd, 1994), pp. 179-88; B. Ferjančić, Ostrogorski. Georgije Aleksandrovič, in Enciklopedija srpske istoriograje (e Encylopaedia of Serbian Historiography), eds R. Mihaljčić and S. Ćirković (Beograd, 1997), pp. 548-50. Ostrogorsky’s prole, as presented on the next three pages, is based either on unwritten memories of the late B. Ferjančić, or on my own memories.
