The era of the martyrs in the historical memory of the syrian christians (for the period between the late iv century and the first half of the v

Abstract

This research is aimed at studying the nature of Christian Syrians’ historical memory about the era of the martyrs on the Syrian territory for the period between the end of the IV century and the first half of the V. That was the time when Christianity was developing as the state religion in the Roman Empire. We tried to figure out how the historical memory of the martyrs reflects the peculiarities of the cultural identity of the Syrians and their attitude to representatives of other ethnic groups. Also we tried to create a systematic historical review of the main social and ideological functions that were inherent in Syrians’ historical memory about the era of the martyrs (for the period between the late IV century and the first half of the V). This article is written under the principles of historicism and through several methods, namely historical-chronological and historical-typological. They are also complemented by structural-functional analysis.