Introduction; Part I. On the Road to the Grand Narratives: 1. Precursors: The historiography of the enlightenment; 2. The century of history: Byzantium in the budding national-historical canons; 3. In search of the 'scientific method'; 4. Between Byzantine studies and metahistory; 5. Byzantium in Ottoman and early Republican Turkish historiography; Part II. Metamorphoses of Byzantium after World War II: 6. From Helleno-Christian civilisation to Roman nation; 7. Towards 'Slavo-Byzantina' and 'pax Symeonica': Bulgarian scripts; 8. How Byzantine is Serbia?; 9. Post-Byzantine empire or Romanian national state?; 10. In the fold of the 'Turkish-Islamic Synthesis'; Epilogue and conclusion.