- Historians today are unable to start from generalizing and abstract categories like identity, culture, religion, civilization, empire, or social class as the premises for their research on cultural transfer. For the past twenty years, they have, on the contrary, attempted to describe in detail the interplay of actors at different scales,from the individual to the local and the global.In this approach, the place and moment of contact and exchange between people coming from different backgrounds, speaking different languages, and displaying different behaviors, are especially scrutinized.
- The figure of the “broker,” of the “gobetween,” comes to be considered a major actor in situations of contact and exchange. His capacity to inform, to translate, to master the various forms of communication, gives him a formidable power of intercession.9 This intermediary does not appear as a hero conscious of his mission and of his own culture, but rather as someone who tries to make the most with his personal skills by seizing opportunities offered by these interactions. The broker is used as a tool by those who rely on his competences, but he conversely uses the situation for his own aims. Finally, today, the aim of historical research is not to capture “identities” and define borders between fixed entities like “Orthodoxy” or “Catholicism.”10 Historians look to bring to light the dynamics of interaction by reconnecting different areas that were in contact in the 17th century but now appear separated in modern historiographies, as a result of specific linguistic skills, sectarian approaches, and nationalist ideologies. Following the circulation of individuals and objects like books, we can outline new geographical contours which help us understand the synchronic process of transfer and interaction between different areas, such as Rome, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, in a new way. In this process, it appears that individuals and social groups or institutions transform themselves through the exchange, whether cooperative or hostile. Even objects like books or pictures are changed and adapted in their shape as well as in their destination through their transfer.