Depictions of the Other in the Paintings of Bucovina’s Fifteenth and Sixteenth-Century Orthodox Monasteries

Abstract

Several churches and monasteries commissioned by the rulers of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Moldavia are decorated with frescoes colorfully adorning their exterior walls, eight of which are on UNESCO’s list of world treasures. The scenes reflect and reinforce Romanian Orthodox Christian identity formation, as evidenced by depictions of the Other in images of the Last Judgment. There are multiple and varying discourses that accomplish the task of “othering,” including conversation, meta-narratives, plays, politics, religion, war, and so on. In the religious domain, the Other functions as a symbol against which a community can unite and fortify itself. This paper examines the theological and political implications of Bucovina’s Last Judgment frescoes in mobilizing against Ottoman Turks, while depicting Jews as infidels and presenting Armenian and Roman Catholic Christians as heretics.|Keywords: Bucovina monasteries, religious Other, otherization, Orthodox Christianity, Ottoman Empire, Last Judgment, Jews, Turks, Taters, Muslims, Armenians, Latin Rite Catholics