From 24 to 29 August 2026, the University of Vienna hosted the 25th International Congress of Byzantine Studies (ICBS), the world’s largest academic gathering dedicated to the Byzantine Empire, its history, and its culture. Held under the patronage of Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen and themed “Byzantium beyond Byzantium,” the congress attracted approximately 1,500 scholars from over 50 countries across five continents, who presented their latest research in hundreds of thematic panels, round tables, free communications, and plenary sessions.

The University of Innsbruck’s Institute for Classical Philology and Neo-Latin Studies was well represented at the event. Lev Shadrin, Chiara Telesca, and Mariia Hrynevich, all members of the LAGOOS project – “A Life in Ancient Greek: The Secret Diary of Karl Benedikt Hase (1780–1864),” attended on behalf of the project. 

Lev delivered a paper on identifying different historical registers of Greek in Hase’s private diary using a combination of close reading and computational linguistics, with a focus on Byzantine Greek lexical items. Chiara presented on the history of scholarship, examining how, in a university prolusion, Hase reappraised Byzantine Greek and Byzantine civilisation – not as an age of decline, but as the roots of the formation of Greek nationalist identity.

Riccardo Stigliano, also from the Institute, delivered a paper at the congress on Gregory of Nazianzus’ reception in Baroque Spanish literature. The congress provided a vital platform for the Innsbruck contingent to engage with the international scholarly community, share their ongoing research, and reinforce the University’s presence within the global network of Byzantine studies.