THE ETERNAL CHILDREN: EFFORTS TO WARDS THE "ABBASIDIZATION" OF THE MACEDONIAN DYNASTY AND THE IMPERIAL RESPONSE (912-1025).

This article is a comparative study on the political developments in the Byzantine Empire between 912 and 1025. In this period, the members of the Macedonian dynasty (867-1056) were politically neutralized because power was seized and shared either by eunuch-ministers or military officers, acclaimed co-emperors under the pretext of protecting the interest of the dynastic emperors. Although regencies for minor emperors were a recurrent power-sharing arrangement in Byzantine history, the regencies of this period differed, for they maintained the dynastic emperor in an everlasting status of minor until late adulthood. Therefore, this article analyses the so far exceptional degree of dynastic legitimacy achieved by the Macedonian emperors, which ended up creating the ideal conditions for their political neutralization. It also emphasizes the unusual position of emperor-protector. In addition, the discursive strategies that tried to legitimate the political neutralization of the dynastic emperors and the movements made by the political actors of the time to enforce it were analysed, along with how Basil II (976-1025) finally put an end to it by emancipating himself from the extended minority forced upon him, reinforcing his right as emperor to rule by himself. Finally, a comparison with the political developments simultaneously taking place in Baghdad, the centre of the Abbasid Caliphate, which share several similarities with what was happening in the Byzantine Empire, will be made as to understand why the political neutralization of the caliph was finally achieved while that of the Byzantine emperor failed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]