Marina Mandrikova
CAORC Multi-Country Research Fellow
Case Western Reserve University
Research Topic: Crime and Punishment: Images of Sinners and the Power of the Visual in Byzantine and Slavic Monumental Painting
Marina Mandrikova is a Ph.D. candidate at Case Western Reserve University. Her Ph.D. thesis investigates images of sinners in Byzantine, Post-Byzantine, and Slavic monumental paintings between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a special emphasis on representations of damned women. By exploring surviving images of sinners and literary sources, primarily from mainland Greece and the modern-day Slavic-speaking countries of Bulgaria, Serbia, Kosovo, and North Macedonia, Mandrikova’sstudy considers the perception of these marginal members of society by their governments, local communities, church authorities, patrons, and artists. In 2022, Marina completed the ASCSA’s M. Alison Frantz Fellowship in Post-Classical Studies at the Gennadius Library. More recently, her dissertation project was awarded the Council of American Overseas Research Centers’ Multi-Country Research Fellowship and the Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship for 2024-25. Marina returns to ASCSA and Greece as a CAORC fellow for a short-term stay in July 2025 to study the selected churches with the surviving images of sinners on the island of Crete.