The journal, which appears once a year, was founded in 1951 as Yearbook of the Austrian Byzantine Society (Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft); with the change to the publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, it was renamed in 1973 (beginning with volume 22) as Yearbook of Austrian Byzantine Studies (Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik). Initially, it was the publication medium of Austrian researchers in Byzantine studies - always open to all related disciplines - while also serving as a specialist journal that published international contributions to Byzantine studies after a peer review process. Since then, the journal has become one of the leading international journals of Byzantine studies.With volume 68 (2018), the journal introduced the thematic concentration of topics into clusters with a short introduction. For example, clusters were dedicated to the authors Theodoros Studites or Georgios Pisides.The strong international demand, but also indexing criteria, led to another name change in 2021: Beginning with volume 71, the journal has the double title Austrian Journal of Byzantine Studies (JOEB) / Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik.In terms of content, the journal includes new editions or first editions of Greek texts (based on seals, inscriptions and manuscripts) accompanied by philological and historical comments as well as studies of any academic focus, including art history and archaeology. A particular concern of the journal is broad interdisciplinarity and the inclusion of neighboring cultures in political-cultural interaction with Byzantium.
