Religion, modernity and nationalism in South-Eastern Europe, 1900-1945

Level: 
Master's
Course Status: 
Elective
CEU credits: 
2
ECTS credits: 
4
Academic year: 
2011/2012
Semester: 
Winter
Start and end dates: 
9 Jan 2012 - 30 Mar 2012
Host Unit: 
Department of History
CEU Instructor(s): 
Maria Falina
Learning Outcomes: 
By the end of course the students will become familiar with new theories on the role of religion in modernity and the relationship between political and religious communities and will learn to incorporate the theoretical frameworks into their analysis of historical phenomena. Throughout the course the students will gain insights into the practice of comparative research.
Assessment : 
The course is a combination of lecture and seminar type discussions on the basis of the assigned readings. In every class one student will make a short (5-7 min) presentation of the readings and will prepare some questions to start the discussion. Class participation will count for 30% of the overall grade, short in-class presentation of the readings - for 20%, two reaction papers to the class-readings (handed in after two classes of choice, 1500-2000 words each) OR a term paper (handed after the end of the semester, 3000 - 4000 words) - 50%. The later option is recommended to those students whose MA thesis is related to the issues discussed in the class
Full description: 

The course examines the trajectories of different religious traditions in the Balkans in the period from 1900 to 1945, paying attention to the challenges presented by the modern age: rationalism, liberalism, nationalism, etc. Special attention will be paid to the issues related to the development of the national question and radical political uses of religion. The course is comparative, and surveys South-East European religious and national traditions in their multiplicity with all the contradictions attached.

The issues to be discussed throughout the course can be grouped along three lines:

  • new takes on secularization theory which open up a range of questions about the role of religion in modern history, and interesting possibilities for research in South-East European history. One of the aims of the course is to demonstrate using regional case-studies how we can apply some of the new theoretical approaches to SEE material and see, if and how exactly they make sense.
  • comparative view on Eastern and Western Christianity and Islam
  • the problem of the relationship between nationalism and religion will be addressed throughout the course on the theoretical as well as empirical levels.

Week 1. Theoretical framework: Why religion in modern times?

Secularization and modernity, secularization theory reconsidered.

mandatory:

  • Brian Porter-Szucs ,“Introduction: Christianity, Christians and the story of Modernity in Eastern Europe” in Berglund, Bruce R. and Brian Porter-Szucs, eds. Christianity and Modernity in Eastern Europe (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2010), pp. 1-34. [savepdf]
  • Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Ch. 12 “The Age of Mobilization”, pp. 423-472 [savepdf]
  • Dipesh Chakrabarty, The Modern and the Secular in the West: An Outsider’s View (review of Taylor’s “A Secular age”) [savepdf]

optional:

  • David Martin: On Secularization: Towards a Revised General Theory (Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005), ch. 1 and ch. 9 [savepdf]
  • Talal Asad, “Religion, Nation-State, Secularism” in Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia, eds. Peter van der Veer and Hartmut Lehmann (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 178-196.
  • Steve Bruce, ed. Religion and Modernization: Sociologists and Historians Debate the Secularization (Oxford, 1992) Ch. 3 “A Revisionist Approach to Religious Change” pp. 31-58

Week 2. Balkans vs. South-Easter Europe: construction of the region. Can theories coined for the “West” be successfully applied to SEE?

mandatory:

  • Vjekoslav Perica, Balkan Idols, ch. 12 “Conclusions”, pp. 211-243 [savepdf]
  • Kristina Stoeckl, “Modern Trajectories in Eastern European Orthodoxy: Responses to the Post-totalitarian and Post-Cold War Constellation”, in Domains and Divisions of European History, ed. by Johann P. Arnason and Nathalie Doyle (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009) pp. 40-57. [savepdf]
  • Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference “Introduction”, pp. 2-23 [savepdf]

optional:

  • Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe: The map of civilization on the mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1994)
  • Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (1997); Maria Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention”, Slavic Review (1994) 53:2, pp.453-482 [savepdf]
  • Paul Mojzes, “Religious Topography of Eastern Europe”, in Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 36:1-2, Winter-Spring, 199, 7-43

Week 3. Imperial legacies

Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. Question of religious policies, (in)tolerance and inter-religious communication.

mandatory

  • Richard Clogg, “The Greek Millet in the Ottoman Empire” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, vol. 1, pp. 185-207 [savepdf]
  • Selim Deringil, “Redefining Identites in the late Ottoman Empire: Policies of Conversion and Apostasy”, in Imperial Rule, eds. Alexei Miller and Alfred Rieber, pp. 107-130 [savepdf]
  • Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The establishment of the Balkan national states, 1804-1920 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977) ch. 15 “Balkan Nationalities in the Habsburg Empire” pp. 235-265 [savepdf]
  • Martin Schulze Wessel, “Religion, Politics and the Limits of Imperial Integration: Comparing the Habsburg Monarchy and the Russian Empire”, in Comparing Empires: Encounters and Transfers in the Long Nineteenth Century, Jörn Leonhard, Ulrike von Hirschhausen, eds. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), pp.337-358 [savepdf]

optional:

  • Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950 (New York, 2005) Chapters 10-12
  • Robert A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526-1918. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980) – Ch. 7 “Cultural Trends from Late Enlightenment to Liberalism (from mid-eighteenth century to the 1860s)”

Week 4. Modernity and religious tradition.

Religious modernism and traditionalism, new take on politics, parties and activism.

mandatory:

  • John W. Boyer, “Catholics, Christians and the Challenges of Democracy: The Heritage of the Nineteenth century”, in Wolfram Kaiser and Helmut Wohnout, eds. Political Catholicism in Europe, 1918-1965, pp.7-45 [savepdf]
  • Xavier Bougarel, “Farewell to the Ottoman Legacy? Islamic Reformism and Revivalism in Interwar Bosnia-Herzegovina”, in Nathalie Clayer, Eric Germain, eds. Islam in interwar Europe, pp. 313-343 [savepdf]
  • Andrew Louth, “The Patristic revival and its protagonists”, in The Cambridge companion to Orthodox Christian theology, ed. Mary B. Cunningham and Elizabeth Theokritoff (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 188-202 [savepdf]

optional

  • Brian Porter-Szucs, Faith and Fatherland

Week 5. Religious communities and modern states

Church-state relationship in different religious traditions. Competition and symbiosis.

mandatory:

  • Jaroslav Pelikan, Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture since 1700 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), Ch. 6 “The Sobornost of the Body of Christ”, pp. 282-336. [savepdf]
  • Nathalie Clayer, “Behind the Veil. Reform of Islam in Interwar Albania or the search for a ‘Modern’ and ‘European’ Islam, in Nathalie Clayer, Eric Germain, eds. Islam in interwar Europe, pp.128-155 [savepdf]

optional:

  • Radmila Radic, “Religion in a Multinational State: The Case of Yugoslavia”, in Yugoslavism: History of a Failed Idea, ed., Dejan Djokic
  • Zlatko Matijevic, “Pokušaj ustavopravnog definiranja položaja Katoli␣ke crkve u Kraljevini Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca: 1918-1921,“ in Liberalizam i Katolicizam u Hrvatkskoj. II Dio, ed. Hans-Georg Fleck (Zagreb: Zaklada Friedrich Naumann, 1999) pp. 11-25

Weeks 6: Religion and nationalism

Theoretical approaches. Universalism vs. national particularity.

mandatory:

  • Rogers Brubaker, Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches (forthcoming in 2011) [savepdf]
  • Paschalis M. Kitromilides, “’Imagined Communities’ and the Origins of the National Question in the Balkans”, in European History Quarterly (1989) vol. 19, pp. 149-194 [savepdf]
  • Riis, Carsten. Religion, Politics, and Historiography in Bulgaria (Boulder, Colo.: East European Monographs; New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) Ch. 6 “San Stefano and the National Triumph”, pp. 121-142 [savepdf]

optional:

  • Hastings, Adrian. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion, and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)
  • Smith, Anthony D. Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008)
  • Martin Schulze Wessel, ed. Nationalisierung der Religion und Sakralisierung der Nation im östlichen Europa (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2006)

Week 7: Religion and nationalism II

Applying theories to the case-studies. Christianity and Islam in Comparison.

mandatory:

  • Leustean, Lucian N. “Orthodoxy and political myths in Balkan national identities”, National Identities 10, No. 4 (December 2008): 421-432 [savepdf]
  • Aydin Babuna1, “The Bosnian Muslims and Albanians: Islam and Nationalism”, in Nationalities Papers, Vol. 32, No. 2, June 2004, pp. 287-321. [savepdf]
  • Mark Pinson (ed.), The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Their Historic Development from the Middle Ages to the Dissolution of Yugoslavia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, c1996) Ch. 5, Ivo Banac “From Religious Community to Socialist Nationhood and Post-communist Statehood, 1918-1992”, pp. 129-153. [savepdf]

optional:

  • Tone Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, c1995. (Introduction + first and the last chapters)
  • Samerski, Stefan, ed. Die Renaissance der Nationalpatrone: Erinnerungskulturen in Ostmitteleuropa im 20./21. Jahrhundert. Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2007.
  • Gaut, Greg. “Can a Christian be a Nationalist? Vladimir Solov’ev’s Critique of Nationalism.” Slavic Review 57, No. 1 (Spring 1998): 77-94 [savepdf]
  • “Nationalism and Religion in the Balkans since the 19th Century” (IX, 7-50), in Peter F. Sugar, East European Nationalism, Politics and Religion (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1999)
  • Nationalities Papers, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2000 (Special Issue)

Weeks 8: Crisis of modernity I

Radical uses of religion, radical right, fascism and communism. Political Orthodoxism and political Catholicism.

mandatory:

  • Keith Hitchins, “Gindirea: Nationalism in a Spiritual Guise”, in Kenneth Jowitt (ed.), Social Change in Romania, 1860-1940: A Debate on Development in a European Nation. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, c1978, pp. 140-173 [savepdf]
  • Mark Biondich, “Radical Catholicism and Fascism in Croatia, 1918-1945,” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8, No. 2 (2007) pp. 383-399 [savepdf]
  • Sandra Prlenda, “Young, Religious and Radical: The Croat Catholic Youth Organizations, 1922-1945.” In Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe, edited by John Lampe and Mark Mazower (Budapest, New York: CEU Press, 2004), pp. 82-109 [savepdf]
  • Kristina Stoeckl, “The lesson of the revolution in Russian émigré theology and contemporary Orthodox thought”, Religion, State and Society (2007) 35:4, pp. 285-300 [savepdf]

optional:

  • Maria Falina, “Between ‘Clerical Fascism’ and Political Orthodoxy: Orthodox Christianity and Nationalism in Interwar Serbia.” Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 8, No. 2 (2007): pp. 247-258 [savepdf]

Week 9: Crisis of modernity II

Totalitarian regimes, political religions, clerical fascism

  • Emilio Gentile, “Fascism, totalitarianism and political religion: definitions and critical reflections on criticism of an interpretation”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions (2004) 5:3,  pp. 326-375 [savepdf]
  • Roger Eatwell, “Reflections on Fascism and Religion”, in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 4/ 3 (2003), pp. 145-166 [savepdf]
  • Valentin Săndulescu, “Sacralised Politics in Action: the February 1937 Burial of the Romanian Legionary Leaders Ion Moţa and Vasile Marin”, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, (2007) 8:2, pp. 259-269 [savepdf]

Week 10: Minorities issue

Major concepts, inclusive and exclusive nationalism, WWI and the “New European order”.

  • Rogers W. Brubaker, “Aftermaths of Empire and the Un-mixing of Peoples: Historical and Comparative Perspectives”, Ethnic and Racial Studies 18 (1995) 2, pp. 189-218
  • Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation building & Ethnic struggle, 1918-1930 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, c1995) Introduction and Ch. 5 “The View from Bucharest: Foreigners and Jews”

Week 11: War and conflict

Religion and violence, WWII, Ustasa, Iron Guard, Zbor, intellectual background for militant uses of religion

  • Radu Ioanid, “The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard”, in Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Volume 5, Issue 3 (2004), pp. 419 – 453 [savepdf]
  • Mark Biondich, “Religion and Nation in Wartime Croatia: Reflections on the Ustaša Policy of Forced Religious Conversions, 1941–1942”, in SEER, Vol. 83, No. 1, January 2005, 71-116. [savepdf]
  • TBA

Week 12: Epilogue

Communism and post-communism. Persecution and collaboration, old narratives re-born.

 mandatory:

  • Pedro Ramet ed., Religion and Nationalism in Soviet and East European Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, c1989.) choose ONE from chapters 2, 13, 14, 15 or 16
  • Vjekoslav Perica, “The Sanctification of Enmity. Churches and the Construction of Founding Myths of Serbia and Croatia”, in Pal Kolsto, (ed.) Myths and Boundaries in South-Eastern Europe (London: Hurst, 2005) pp. 130-157
  • Byford, Jovan. Denial and Repression of Anti-Semitism: Post-Communist Remembrance of the Serbian Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic (Budapest, New York: CEU Press, 2008) ch. 2 “The Life of Nikolaj Velimirović and His Changing Public Image: 1945-2003”, pp. 19-76

optional

  • Mojzes,Paul. Yugoslavian Inferno: Ethnoreligious Warfare in the Balkans (New York: Continuum, 1994)
  • Radmila Radic, “The Church and the ‘Serbian Question’,” in The Road to War in Serbia: Trauma and Catharsis, ed. Nebojša Popov (Budapest: CEU Press, 2000) pp. 247-273