Course objectives: The goal of the course is to introduce students to the fundamental perspectives, concepts and approaches to historical, sociological and cultural-anthropological research of religion. The course offers insights into the religious processes and various aspects of religious life in Southeast Europe, as well as to the interactions of global and local religious phenomena and currents.

Enrolment requirements and/or entry competences required for the course: None

Learning outcomes at the level of the programme to which the course contributes:

(1) Explain the fundamental concepts and approaches to regional studies

(2) Explain features of cultural systems in the context of Southeast Europe

(3) Critically examine cultural perceptions of Southeast Europe

(4) Recognize and explain the ways in which local, national, and transnational processes influence social structures in Southeast Europe

(5) Explain, analyse, and compare the main historical events, processes, and structures in Southeast Europe

(6) Analyse political ideas and processes in Southeast Europe

Expected learning outcomes at the level of the course:   

(1) Explain and discuss fundamental historical, sociological and anthropological concepts and approaches to religion

(2) Identify, analyse and interpret religious diversity and interreligious relations in respect to distinctive historical, social and cultural processes

(3) Critically evaluate the influence of different politics in re/shaping of sacred/religious landscapes

Course content (syllabus):

Week 1: Introduction to the Course

Week 2: Religious Change in the Ottoman Balkans: Islamization and New Muslims

Week 3: Regulation of Religious Communities and Inter-Confessional Relations in the Ottoman Balkans

Week 4: Legal Status of Ottoman Non-Muslim Subjects until the Tanzimat Reforms (1839-1876)

Week 5: Religious changes in Southeast Europe, secularization, de-secularization, individualization

Week 6: Religiosity and national identity, political orientations and national values

Week 7: Religiosity, populism, authoritarianism and crisis of democracy in Southeast Europe

Week 8: Social and political transformation of Muslim communities in Post-socialist Southeast Europe

Week 9: Collision over the interpretation of Islam

Week 10: “Balkan Muslims” and the discourse on “European Islam”

Week 11: Non-institutional Christian religiosity and the processes of sacralisation of persons and places

Week 12: Sacred landscapes in Southeast Europe: politics of sacred sites; dynamics of interreligious relations in pilgrimage centres; religious heritage and power relations

Week 13: Religion in postsocialist context: cult and memory in public space

Week 14: Presentation of students’ papers and discussions

Week 15: Conclusory remarks

*** at the seminar during the semester: discussions on reading materials and workshop on analysis of interreligious settings

Format of instruction: lectures, seminars and workshops, independent assignments 

Student responsibilities: Regular course attendance, participation in seminar discussions and workshop, preparation of proposed reading material, writing three short seminar papers that represent critical overviews of relevant literature, presentation of seminar papers, final written exam

Monitoring student work: class attendance, seminar paper, practical work, written exam

1. Gara, E. (2017). “Conceptualizing Interreligious Relations in the Ottoman Empire: The Early Modern Centuries.” Acta Poloniae Historica 116: 57-91.        
2. Gradeva, R. (2004). Rumeli under the Ottomans, 15th-18th centuries: Institutions and Communities. Istanbul: The Isis Press. (2nd ed. 2010: Publisher: Gorgias Press, Piscataway, NJ, USA & The Isis Press, Istanbul, Turkey)            
3. Clayes, N., Bougarel, X. (2017). Europe’s Balkan Muslims: A New History. London: Hurst & Company.     
4. Elbasani, A., Roy, O., eds. (2015). The Revival of Islam in the Balkans: From Identity to Religiosity. London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.         
5. Merdjanova, I. (2013). Rediscovering the Umma. Muslims in the Balkans between Nationalisma and Transnationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  
6. Müller, O. (2011). “Secularization, Individualization, or (Re)vitalization? The State and Development of Churchliness and Religiosity in Post-Communist Central and Eastern Europe.” RASCEE. 4 (1): 21-37.       
7. Saggau, E.H. (2018). “Unblocking the Sacred: new perspectives on the religious revival in South East Europe.” RASCEE. 11 (1): 39-55.             
8. DeHanas, D.N., Shterin, M. (2018). “Religion and the Rise of Populism. Religion,” State & Society 46 (3): 177-185.      
9. Albera, D. and M. Couroucli, ed. (2012). Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries. Bloomington – Indianopolis: Indiana University Press.
10. Eade, J. and M. Katić, ed. (2014.) Crossing the Borders: Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate.
11. Orsi, R. A. (2005.) Between Heaven and Earth. The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

1. Minkov, A. (2004). Conversion to Islam in the Balkans: Kisve Bahası Petitions and Ottoman Social Life, 1670–1730. Leiden and Boston: Brill.
2. Fazlić, H (2011). Islam in the Successor States of Former Yugoslavia – Religious Changes in the Post-Communist Balkans from 1989-1992. Ph.D. thesis
3. Karčić, F. (1997). “Islamic Revival in the Balkans 1970-1992.” Islamic Studies 36 (2/3): 565-581.
4. Karčić, H. (2010). “Islamic Revival in Post-Socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina: International Actors and Activities.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 30 (4): 519-534.
5. Bowman, Marion, and Tiina Sepp. (2019). “Caminoization and Cathedrals: Replication, the Heritagization of Religion, and the Spiritualization of Heritage.” Religion 49/1:74-98.
6. Maddrell, A., V. della Dora, A. Scafi and H. Walton, ed. (2014). Christian Pilgrimage, Landscape and Heritage: Journeying to the Sacred, Routledge: New York and Abingdon.
7. Duijzings, G. (2000). Religion and the Politics of Identity in Kosovo. London: Hurst.
8. Henig, David. (2012). “‘This is our little hajj’: Muslim holy sites and reappropriation of the sacred landscape in contemporary Bosnia”. American Ethnologist 39 (4): 752–66.
9. Belaj, M. (2008). ´I´m not religious, but Tito is a God´: Tito, Kumrovec, and the New Pilgrims. In: Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World. New Itinararies into the Sacred, ed. P. J. Margry. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 71-93.
10. Belaj, M. (2021). “Shrine Politics and Non-Institutional Religiosity: The Mrtvalj Spring in the Choreography of the Pilgrimage Shrine of St. John the Baptist at Podmilačje (Bosnia and Herzegovina).” Etnološka tribina 44: 144–162.
11. Belaj, M. (2021). “The Dissonant Heritage of the Blessed Alojzije Stepinac: The Case of the Silencing of a Religious Tourist Route.” Cultural Analysis 19/1: 72–87.