Faiths, Feelings, Communities Nation

The aim of the course is to introduce students to the highly heterogeneous ethnic and religious relations of Central and Eastern Europe and the interrelationship between them. By Central and Eastern Europe, I mean primarily the territory of the former Habsburg Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and its neighbors. The end of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century were, for all ethnic groups, a time of both the birth of modern nations and the general secularization. Religions and churches played different roles in the birth of each nationalism. During the semester, students will learn about the most important religions and denominations, their history, spread, structure, teachings, role in the organization of societies: Roman Catholic Church, Greek Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox Church; Protestantism (Calvinist, Lutheran, Unitarian Churches); Judaism and Neo-Protestant denominations. Students will learn how the role of Catholicism in Polish or Croatian nationalism, Greek Orthodoxy in Serbian nationalism, and the presence of several dominant denominations in the Hungarian, Romanian or Slovakian nations became decisive. Conflicts between denominations often expressed conflicts of an ethnic, social or political nature. The laws enacted by the state made several attempts to ensure the coexistence of the denominations. Until 1918, all this took place within the framework of the Habsburg Empire, hence the importance of the relationship of the Empire and the Churches (especially the Catholic Church) to the state, and the phenomenon of Josephinism.