Nationalism and religion in southeast Poland Juraj Buzalka Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Nationalism and religion in southeast Poland Juraj Buzalka Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia

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military and national symbolism supervised by religion one nation'sheroes, ... reshaping of symbolism resulted from people's insecurity during the transition ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Nationalism and religion in southeast Poland Juraj Buzalka Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia


1
Nationalism and religion in south-east
PolandJuraj BuzalkaComenius University,
Bratislava, Slovakia buzalka_at_fses.uniba.sk
  • Paper presented at the conference Nationalism
    and National Identities Today Multidisciplinary
    Perspectives, Centre for Research on
    Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism
    (CRONEM), University of Surrey, 12 -13 June 2007

2
Religion and nation
  • Congruence of nation and religion in the
    narratives of Polish and Ukrainian identity
  • Post-peasant society - based on a non-urban
    social structure and imagined rurality (family,
    religion, nation) result of underdevelopment and
    trasition ruptures
  • Ethnic cleansings based on religious belonging
    during WW II and after
  • the interpretation of an alternative, legitimate
    past safeguarded by the Catholic Church in
    socialist Poland
  • Peasant parties, rural solidarity, strong
    institutions of the Catholic Church since
    Habsburg times
  • 1966-1993 430 new churches and chapels built 1
    priest for 763 believers West and Central Poland
    1 priest for 1211 believers city of Przemysl - 1
    priest for 140 peope!
  • Przemysl cradle of Ukrainian awakening
    important for Poles (and Jews until WW II).

3
South-East Poland after 1989
  • The end of socialism made religion prominent in
    the public sphere
  • The lowest decreasing of religious practicing
    after 1989
  • Lower level of higher education
  • Almost 60 inhabitants in rural areas (PL 38,4)
  • Low productivity agriculture and small
    landholding since Habsburg times 35 working in
    agriculture in 2002 (PL 20-25)
  • Unemployment up to 25 (2004)
  • Negative net migration
  • Expected revenue from EU funds 1,6 billions Euro
    until 2010
  • European periphery development of tourism and
    subsidized agriculture

4
Religion and national animosity
  • religion nurtures the mutual exclusivity between
    Roman Catholic Poles and Greek Catholic
    Ukrainians in Przemysl
  • military and national symbolism supervised by
    religion one nationsheroes, another nations
    enemies
  • national ideology under socialism (Verdery
    1991)
  • reshaping of symbolism resulted from peoples
    insecurity during the transition
  • Ethnic hatred reproduced through families and the
    state, but it is religion that supervises a
    nations memories in public sphere

5
Religion and tolerance
  • The key to understanding the tolerance in
    south-east Poland lies in post-peasantism
  • the most important and consistent institutional
    guardian of which is the Catholic Church
  • the interpretation of an alternative, legitimate
    past has been safeguarded by the Catholic Church
    in socialist Poland
  • after 1989 the church heavily influenced the new
    moral order and the ways in which the past was
    interpreted
  • There is no reconciliation outside of the church
    in south-east Poland!

6
Civil religion
  • essential for studies of practices and ideas of
    tolerance is to include religion
  • whereas the liberal-secular definitions of civil
    society emphasize individuals and the diversity
    of associations, the emphasis in approaches to
    civil religion placed on collective solidarity
    (Hann 2006 Bellah 1967)
  • Catholic religion as a modernisation project
    since the end of 19th century more than nation
  • Education and social emancipation of people under
    religious influence
  • de-privatization thesis (Casanova 1994) -
    analyzing the roles religion might play in the
    public sphere in modern societies

7
Europe as a religious project?
  • The Church warns against reducing the vision of
    a common Europe exclusively to economic and
    political aspects ... If we want to make a new
    unity of Europe durable we must build it on the
    spiritual values that once established it it
    should be a Great European Union of Spirit.
  • Pope John Paul II in Polish Sejm, 11 of June 1999
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