Entangled Interactions between Religion and National Consciousness in Central and Eastern Europe

This book elucidates the complicated relationship between religion and national consciousness in the modern world, shedding light on various cases in Central and Eastern Europe. Though those analyses, the authors show how religion, far from disappearing, strongly impacted on the emerging national consciousness.

Yoko Aoshima studies modern history of the Russian Empire, with a focus on imperial policies, especially in the field of education and social transformation. She taught at Aichi University and Kobe University, and joined the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University as an associate professor in October 2020.

Yoko Aoshima studies modern history of the Russian Empire with a focus on imperial policies, especially in the field of education and social transformation. She has taught at Aichi University and Kobe University, and recently joined as an associate professor at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University.

“[M]any of [the essays] offer excellent treatment of particular research questions and shed light on previously understudied topics.”

– Sebastian Rimestad, Ab Imperio

"This collected volume is a suggestive example of the kind of scholarship happening in what may be loosely called borderlands studies. Refreshingly, it examines what its title says it does — the entangled interactions between religion and national consciousness in Central and Eastern Europe. One might therefore expect the usual suspects: archivally-researched local studies of hotly contested sainthood and conversion, church architecture, the popular press, education, national festivals and social work, all shedding light on various regions in the lands encompassed by the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. One does get all that. But the essays in this volume do something more focused and more original besides. They show the role of three distinct groups trying to foster national consciousness: Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic clergy, local lay intelligentsias and the Russian or Habsburg imperial states. The occasional cooperation—and, far more often, violent collision—of these different constituencies and agendas make one profoundly sympathetic to anyone caught between them—above all the ‘folk’ itself."

—Nadieszda Kizenko, University at Albany, Slavonic and East European Review, (vol. 99, no. 3, July 2021)

“This book mobilizes a truly international team of scholars on three continents who use sources in numerous languages. Centered on the diverse lands of East-Central Europe, the essays skillfully explore the implication of religious practices, institutions, and rhetoric in the formation of national consciousness and the making of modernity. Especially notable are the wide range of issues that the volume addresses—church architecture and sainthood, the press and education, festivals and philanthropy, conversion and sociology—and the diverse voices present in the analyses. The volume makes an admirable contribution to our understanding of this complicated part of Europe, and scholars of religion and nation there will surely benefit from engaging with its findings.”

—Paul W. Werth, Professor, Department of History, University of Nevada, Las Vegas