scholarly journals Religion-Based Cultural Communities in the Pre-Modern Balkans

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Detrez
Keyword(s):  
Religious Communities ◽  
Common People ◽  
High Culture ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Code Language ◽  
Cultural Communities ◽  
High Literature ◽  
Intellectual Elites

Religion-Based Cultural Communities in the Pre-Modern BalkansIntellectual life in the pre-modern Balkans was fragmented along religious lines. In the multi-ethnic religious communities (the Orthodox Christian, the Muslim and the Catholic), one particular “high code” language was used by the intellectual elites of the various ethnic groups as a shared means of communication in the field of worship, scholarship and literature. In addition, on behalf of the unschooled, who were ignorant of the high code, there existed within each community vernacular literature that was intended to instruct common people about the doctrine of their faith and keep them on the straight path. The use of a shared literary language strengthened the solidarity with each community but also increased the cultural divisiveness of the Balkans as a whole. The lack or scarcity of a high literature in a particular language is no indication of the “culturelessness” of its speakers. In fact, with their coreligionists they shared a rich high culture in one of the literary languages. Wspólnoty kulturowe oparte na religii na Bałkanach w czasach przednowoczesnychŻycie intelektualne na Bałkanach w czasach przednowoczesnych uległo rozdrobnieniu ze względu na podziały religijne. W wieloetnicznych wspólnotach wyznaniowych – prawosławnej, muzułmańskiej i katolickiej – jeden szczególny „wysoki” język był używany przez elity intelektualne różnych grup etnicznych jako wspólny środek komunikacji w dziedzinie kultu, edukacji i literatury. Obok niego, dla warstw niewykształconych, nieświadomych takiego kodu, w każdej społeczności istniała literatura w językach narodowych, mająca na celu pouczyć zwykłych ludzi o doktrynie ich wiary i właściwej drodze postępowania. Posługiwanie się wspólnym językiem literackim nie tylko wzmocniło solidarność międzywspólnotową, ale także zwiększyło kulturową różnorodność Bałkanów jako całości. Brak lub niedobór wysokiej literatury w danym języku nie świadczy o „braku kultury” u jej użytkowników. W rzeczywistości dzielili oni bowiem bogatą kulturę wysoką ze swoimi współwyznawcami za pośrednictwem innego języka literackiego.

scholarly journals Milletic Secularism in the Balkans: Christianity, Islam, and Identity in Bulgaria

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Simeon Evstatiev
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Orthodox Christianity ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Structural Force ◽  
Secular Religion

AbstractThe article introduces the concept of “milleticsecularism” which invokes the Ottomanmilletsystem to refer to divergent and competing transnational collective identities, loyalties, and frames of reference coexisting within the same nation-state. These identities are conceptualized as resembling the way religious communities functioned under the Ottomanmilletsystem but in a reverse, upended way, as today Muslims are the minority in a pluralist society and secular state governed on the basis of non-Muslim procedures and values symbolically overarched by Orthodox Christianity. Foregrounding the case of Bulgaria, the article highlights the role of the Ottoman legacy vis-à-vis Orthodox Christian heritage for the accommodation of diversity. Milletic secularism draws on the implicit social knowledge that evokes differing antecedents and values underlying the shared identities of Christians and Muslims. Since the 1990s, after half a century dominated by the “secular religion” of Communism, the intersection of religion and politics in Bulgaria is reshaped by the reemergence of religion as a structural force. Milletic secularism has both integrative and emancipatory potential, fostered and challenged today by a variety of factors. Among them, this article foregrounds the increasingly transnational Sunnī Muslim identity and the ongoing re-Islamization in the form of Ḥanafism and Salafism.

Between High Culture and Low Culture; and also The Difference Between Popular Culture and Folk Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Kunal Debnath
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Folk Culture ◽  
Common People ◽  
High Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Low Culture

High culture is a collection of ideologies, beliefs, thoughts, trends, practices and works-- intellectual or creative-- that is intended for refined, cultured and educated elite people. Low culture is the culture of the common people and the mass. Popular culture is something that is always, most importantly, related to everyday average people and their experiences of the world; it is urban, changing and consumeristic in nature. Folk culture is the culture of preindustrial (premarket, precommodity) communities.

scholarly journals Orthodox Christian Bulgarians Coping with Natural Disasters in the Pre-Modern Ottoman Balkans

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 367
Author(s):  
Raymond Detrez
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
World View ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Ottoman Balkans

Premodern Ottoman society consisted of four major religious communities—Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians, and Jews; the Muslim and Christian communities also included various ethnic groups, as did Muslim Arabs and Turks, Orthodox Christian Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs who identified, in the first place, with their religious community and considered ethnic identity of secondary importance. Having lived together, albeit segregated within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, for centuries, Bulgarians and Turks to a large extent shared the same world view and moral value system and tended to react in a like manner to various events. The Bulgarian attitudes to natural disasters, on which this contribution focuses, apparently did not differ essentially from that of their Turkish neighbors. Both proceeded from the basic idea of God’s providence lying behind these disasters. In spite of the (overwhelmingly Western) perception of Muslims being passive and fatalistic, the problem whether it was permitted to attempt to escape “God’s wrath” was coped with in a similar way as well. However, in addition to a comparable religious mental make-up, social circumstances and administrative measures determining equally the life conditions of both religious communities seem to provide a more plausible explanation for these similarities than cross-cultural influences.

Southeast Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 712-729
Author(s):  
Vasilios N. Makrides
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Modernization Process ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Geographical Context

This chapter charts the religious landscape of Southeast Europe and considers its religious specificities in their historical and geographical context. To this purpose, it discusses the significance of the Orthodox Christian heritage of Byzantium; the cleavage between Eastern and Western Christianity (both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) and inter-confessional dynamics; the presence of Islam and the long period of Ottoman rule; the existence of other religions in the region; the role of Russia in Southeast European affairs; ethno-religious identities and the rise of nationalism; the communist and the post-communist periods; and finally, the negative discourse about the Balkans in the context of Southeast European distinctiveness, the modernization process, and the potential for religion in this.

Intellectual Elites

2019 ◽  
pp. 81-101
Author(s):  
Sarah Stroumsa
Keyword(s):  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
Intellectual Elites

This chapter focuses on Andalusian philosophers. Philosophers, in al-Andalus as elsewhere in the medieval Islamicate world, were committed to what can be called “the philosopher's life,” namely, the unremitting effort to attain human perfection. At the same time, as intellectuals integrated into their own societies, they could significantly shape their communities' cultural, communal, and even political profiles. Philosophers in al-Andalus truly shared a common philosophical tradition. Jews and Muslims alike read scientific and philosophical works translated from Greek into Arabic, as well as books by earlier Muslim and Christian thinkers. Being a small minority within their respective religious communities, and sharing the same education, interests, concerns, and ideals, philosophers constituted, in some ways, a subculture of their own. While they lived fully within their own religious community and adhered to the boundaries between it and other religious groups, they were acutely aware of the commonality of philosophy. The chapter then evaluates the philosophical curriculum which guided the advancement of students to become philosophers, as well as the friendships formed between philosophers. It illustrates the inherently elitist nature of the philosophers' life qua philosophers.

NADIA ABU-ZAHRA, The Pure and the Powerful: Studies in Contemporary Muslim Society (Reading, Berkshire, U.K.: Ithaca Press, 1997). Pp. 340. $45.00 cloth, $21.00 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-175
Author(s):  
Vincent F. Biondo III
Keyword(s):  
Religious Practices ◽  
Common People ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Patron Saint ◽  
Muslim Society ◽  
Intellectual Elites

The Pure and the Powerful, the second book by the Oxford-based anthropologist Nadia Abu-Zahra, is a case study of the rituals performed at the Cairo shrine of al-Sayyida Zaynab, patron saint of women, during the anniversaries of her birth and death. Considered by many to be the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, al-Sayyida Zaynab is the epitome of purity and has the power to heal the sick. Abu-Zahra sees religious practices at the shrine as a demonstration of Islam and Egyptian society's “integrated wholeness.” In short, the beliefs and practices of common people, intellectual elites, men, and women are more analogous than previously thought.

Foreign Relations of Post-Independence Montenegro: A Change of Direction

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Vukicevic
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Small Country ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Change Of Direction ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Foreign And Security Policy

Abstract Montenegro, the smallest country in the Balkans, had led a long struggle for independence against various empires. Because of Montenegrin Orthodox Christian and Slavic heritage, Russia was historically its main patron. However, after regaining independence in 2006, Montenegro set amongst its top priorities the membership in the European Union and NATO, whilst trying to pursue good relations with other actors in the region. This paper deals with the adaptability of a small country to changes of regional and global context whilst comparing its relations with its former and contemporary allies. It also deals with a set of its foreign and security policy priorities and how they are fulfilled.

Erasmus' Plea for Bible Reading in the Vernacular. The Legacy of the Devotio Moderna?

2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-120
Author(s):  
Wim François
Keyword(s):  
Gospel Of Matthew ◽  
Public Access ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Common People ◽  
Initial Exposure ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Devotio Moderna ◽  
Bible Reading

AbstractErasmus has written several pleas for Bible reading in the vernacular, perhaps the most visible being his introduction to the Paraphrases on the Gospel of Matthew. Comparable apologies were already to be found in the milieu of the Dutch Devotio Moderna in the works of, among others, Zerbolt van Zutphen (1367–1398), especially his De libris teutonicalibus and Circa Modum. Erasmus' defences of vernacular Bible translation do not contain verbatim similarities with Zerbolt's works, but the parallels both at the level of the argumentation and the biblical-patristic authorities invoked are striking. There are good reasons to assume that Erasmus was indebted to arguments in favour of the lay Bibles that were already circulating in the milieu in which he was educated in the Low Countries, a milieu that was deeply influenced by the Devotio Moderna. Particular attention is given to a Middle Dutch collation book from the years 1417–1443 (Berchmanianum ms 12 B I), now preserved in the Maurits Sabbe Library of the Leuven Faculty of Theology. The third collation takes Zerbolt's Circa Modum as its basis but provides some supplementary argumentation for the reading of the Bible and other devout books in the vernacular. The argumentation employed exhibits an interesting degree of resemblance with Erasmus' later pleas for a lay Bible. Perhaps Erasmus heard or read the piece when he was a student in Deventer. It should also be observed that Erasmus kept his distance from the inheritance of Devotio Moderna by radicalizing the arguments of Zerbolt. He did not want to reserve individual Bible reading to laici spirituales (those living in semi-religious communities) but wanted to open it to all lay people living in the world. Moreover, he did not only want to place the Gospels, Acts and Psalms at the disposal of the common people but desired to grant the reading public access to all the books of the Bible. The most obvious conclusion is that the Devotio Moderna provided an initial exposure to the ideas that Erasmus apparently reinforced and elaborated as he grew more involved in biblical and patristic studies.

scholarly journals The Influence of Religion Over Family Planning: the Case of the Republic of Macedonia

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (35) ◽  
pp. 112
Author(s):  
Kimo Chavdar ◽  
Marina Andeva ◽  
Karolina Kedeva
Keyword(s):  
Family Planning ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Moral Rights ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Republic Of Macedonia ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Republic

Religions have been dominant for thousands of years in each and every aspect of human life, particularly in the domain of the family communion. The influence of religion as a specific form of collective consciousness, and as a system of moral rights and norms, since their appearance until today, is particularly interesting for the Republic of Macedonia. In this small territory, despite the fact that a variety of different religious communities have coexisted throughout the centuries, yet there is a major difference in the approach of family planning customs. This is mostly evidenced in the cases of the population representing the Orthodox Christian and Muslim religions. In this article we elaborate, firstly the viewpoints on family planning and reproduction of the Orthodox Christian and Muslim religions as the dominant religions in the Republic of Macedonia and discuss viewpoints and attitudes towards family planning (abortion) among the Macedonian citizens.

scholarly journals Dinamika Kehidupan Beragama Kaum Nahdiyin-Salafi di Pamekasan Madura

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Nor Hasan
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Religious Group ◽  
Negative Reaction ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Communication Media ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Common People ◽  
The Common ◽  
Late Nineteenth

In principle, the Salafi-Islam attempts to call for genuine Islamic teaching as practiced during the period of the Prophet. Salafi-Islam came to Indonesia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, then spread to different places in the Archipelago. In Larangan, Pamekasan, the spread of Salafi-Islam is still in its nascent stage, from person-to-person, and appears as a small phenomenon in the midst of predominantly mainstream Islam. Salafi teachings spread through different forms of communication media (radios, televisions, magazines, and books) and religious practices of its  proponents. The movement manifests itself in the pratices of rituals, not in politics. The implication of encounter between salafi-Islam and NU as the mainstream religious group in Pamekasan is as follows: (1) religous life in Pamekasan becomes more dynamic; (2) there emerges inward-looking attitude at their own religous practices as well as outward-looking attitude to the others. This phenomenon can be observed among more educated members of the society. Among the common people, however, there are two types of attitude: ignorance and negative reaction; and (3) an attempt to search for the common ground and dialogue among different religious communities is being conducted.

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