engleski

Religious Identity in Communist Croatia

The Croats have always strongly associated national and religious identity. Despite the fact that throughout history Croatian Catholics were involved in a great national movement of liberation of their territories, during the communist period their public activity was dramatically reduced, as Christians were driven into the underground and had no external visibility. In this paper we will scrutinize some basic features of religious identity in Croatia at the time of communism. The first feature is the fact that religion and the Catholic Church in Croatia during communism had become a haven for all those who were against the communist ideology, notwithstanding their different points of view. The second feature is found on a political level and mirrors the political antagonism between authoritarianism and democracy, while the third refers to the social level and appears as a conflict between tradition and modernity. The fourth feature concerns the fact that Catholic writers were more concerned with ideological issues rather than defending freedom and social justice, as a result of their rejection of communist ideology. After we explore how these secular conditions have affected religious identity in Croatia, in the second part of the paper we will examine the importance of a religious milestone in the life of Croatian Catholics – the event and reception of the Vatican II.

identity; religion; communism; faith; totalitarian regime

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