Vol.2, No 6, 1999 pp. 1 - 2
ETHNIC, RELIGIOUS AND CONFESSIONAL RELATIONS
IN THE BALKANS
The Yugoslav Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (YSSSR), founded
in Niš in 1993, has as its members or full-time or temporary associates
about 200 scientists (mostly sociologists, but also philosophers, theologians,
psychologists, historians, law scientists, politicologists,...) from Serbia
and Montenegro. Like other similar foreign associations with a long tradition,
this society has also developed a wide spectrum of activities. Among others,
it organizes study projects, workshops and promotions of new books. It
has launched the edition "Religion and Society" with more than ten books
by domestic and foreign authors published so far. It also publishes the
"YSSR Annual" (5 volumes). The Society has established good relations with
the Ministry of Religions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, of the
Republic of Serbia and of the Republic of Montenegro. All the above-mentioned
activities have been excellently received by the scientific, professional
and wider cultural public.
The acme of the Yugoslav Society's activity is the organization of
annual international conferences. So far four of these conferences were
held, namely, "Religion -War - Peace" (Niš, 1994), "Religion ad Development"
(Niš, 1995), "Church, Nation and Religion" (Palić, 1996) and "Ethnic, Religious
and Confessional Relations in the Balkans" (Niška Banja, 1997). The fourth
Conference, a short report of which is given here, was especially successful
regarding the number of foreign and domestic participants as well as the
quality of the presented papers. There were 74 papers on the general Conference
topic "Ethnic, Religious and Confessional Relations in the Balkans", including
those of the sociologists, philosophers and theologians from the USA (John
Vladimir Stevens), Canada (Srđan Gligorić), Great Britain (Eileen Barker),
Austria (Branislava Stankov), Slovenia (Sergej Flere), Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Ivan Cvitković), Russia (Jury Zuev), Macedonia (Slave Nikolovski Katin,
Georgi Tonoski, Nijazi Limanoski) and Bulgaria (Georgi Fotev, Nonka Bogomilova
Todorova, Lybomir Mikov, Tatyana Kmetova, Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin
Popov). In our opinion, the greatest attention was paid to the papers of
Eileen Barker, Georgi Fotev and Nonka Bogomilova Todorova, among foreign
participants.
Since the Conference Proceedings have already been published in Serbian
in the Niš University journal "Teme" ("Themes"), as well as in the "YSSR
Annual", the Society journal, we are now presenting the remaining papers,
primarily of foreign participants and a few from our country, namely, those
papers that we find interesting for English-speaking readers. Still, in
order to present the readers with an overall view of the Conference achievements,
we would like to remind them that, in addition to the papers in this issue
of the journal "Facta Universitatis", it is necessary to keep in mind the
already-published papers in the above-mentioned publications.
Finally, it should be stressed that all the Conference participants,
in their papers, dealt with the most general aspects of the geostrategic
and geopolitical problems of the Balkans as well as with the general issues
of the relationships between religion, nation and politics, with a special
emphasis on the problems of the Orthodox Churches, Bogomilism and Balkan
Studies. It was indicated that the Balkan region, having a rather tragic
fate throughout its history, represents a fertile field for exploring all
fundamental tendencies. Not only the conflicts of interests but the conflicts
of great cultures, civilizations and religions have left their mark upon
its fate; now it is up to the scientists to describe "the symptoms of liability
to conflict" and offer possible means for their elimination. The general
message of the Conference is: "Do not expect that the scientists-reseachers
become social 'physicians', but it is normal to hope that those who make
decisions about all the main interests of the Balkan societies and peoples
will also take into consideration the well-founded analyses derived from
science."
Dragoljub B. Đorđević
