Religious anthropological studies in Central Eastern Europe Edited by Ágnes Hesz, Éva Pócs

Hardcover 2019

ISBN: 9789634560562 / 978-9634560562

Pages: 390 + 14 coloured appendix

Format: B/5

Publisher: Balassi Kiadó

Language: English

Description: 

The present collection of papers is based on the proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference held in 2017. The aim of this event was to explore the complex interconnections of present and past, the inter actions between contemporary research and the historical perspective. Participants were seeking to answer how and whether it was possible to study the present with the help of the past and to probe into the past with the help of the present; how the present may be understood with the help of the past and, vice versa; what connections between present and past could be studied today, and how and for what purposes present day societies “use” the past. The papers in this volume offer illustrations of the methodological heritage of past research traditions, as well as new results offered by modern investigations. Some of the articles also point out erroneous findings of past research, while opening up new ways of understanding existing source materials. The volume is divided into two parts. Papers in the first section explore two aspects of the connection between past and present: continuity and change. Works in the second part examine the ways in which the past appear in the present, not only through research, but also by probing into how contemporary communities relate to the past, how, and in what types of social and ideological situations they interpret and re-construe the past, and how and to what purposes they make use of those constructs. The papers of Hungarian, Austrian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Romanian, Slovenian, Udmurt and Norwegian scholars illustrate these methodological problems by exploring various fields of vernacular religion and magic. They offer insight into various topics from apocryphal legends about the creation of man, the hypothetical Hungarian shamanic drum, and divinely inspired medieval prophets to the life of contemporary Romanian and Gypsy charismatic communities, anti-clerical Soviet jokes, and modern UFO mythology. We warmly recommend this volume not only to scholars of human sciences, but also to anybody with an interest in old and new phenomena of religion.