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Sacralization of History in Times of Crises: Modern Eastern Europe book cover

1st Edition

Sacralization of History in Times of Crises Modern Eastern Europe

Edited By Liliya Berezhnaya, Heidi Hein-Kirchner Copyright 2026
418 Pages
by Central European University Press

This book explores the sacralization of history with a focus on modern Eastern Europe where the erasure of Soviet traditions has triggered a search for specific "usable pasts". It discusses the importance of sacralization in memory and identity-building politics and the complex interplay between religion, history, and identity, particularly within the context of crises and conflict situations, by... Read more

1. The Sacralization of History in Modern Eastern Europe : Introductory Remarks

Liliya Berezhnaya and Heidi Hein-Kircher

Section I – Memory Politics: Uses and Abuses of the Sacred

2. Remembering Religious Dissent through Its Martyrs: The Orthodox Church and the Appropriation of Historical Memory in Post-Socialist Romania

Radu Nedici

3. The (Ab)use of Orthodox Marian Iconography in the Holodomor Visual Culture in Pre-Maidan Ukraine

Wiktoria Kudela-Świątek

4. "Holier Than Thou?" Discourses of Orthodox Interdenominational Ecclesiastical Historical Politics in Ukraine at the Time of the Ukrainian Autocephaly Process

Ursula Woolley

5. The "Lot of the Mother of God" : Imperial Mystique and the Language of Sovereignty in Modern Georgian Political Thought

Nikoloz Aleksidze

6. Orthodoxizing History, Sacralizing the State, Legitimizing an Autocrat: The Russian Past in Russia—My History Parks

Ekaterina V. Klimenko

Section II – Staging Martyrdom

7. Between States: Macedonia as a Contested Terra Sancta (1878–2023)

Denis Ljuljanović

8. Churches and Sacralization of Euromaidan Protest in Ukraine from a Post-Secular Perspective

Yuliya Yurchuk and Andriy Fert

9. Martyrdom and Glory : Sacralization of Memory Practices in Modern Poland

Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper

10. "This Is a Sacred Legend That No One Must Touch" : Narratives of Martyrdom and the Sacralization of History of World War II in Contemporary Russia

Maria Falina

11. Passion According to Nationalists: Martyrs for Faith and the Sacralization of History in the Baltic Provinces of the Russian Empire and in Post-Soviet Estonia

Irina Paert

Section III – Narrating Paganism

12. "Nacjopoganie"? The Sacralization of the Pre-Christian Past as Identity Politics in Modern Polish Paganism

Karin Reichenbach

13. Resacralizing Hungarianness : Pseudo-History, Ethno-paganism, and High Politics

István Povedák

Concluding Afterwords

14. Heroes and Saints : The Sacralization of History in Contemporary Eastern Europe

Piotr Kisiel

15. The Sacred Power of History : The Useful Past and the Politics of Memory in Eastern Europe

Alexander Agadjanian

 

Biography

Liliya Berezhnaya is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Leuven.

Heidi Hein-Kircher is director of the Martin Opitz Library (Herne) and professor at Ruhr-University Bochum.

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