Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović
Aleksandra Đurić-Milovanović, PhD graduated from the Department of Romance Studies, Group for Romanian Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade in 2007. She completed her master's studies at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade (Department of Theory of Culture) and defended her master's thesis in 2008 with the topic Cultural Identity of the Christian Nazarene Community: Romanians in Vojvodina. She received her PhD from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in 2012 with the topic Romanian Neo-Protestants in Vojvodina: between religious and ethnic identity. From 2009 to 2010, she was a researcher-scholarship holder of the Ministry of Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia on projects of the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA. Since 2010, she has been employed at the Institute for Balkan Studies SASA, as a research assistant, since 2013 in the scientific title - research associate and since 2018 in the title of senior research associate. As part of the international cooperation program of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the Romanian Academy of Sciences, she conducted research in Romania in 2009 and 2010. For the purposes of writing her doctoral dissertation in 2011 and 2012, she paid a research visit to Cornell University (New York) in the United States. For research on the migration of religious minorities from Yugoslavia to the United States, she received a scholarship from the Legacy Bible Institute Ohio USA, for ethnographic and archival research in the period from March to June 2015. Since 2016, she has been collaborating with the University College of Cork, Ireland, Department of Religious Studies, where she was also a visiting professor in August-November 2017. During 2017, she was selected as a participant in the International Fellow Program KAICIID: Center for Interreligious Dialogue - Vienna (Austria). Since 2021, she has been a member of the Scientific Committee for Religious Freedom in Barcelona at the Ramon Ljulj University. She has given guest lectures at the University of Belgrade and Niš, the University of Cambridge, the University College of Cork, Houton College in the United States, the Western University of Timisoara, the University of Jena (Germany) and Ramon Lulle University (Spain). She also worked as an evaluator of the European Commission for project evaluation Marie Sklodowska Curie Actions (Individual Fellowships, Innovative Training Networks). She has participated in numerous scientific conferences and published three monographs and one manual, edited an international collection of papers and published as an author or co-author a number of papers in journals and collections in Serbian, English, Romanian and Russian.
Address: Institute for Balkan Studies
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts,
Knez Mihailova 35/4
Belgrade, Serbia
Address: Institute for Balkan Studies
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts,
Knez Mihailova 35/4
Belgrade, Serbia
less
Related Authors
InterestsView All (52)
Uploads
Books by Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović
twentieth century. This volume examines what could be defined as renewal movement in Eastern Orthodox traditions. Some case studies include the God Worshippers in Serbia, religious fraternities in Bulgaria, the Zoe movement in Greece, the evangelical movement among Romanian Orthodox believers known as Oastea Domnului (The Lord’s Army), the Doukhobors in Russia, and the Maliovantsy in Ukraine. This volume provides a new understanding of processes of change in the spiritual landscape of Orthodox Christianity and various influences such as other non-Orthodox traditions, charismatic leaders, new religious practices and rituals.
During the eighteenth and in the first decades of the twentieth century, the Orthodox Romanians in Banat belonged to the Metropolitanate of Karlovci (Karlowitz). The first attempts to create an independent church were mentioned in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, these attempts were more decisive in the years of The Revolution of 1848-49. In eparchies where Romanians lived, religious services were held in the Romanian language, while, in ethnically mixed ones, both Serbian and Romanian were used. In 1864, the independent Romanian Orthodox Church was established in Sibiu, due to the efforts of the Transylvanian Metropolitan, Andrei Şaguna, and in accordance with the decision of the Emperor Joseph. Romanian Orthodox churches existing in the territory of Banat were included in two eparchies – The Eparchy of Arad and The Eparchy of Caransebeş (1865). Instead of Cyrillic letters, Latin letters were introduced in all Romanian Orthodox Churches. In ethnically mixed villages of Banat, church division lasted until 1872.
Orthodox clergy had a very significant role in political, cultural and economic life, especially between the two world wars. The clergy were the only intellectuals who remained in local communities after the division of Banat. Namely, after the dissolution of the Austria-Hungarian Empire in 1918, Banat was divided between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Kingdom of Yugoslavia), the Kingdom of Romania and a small part of Banat belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. Around forty villages and towns with Romanian parishes remained in the Yugoslavian part of Banat. Nevertheless, even outside of the Romanian territory, these parishes continued to belong to the Eparchies of Arad and Caransebeş. Parishes were divided into three protopresbyterates: Pančevo (with its seat in Banatsko Novo Selo), Vršac and Sarča (today Sutjeska near Zrenjanin). An attempt to sign the Church Convention between the Yugoslav and Romanian authorities in the period between the two world wars failed. In 1924 the Romanian Orthodox Church adopted the new Gregorian calendar. After the First World War, a number of Romanian intellectuals went to their newly formed state – the Kingdom of Romania, while local priests remained the leaders of the Romanian minority in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Priests were at the forefront of the Romanian party in the Kingdom of SCS (established in 1923) and they actively participated in the local political life. Most of the cultural associations, both atthe local and regional level, were established and lead by local priests. Cultural Society from its establishment in 1923, The Association of Romanian Choirs and Fanfares in the Yugoslav Banat (1931) and ASTRA. The Association for Culture of the Romanian People in the Yugoslav Banat were all associations whose presidents were orthodox church leaders. Local priests organized cultural activities and local library book donations from Romania. They edited publications in the Romanian language, among which we mention Nădejdea (Hope), Foaia Poporului român (The Romanian People’s Paper) and Biruinţa (Victory). Because of this, the clergy’s influence on the Romanians was very strong. The priests werealso members of the governing bodies of bank institutions of the Romanians in Banat, such as Luceafărul in Vršac, Sentinela in Banatsko NovoSelo, Steaua in Vladimirovac.
During this period, the church also encountered numerous problems. We mention the financial situation,which, in the years of the economic crisis, did not adequately allow for the construction and maintenance of Orthodox temples. In the interwar period, only three Romanian Orthodox Churches were erected: in Deliblato, Ovča and Kuštilj, while in most other churches, depending on the financial resources of the parish, works on restoration and maintenance of church buildings and parish homes were conducted.
One of the issues the Romanian Orthodox Church was preocupied with was the spread of various neo-Protestant communities in Banat, especially Nazarenes, Baptists, Pentecostals and Adventists. The Orthodox Church tried to prevent this phenomenon primarily by establishing local organizations of Oastea Domnului (the Army of the Lord), by organizing pilgrimages in Veliko Središte (since 1933) and Seleuš (since 1936), as well as by organizing religious gatheringswhere priests held lectures and various other content in the attempt to strenghtenthe Orthodoxy among believers. Religious classes in the Romanian language were held regularly in all the places where there was a Romanian Orthodox parish and a primary school in the Romanian language.
A contribution to the study on multiconfessionality of Vojvodina
Abstract
The Romanian ethnic minority in the Serbian Banat traditionally belongs to the Orthodox religion, but during the last decades of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century new religions appeared – first the Greek Catholicism, as well as several Neo-Protestant confessions, such as the Church of the Nazarene, the Adventist and the Pentecostal Church. The number of the Neo-Protestant believers within the Romanian community increased during the first half of the 20th century, but after that came to a standstill and even decreased due to the general decline of the Romanian population in the Serbian Banat. Affiliation with Neo-Protestantism does not hinder the preservation of the national identity of the Romanians in Banat, as these believers are constituent parts of the confessional reality of the Romanians of Vojvodina and Serbia.
After a detailed insight into the identity of the Romanians in Banat, the first chapter of the monograph offers an overview of their confessional life, followed by the history of the development of the Greek Catholic Church, Nazarene, Adventist and Pentecostal communities, with a brief outline of the Jehovah Witnesses. The confessional life of the Romanians in Banat is shaped by the fact that most of them belong to the Romanian Orthodox Church, but also, in smaller numbers, to Neo-Protestant and the Greek Orthodox Church. The Neo-Protestant confessions, which appeared with the Romanians in Banat in the last decades of the 20th century (the Adventists, Baptists and Pentecostals), led to the enrichment of the confessional life in the region, but also to the decrease in the number of Orthodox believers. The presence of these communities in the multiethnic and multiconfessional nowadays world has become a reality which does not obstruct the preservation of the ethnic identity of the Romanian minority in Banat, but, on the contrary, may stand for the expression of free choice of each and every citizen.
The second chapter is focused on the Nazarene community, the first Neo-Protestant community that had a great number of believers in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century among the Serbs and Romanians in Banat. In spite of the fact that, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Nazarenes used to be a very large community, due to unfavorable socio-historical conditions, their number has constantly decreased. This chapter puts emphasis on the position of minority religious communities, and debates the problem of the so-called double minorities, as well as hidden minorities. Through a brief outline of the creation of the Nazarene movement and its spread to the region of nowaday Vojvodina, certain basic Nazarene ideas are presented and the specific features of Nazarenes as first Neo-Protestants in the region are stated here. The second part of the chapter offers a short historical overview of the oldest confession of the Romanians living in Banat, i.e. the Romanian Orthodox Church, with a focus on the appearance of the evangelistically oriented movement of the Army of the Lord. According to the results of the field research conducted by the author, which are presented in the book as transcripts of conversation, elements of cultural identity of the Romanian Nazarenes are also analyzed. The basic assumption is that, due to double minority position the Romanian Nazarenes, they have remained more closed and conservative and therefore more numerous in comparison to Serbian Nazarenes. The problem of the “closed field” is also tackled here, as well as various forms of risks when working in the field with micro-communities.
The third chapter situates itself, from a methodological standpoint, at the crossroad of linguistic anthropology and pragmalinguistics. Such a methodological pluralism has imposed itself after a long field research practice of integrative recordings of maximally broad interview contexts. The researcher starts from the idea that the interviewed persons take part voluntarily in the research, since they want to be heard by others, but she agrees that this is only partially true and does not refer to all the subjects. Having in mind that it is grounded on the results of field work, this chapter incorporates integral transcripts of the appropriate parts of conversation, without any subsequent interventions of the author. Eight passages of conversations with the representatives of the Romanian language and culture in Vojvodina have been selected as the starting point and basis of the analysis. These are conversations with the Romanians in Banat, held between 2004 and 2008, and one interview in the Serbian language, made in 2011 with a Roman Catholic Bayash from Sonta, Bačka region. Аn attempt has been made for transcripts to preserve the specific features of the idiolect of the interviewed subjects as much as possible. Only epistemological elements of the applied field work methodology have been chosen, which reflect the concept of serendipity. As for the content of the interviews, the author opted for the analysis of the ideological Neo-Protestant elements, as well as of the local oral history regarding the age of interconfessional cohabitation in the village of Markovac.
Tag Your Paper ?
Study of Religions100 followersFollowx, New Religions128 followersx, Evangelicalism72 followersFollowx, Ethnic minorities36 followersx, Minority Studies167 followersFollowx, Religion4,915 followersFollowx, Protestantism31 followersFollowx, Church History419 followersFollowx, Antropology of Religion22 followersFollowx, Religious Studies502 followersFollowx, Romanian Studies67 followersFollowx Edit
Tip: Tagged papers get twice as many views as untagged papers.
Seen by:
Share
Facebook Twitter"
Papers by Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović
This paper presents the first attempt to review the possibility of using secret police archives as a source for scholarly research on religious minorities in the former Yugoslavia. Unlike in other Eastern European countries, access to the secret police archives in former Yugoslavia is still very limited. Based on archival and ethnographic research conducted in Serbia, I argue that religious minorities represent a valuable resource for analysing relations between the state and religious groups during the communist period. This is especially true with regards to the pacifist Nazarenes and Seventh Day Adventists, because of their international and transnational networks and missionary work. This paper will address the possibilities of using private archives as a possible way in overcoming limited access to some of the state archival sources. Keywords: religious minorities; secret police archives; Yugoslavia; religious studies; communism
twentieth century. This volume examines what could be defined as renewal movement in Eastern Orthodox traditions. Some case studies include the God Worshippers in Serbia, religious fraternities in Bulgaria, the Zoe movement in Greece, the evangelical movement among Romanian Orthodox believers known as Oastea Domnului (The Lord’s Army), the Doukhobors in Russia, and the Maliovantsy in Ukraine. This volume provides a new understanding of processes of change in the spiritual landscape of Orthodox Christianity and various influences such as other non-Orthodox traditions, charismatic leaders, new religious practices and rituals.
During the eighteenth and in the first decades of the twentieth century, the Orthodox Romanians in Banat belonged to the Metropolitanate of Karlovci (Karlowitz). The first attempts to create an independent church were mentioned in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, these attempts were more decisive in the years of The Revolution of 1848-49. In eparchies where Romanians lived, religious services were held in the Romanian language, while, in ethnically mixed ones, both Serbian and Romanian were used. In 1864, the independent Romanian Orthodox Church was established in Sibiu, due to the efforts of the Transylvanian Metropolitan, Andrei Şaguna, and in accordance with the decision of the Emperor Joseph. Romanian Orthodox churches existing in the territory of Banat were included in two eparchies – The Eparchy of Arad and The Eparchy of Caransebeş (1865). Instead of Cyrillic letters, Latin letters were introduced in all Romanian Orthodox Churches. In ethnically mixed villages of Banat, church division lasted until 1872.
Orthodox clergy had a very significant role in political, cultural and economic life, especially between the two world wars. The clergy were the only intellectuals who remained in local communities after the division of Banat. Namely, after the dissolution of the Austria-Hungarian Empire in 1918, Banat was divided between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Kingdom of Yugoslavia), the Kingdom of Romania and a small part of Banat belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. Around forty villages and towns with Romanian parishes remained in the Yugoslavian part of Banat. Nevertheless, even outside of the Romanian territory, these parishes continued to belong to the Eparchies of Arad and Caransebeş. Parishes were divided into three protopresbyterates: Pančevo (with its seat in Banatsko Novo Selo), Vršac and Sarča (today Sutjeska near Zrenjanin). An attempt to sign the Church Convention between the Yugoslav and Romanian authorities in the period between the two world wars failed. In 1924 the Romanian Orthodox Church adopted the new Gregorian calendar. After the First World War, a number of Romanian intellectuals went to their newly formed state – the Kingdom of Romania, while local priests remained the leaders of the Romanian minority in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Priests were at the forefront of the Romanian party in the Kingdom of SCS (established in 1923) and they actively participated in the local political life. Most of the cultural associations, both atthe local and regional level, were established and lead by local priests. Cultural Society from its establishment in 1923, The Association of Romanian Choirs and Fanfares in the Yugoslav Banat (1931) and ASTRA. The Association for Culture of the Romanian People in the Yugoslav Banat were all associations whose presidents were orthodox church leaders. Local priests organized cultural activities and local library book donations from Romania. They edited publications in the Romanian language, among which we mention Nădejdea (Hope), Foaia Poporului român (The Romanian People’s Paper) and Biruinţa (Victory). Because of this, the clergy’s influence on the Romanians was very strong. The priests werealso members of the governing bodies of bank institutions of the Romanians in Banat, such as Luceafărul in Vršac, Sentinela in Banatsko NovoSelo, Steaua in Vladimirovac.
During this period, the church also encountered numerous problems. We mention the financial situation,which, in the years of the economic crisis, did not adequately allow for the construction and maintenance of Orthodox temples. In the interwar period, only three Romanian Orthodox Churches were erected: in Deliblato, Ovča and Kuštilj, while in most other churches, depending on the financial resources of the parish, works on restoration and maintenance of church buildings and parish homes were conducted.
One of the issues the Romanian Orthodox Church was preocupied with was the spread of various neo-Protestant communities in Banat, especially Nazarenes, Baptists, Pentecostals and Adventists. The Orthodox Church tried to prevent this phenomenon primarily by establishing local organizations of Oastea Domnului (the Army of the Lord), by organizing pilgrimages in Veliko Središte (since 1933) and Seleuš (since 1936), as well as by organizing religious gatheringswhere priests held lectures and various other content in the attempt to strenghtenthe Orthodoxy among believers. Religious classes in the Romanian language were held regularly in all the places where there was a Romanian Orthodox parish and a primary school in the Romanian language.
A contribution to the study on multiconfessionality of Vojvodina
Abstract
The Romanian ethnic minority in the Serbian Banat traditionally belongs to the Orthodox religion, but during the last decades of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century new religions appeared – first the Greek Catholicism, as well as several Neo-Protestant confessions, such as the Church of the Nazarene, the Adventist and the Pentecostal Church. The number of the Neo-Protestant believers within the Romanian community increased during the first half of the 20th century, but after that came to a standstill and even decreased due to the general decline of the Romanian population in the Serbian Banat. Affiliation with Neo-Protestantism does not hinder the preservation of the national identity of the Romanians in Banat, as these believers are constituent parts of the confessional reality of the Romanians of Vojvodina and Serbia.
After a detailed insight into the identity of the Romanians in Banat, the first chapter of the monograph offers an overview of their confessional life, followed by the history of the development of the Greek Catholic Church, Nazarene, Adventist and Pentecostal communities, with a brief outline of the Jehovah Witnesses. The confessional life of the Romanians in Banat is shaped by the fact that most of them belong to the Romanian Orthodox Church, but also, in smaller numbers, to Neo-Protestant and the Greek Orthodox Church. The Neo-Protestant confessions, which appeared with the Romanians in Banat in the last decades of the 20th century (the Adventists, Baptists and Pentecostals), led to the enrichment of the confessional life in the region, but also to the decrease in the number of Orthodox believers. The presence of these communities in the multiethnic and multiconfessional nowadays world has become a reality which does not obstruct the preservation of the ethnic identity of the Romanian minority in Banat, but, on the contrary, may stand for the expression of free choice of each and every citizen.
The second chapter is focused on the Nazarene community, the first Neo-Protestant community that had a great number of believers in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century among the Serbs and Romanians in Banat. In spite of the fact that, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Nazarenes used to be a very large community, due to unfavorable socio-historical conditions, their number has constantly decreased. This chapter puts emphasis on the position of minority religious communities, and debates the problem of the so-called double minorities, as well as hidden minorities. Through a brief outline of the creation of the Nazarene movement and its spread to the region of nowaday Vojvodina, certain basic Nazarene ideas are presented and the specific features of Nazarenes as first Neo-Protestants in the region are stated here. The second part of the chapter offers a short historical overview of the oldest confession of the Romanians living in Banat, i.e. the Romanian Orthodox Church, with a focus on the appearance of the evangelistically oriented movement of the Army of the Lord. According to the results of the field research conducted by the author, which are presented in the book as transcripts of conversation, elements of cultural identity of the Romanian Nazarenes are also analyzed. The basic assumption is that, due to double minority position the Romanian Nazarenes, they have remained more closed and conservative and therefore more numerous in comparison to Serbian Nazarenes. The problem of the “closed field” is also tackled here, as well as various forms of risks when working in the field with micro-communities.
The third chapter situates itself, from a methodological standpoint, at the crossroad of linguistic anthropology and pragmalinguistics. Such a methodological pluralism has imposed itself after a long field research practice of integrative recordings of maximally broad interview contexts. The researcher starts from the idea that the interviewed persons take part voluntarily in the research, since they want to be heard by others, but she agrees that this is only partially true and does not refer to all the subjects. Having in mind that it is grounded on the results of field work, this chapter incorporates integral transcripts of the appropriate parts of conversation, without any subsequent interventions of the author. Eight passages of conversations with the representatives of the Romanian language and culture in Vojvodina have been selected as the starting point and basis of the analysis. These are conversations with the Romanians in Banat, held between 2004 and 2008, and one interview in the Serbian language, made in 2011 with a Roman Catholic Bayash from Sonta, Bačka region. Аn attempt has been made for transcripts to preserve the specific features of the idiolect of the interviewed subjects as much as possible. Only epistemological elements of the applied field work methodology have been chosen, which reflect the concept of serendipity. As for the content of the interviews, the author opted for the analysis of the ideological Neo-Protestant elements, as well as of the local oral history regarding the age of interconfessional cohabitation in the village of Markovac.
Tag Your Paper ?
Study of Religions100 followersFollowx, New Religions128 followersx, Evangelicalism72 followersFollowx, Ethnic minorities36 followersx, Minority Studies167 followersFollowx, Religion4,915 followersFollowx, Protestantism31 followersFollowx, Church History419 followersFollowx, Antropology of Religion22 followersFollowx, Religious Studies502 followersFollowx, Romanian Studies67 followersFollowx Edit
Tip: Tagged papers get twice as many views as untagged papers.
Seen by:
Share
Facebook Twitter"
This paper presents the first attempt to review the possibility of using secret police archives as a source for scholarly research on religious minorities in the former Yugoslavia. Unlike in other Eastern European countries, access to the secret police archives in former Yugoslavia is still very limited. Based on archival and ethnographic research conducted in Serbia, I argue that religious minorities represent a valuable resource for analysing relations between the state and religious groups during the communist period. This is especially true with regards to the pacifist Nazarenes and Seventh Day Adventists, because of their international and transnational networks and missionary work. This paper will address the possibilities of using private archives as a possible way in overcoming limited access to some of the state archival sources. Keywords: religious minorities; secret police archives; Yugoslavia; religious studies; communism
вишегодишњих теренских истраживања Румуна који припадају неопротестантским заједницама у Војводини, у овом раду анализирам етнички и религијски
идентитет мањинских заједница кроз призму концепта двоструких мањина. Полазећи од хипотезе да границе етничког и религијског идентитета нису унапред дефинисане и статичне, анализирам наративе прикупљене теренским истраживањем у четири неопротестантске заједнице. У раду, пример Румуна неопротестаната показује каква је улога конверзије (обраћења) у етничким и религијским мањинским заједницама, као и колико религијски идентитет постаје хомогенизујући чинилац у наднационалним верским заједницама.
This report documents the forum's discussions and recommendations on topics such as the growing diversity and complexity of migration flows and migration dynamics, the need for new and different approaches in the field of integration, and the extent to which academic research and grassroots experience can contribute to the work of policymakers.