CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Beqiri, Lumi |
|---|---|
| Title | Between the Tradition and a New Identity: Crypto-Catholicism in Post-war Kosovo |
| Summary | In this thesis, I study the phenomenon of practicing a dual religion in Kosovo in forms of crypto-Catholicism. I try to observe how this phenomenon evolved through the centuries and the different phases that it went through, from Ottoman Empire to the two Yugoslav states and finally in independent Kosovo. Crypto-Catholics, or known as laramans in Albanians language, are Albanians of Roman Catholic faith who converted to Islam during the Ottoman era, but in the privacies of their comfort spaces kept their Catholic identity and continued to practice the Catholic faith, usually in secret. Crypto-Catholicism did not end at any stage of the Kosovan history, but it continued to exist. It has remained present even in the post-Yugoslav space of Kosovo and it has affected the religious identity of this European country. My oral history research was conducted in different parts of Kosovo in 2021 and 2022, and it is based on ten interviews. Nine of the interviews I conducted with people of crypto-Catholic heritage and one of them with a Catholic priest from Kosovo. These oral testimonies offer an interesting glimpse into the ways crypto-Catholicism has manifested itself in the post-Yugoslav space and what are the differences between this practice in post-war Kosovo, as compared to other periods when this phenomenon was prevalent in Kosovo. The oral testimonies I managed to collect have obviously challenged some of the existing scholarship on this practice |
| Supervisor | Tokic, Mate Nikola |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/beqiri_lumi.pdf |
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