Cold War Communist Yugoslavia: Religion

Figure 1.--Here we see Serbian children doing their First Communion in 1960. Religioius practice declined as a resilt of Communist control, but was still widespread.

Immediately after the War, Yugoslavia wa one of the more aggesive of the newly Communist East Ruropean countries. Tito's forces began shooting down Allied aircraft in the Afruatiuc and other aggressive actions. Yugoslavia was different in that Stalin failed to gain control of the country leading to Tito's 1948 split. We have been unable to find much information on the atheist campaign in Yugoslavia. There certainly was one. Some Catholic prelates were acused of connectiins with the Fascist Ustaše. Sone were involved, but not all that were charged. Party members could not advance if they practiced religion. But this seems to have moderated as Yugoslavia began to tolerate more diversity than permitted in the Eastern European countries controlled by the Soviet Union. A complicatioin in Yugoslavia is the nationality issue which Tito severly repressed. Communist Yugoslavia was federal uniin of six Socialist republics with strong ethnic/national sentiment. Religion was an important part of the narioinal ethos in these repubulics. Croatian and Slovenia in the north were stongly Roman Catholic. Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia in the east are stroingly Orthoxox. Bosnia oon the center was ethnically and ethnically mixed with religion tending to follow ethnic lines. Yugoslavia was ehnically and religiously mixed before the Communists seized power. And this mixing increased as the Comminist regimes actively supressed any asoect of ethnic national sentiment. This ultimately impacted religioin because of the connection. There were imortant minorities within the various reoublics, inclusung Catholic Croats in Serbian Orthodox Serbs in Croatia, and Muslim Ksovars in southern Serbia. (This was particularly problematic given the fact that southern Serbia was the Serb historic heartland. During the Communist era there was a significant internal migration. Most notable was a movemnent from the poorer south and east to the more prosperous morthwest. Until the Communist victory in World War II, census data suggest a virtual universal participation in religious practices. The stength of ethnic feeling and connection eith religion was a significant challege to Tito and the Communists. Surveys taken in the 1960s showed a substantial decline in religious practice, still high by Western stabndards, but a substantial decline. Muslims seem to have been especially resistant to the Communist atheism campaign. As far as we can tell they were less intense than any of the Soviet Bloc countries.

Created: 9:38 AM 6/15/2020
Last updated: 9:38 AM 6/15/2020