Eastern European Studies Commons^™

The Ukrainian Immigrant Experience In South Carolina, Nataliya S. Vykhovanets, Alexander Lorenz

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

The following paper focuses on the Ukrainian immigrant community living in the Upstate region of South Carolina and the vast differences in immigrant experiences of former and more recent Ukrainian Immigrants. Ukrainians have been migrating to the US since the late 1800s, but unfortunately, there are few studies available on this ethnic group.

To give readers a background on the topic, this paper first documents the history of Ukrainian immigration to the US by describing and comparing the four waves of Ukrainian migration to the United States. The following section introduces a questionnaire, created to collect data on the Ukrainian …

Pinpointing Patterns Of Violence: A Comparative Genocide Studies Approach To Violence Escalation In The Ukrainian Holodomor, Kristina Hook

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article utilizes the case study of the 1930s Ukrainian Holodomor, an artificially induced famine under Joseph Stalin, to advance comparative genocide studies debates regarding the nature, onset, and prevention of large-scale violence. Fieldwide debates question how to 1) distinguish genocide from other forms of large-scale violence and 2) trace genocides as unfolding processes, rather than crescendoing events. To circumvent unproductive definitional arguments, methodologies that track large-scale violence according to numerically-based thresholds have substituted for dynamics-based analyses. Able to address aspects of the genocide puzzle, these methodologies struggle to incorporate cross-cultural contextual variation or elicit ripe moments for specific, real-time …

Radna: The Holy Shrine Of The Multinational Banat Region (Romania), Erika Vass

Journal of Global Catholicism

Radna is the sacral heart of the Banat region in Romania. The shrine has united the Catholics for centuries in veneration of Virgin Mary regardless of their nationality and native language. Roman Catholic Bulgarians, Croatians (called Krashovani), Hungarians, Germans, Roma, Romanians, and Slovakians venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary together, but believers of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Church also visit the sacred venue. Until the borders changed after the First World War, a great number of pilgrims had visited Radna every year from the region of the Great Hungarian Plain. The pilgrimage may be considered a rite of passage connecting …

Minor Letnica: (Re)Locating The Tradition Of Shared Worship In North Macedonia, Ksenia Trofimova

Journal of Global Catholicism

This paper addresses trajectories of historical and devotional continuity of the annual pilgrimage to a Marian shrine. It analyzes the ways in which traditional worship of the Catholic Church in Letnica (Kosovo)—a major regional sanctuary of the former Yugoslavia—is relocated and replicated in a small chapel of St. Joseph in Skopje (North Macedonia). Both sites have been for a long period of time institutionally connected and shared by followers of different religious traditions (Catholic and Orthodox devotees, and especially by Muslims). Drawing upon fieldwork carried out in Macedonia and Serbia between 2014-2019, I focus on the processes of social construction …

“Give Me Some Beautiful Holy Images That Are Colorful, Play Music, And Flash!” The Roma Pilgrimage To Csatka, Hungary, István Povedák

Journal of Global Catholicism

This study introduces the Csatka pilgrimage, which is one of the most significant festive events for Roma in Central and Eastern Europe. Csatka, a small and secluded village, became one of the most important pilgrimage sites for Roma since the mid-20th century. Tens of thousands of Roma, entire families from Hungary and the surrounding countries arrive to the feast on Nativity Day at the beginning of September. For them, however, the rite is not only about religious actions, but also about their powerful role in strengthening Roma ethnic identity. Through the analysis of the rite, we can gain a good …

Breaching Boundaries: Homogenizing The Dichotomy Between The Sacred And Profane In Csíksomlyó, Zsofia Lovei

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines how a Marian shrine in Csíksomlyó, Transylvania acts as a Foucauldian heterotopia for Magyar speaking individuals, residing in the Carpathian Basin, and beyond in the diaspora most especially during the annual Pentecost pilgrimage. Following introductory remarks on the site and my stance, I turn to methodology, and Hungarian scholarship on the topic. Afterwards, I provide a “thick description” of fieldwork I conducted on-site in May of 2015. I then turn to various theoretical ties, which I support with emic analysis. Lastly, I turn to ideas of heterotopias, and provide a brief formal analysis. My main incentive is …

Overview And Acknowledgments, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

The Motif Of Children In War In Memorialization Practices In Serbia And Bosnia And Herzegovina, Ana Gvozdić

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Studying the War Childhood Museum in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the monument to children killed in NATO bombing in Belgrade, Serbia, as well as the monument to killed children of besieged Sarajevo, this research project examines the motif of children in war within memorialization practices of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Relying on six semi-structured interviews with members of civil society in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as an employee of the War Childhood Museum, this research explores the role that the motif of children in war plays in remembering and portraying the past in these countries with …

The Public Secret And Private Pain Of Wartime Sexual Violence: Comparing The Heroinat Memorial And The 2020 Newborn Monument From The Perspective Of Ngos In Kosovo, Martha Beliveau

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In a rare year where there are two monuments dedicated to survivors of wartime sexual violence in Kosovo, the permanent Heroinat Memorial and the year-long Newborn Monument have different approaches and effects in their processes of commemorating wartime sexual violence. This paper approaches a comparison of these two monuments through four interviews with representatives of women-centered civil society organizations in Pristina, Kosovo. This paper finds that the Heroinat Memorial and the 2020 theme of the Newborn Monument are sites of contested meanings, because of the different approaches of each respective monument, each of the monuments’ gendered implications, and the implications …

The Interwoven Existences Of Official Catholicism And Magical Practice In The Lived Religiosity Of A Transylvanian Hungarian Village, Cecília Sándor

Journal of Global Catholicism

During the last five years I have been doing field research in a Transylvanian Hungarian village, Sânsimion (Hu: Csíkszentsimon). I present my research on this religiously homogenous, Catholic community’s worldview. Based on interviews conducted with members of the village’s various age groups, I map religious and magical knowledge passed down through the generations, using the theoretical frame of collective memory and religious transmission. Second, I highlight two different but coexisting “constructions of reality” in this rural community. By “constructions of reality,” I mean interpretations of reality expressed in narrative discourses and local magical practices that are closely and inextricably interwoven …

Rockin' The Church: Vernacular Catholic Musical Practices, Kinga Povedak

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article focuses on the unique dimensions of lived or vernacular Catholicism through the analysis of contemporary congregational music in Hungary. Looking at the musical lives of Hungarian Roman Catholics from the late 1960s to contemporary times can provide us with new understandings of the theological contents and aesthetics, as well as the vernacular religiosity of the community. Christian popular music appeared behind the Iron Curtain relatively early, in 1967 when the first “beat mass” was created and introduced at Budapest. The early Christian popular music sounded astonishingly similar to the songs of the American Folk Mass Movement of the …

Longings, Letters And Prayers: Visitor's Books At Hungarian Marian Shrines, Krisztina Frauhammer

Journal of Global Catholicism

The following study seeks to show the flow of contemporary rituals associated with pilgrimage shrines. I will consider how visitor’s books placed on display at shrine churches are being utilized in the modern context by pilgrims and tourists alike. Requests, words of thanksgiving, and testimony are coupled with an honest, reflexive style that lends to the formation of these individualized prayers. These prayers are original, specific and peculiar as they follow patterns that are informal in nature. These prayers allow pilgrims to initiate contact with the Transcendent through the act and practice of writing. An idiosyncratic form of sacred communication …

Introduction: Consumer Contexts And Divine Presences In Hungarian Catholicism, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

Introduction to Hungarian Catholicism: Living Faith Across Diverse Social and Intellectual Contexts, highlighting both the specific contributions of the articles to the study of Hungarian Catholicism and situating them within the broad sweep of Hungarian and Catholic Studies.

Overview And Acknowledgements, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

Overview of Hungarian Catholicism: Living Faith Across Diverse Social and Intellectual Context, highlighting the articles' contribution to the study of Global Catholicism.

Radio Maria Transylvania: National Representation, Prayer, And Intersubjectivity In A Growing Catholic Media Network, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

This article examines the public discourse of a Radio Maria Transylvania, a growing Catholic media network for members of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Romania. I look at two primary narratives: first, accounts about how the network was founded in the mid-2000s. And second, listeners’ prayers to the Virgin Mary published on the media network’s web site. Acts of petitioning powerful others for assistance on behalf of a family are central features of Radio Maria Transylvania’s storytelling–on behalf of a national family in the case of the network’s origin narratives and a natal family in the case of prayers to …

Introduction: Mediating Catholicisms: Studies In Aesthetics, Authority, And Identity, Eric Hoenes Del Pinal, Marc Roscoe Loustau, Kristin Norget

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Overview & Acknowledgements, Mathew Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Dilemma And Knowledge - Book Review Of Re-Imagining Utopias: Theory And Method For Educational Research In Post-Socialist Contexts, Jessica Zychowicz

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

No abstract provided.

Substituting Stories: Narrative Arcs And Pilgrimage Material Culture Between Lourdes And Csíksomlyó, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

In this essay, I propose that substitution is one way subjects situate themselves in relation to European Catholics’ growing interest in multiple pilgrimages. I elaborate this claim through a case study of one Transylvanian Hungarian Catholic woman, Emilia, who substituted a story about a Transylvanian Hungarian shrine, Our Lady of Csíksomlyó, for a story about the Lourdes pilgrimage in France. I set also Emilia’s experience within a social context of memory production in the World Family of Radio Mária, a global Catholic media network that promotes devotional remembering. Emilia’s story about Our Lady of Csíksomlyó had revealed the strain of …

In Pursuit Of Healing And Memories: Cross-Border Ukrainian Pilgrimage To A Polish Shrine, Iuliia Buyskykh

Journal of Global Catholicism

I present an analysis of Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Orthodox pilgrimages to Kalwaria Pacławska in south-east Poland near the Polish-Ukrainian border. Before World War II, there were two pilgrimage sites in Kalwaria Pacławska, one Roman Catholic and the other Greek Catholic. Today, Ukrainian pilgrimage is quite a diverse phenomenon, consisting of people of both Ukrainian and Polish origin, and the three Christian denominations. The approach to pilgrimage as a palimpsest can broaden the research perspective of mobile religiosities and reconsider the interactions between religious motivations, sacred sites, memories, experiences, and storytelling through space and time. In my research case, …

Film Review: The Impure: An Abolitionist Documentary Film Of The 19th Century Traffic In Jewish Women, Caroline Norma

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

How Black Lives Matter Has Influenced And Interacted With Global Social Movements, Arelle A. Binning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a chapter-based and member-led organization created out of grief by three queer black women. This thesis examines the international impact of BLM. I conducted telephone interviews with activists and advocacy organizations who have organized activist networks and/or won struggles against institutional racism outside of the United States. These activists are located in Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, India, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Paris. I conclude that BLM has inspired the creation and supported the continued development of organizations advocating for national and transnational social and racial justice on a global scale. BLM in spite …

Child’S Play: A Service Learning Project Conducted At Roroš, Nové Mešto Pod Smrkem, Sanaya Attari

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

For my Independent Study Project, I designed a board game for young children inspired by the service learning activities held at ROROŠ. ROROŠ is a private organization located in the town of Nové Mešto pod Smrkem, offering different activities for children which provide a meaningful use of their leisure time. For a period of three weeks, I lived in Nové Mešto with Yveta Svobodová, one of the head directors of the organization. During my stay, I partook in several activities each week and used my experiences to generate new ideas when designing the final game. The game was completed by …

Charismatic Renewal And Miracular Sensitivity At A Catholic Marian Apparition Site In Poland, Konrad Siekierski

Journal of Global Catholicism

Almost 70 years after the Mother of God appeared in a series of visions at the pastures near the village of Mazury in south-eastern Poland, this ‘abundant event’, in Robert Orsi’s terms, still attracts the attention of Polish Catholics. Drawing on my research on the recent revival of the apparition site in Mazury, I examine the current penetration of Polish Catholicism by the charismatic movement. As I discuss it, this trend reinvigorates, but also reshapes, what Andrzej Hemka and Jacek Olędzki call the ‘miracular sensitivity’ of Polish believers, traditionally dominated by Marian devotion.

Religious Imageries Of Pilgrims From Przeworsk: Making Pilgrimage To The Shrine Of Our Lady Of Consolation At Jodłówka, Magdalena Lubanska

Journal of Global Catholicism

My paper will provide an account of the religious imageries (T. Csordas) and practices of Catholic devotees from the Basilica of the Holy Spirit with whom I made pilgrimage on foot to the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation at Jodłówka in August 2017. My account positions those imaginaries and practices within a broader contextual spectrum in order to move beyond events or conversations which were directly connected with the pilgrimage. To gain a better understanding of the religious needs of the pilgrims I spent time with some of them afterwards. Among other things, I attended masses involving healing services …

Forgive, Forget Or Feign: Everyday Diplomacy In Local Communities Of Polish Subcarpathia, Iuliia Buyskykh

Journal of Global Catholicism

The paper is based on my ethnographic fieldwork in Przemyśl, Poland and several surrounding villages in 2015-2017. While conducting my research on a set of religious practices and pilgrimages in confessionally and ethnically mixed localities, I faced many challenges that changed the main course of my initial research plan. During my interaction with people here themes came to light that seemed little related to religiousness. My status as a researcher from Ukraine and even more so, my being a young single woman from Ukraine, gave rise to a number of other topics that my interlocutors, both of Polish and Ukrainian …

Natura Sanat: On Ecological Aspects Of Healing Miracles In Kalwaria Pacławska, Poland, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska

Journal of Global Catholicism

The subject-matter of my article is a change affecting the discourse on miraculous healings in a Catholic Marian sanctuary – Kalwaria Pacławska – run by Franciscan friars in the South-Eastern Poland and a way in which those changes affect pilgrims’ bodies. In Kalwaria Pacławska there meet, intersect and compete various religious and secular discourses and they all influence emotions and bodily sensations accompanying pilgrimage to this sacred site. One of those discourses has been introduced to Kalwaria just recently. The central element of the sanctuary is the miraculous image of Virgin Mary which is the goal of numerous pilgrimages from …

Authors' Introduction, Kamila Baraniecka-Olszewska, Magdalena Lubanska

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Editor's Introduction, Marc R. Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

Deinstitutionalization Of Bulgarian Orphanages: Examining Caregiver Discourses On The Changing Reforms, Sophia Page

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The housing of orphaned children in institutions has been common practice in Bulgaria. The post-communist era ushered in reforms to the orphan care system, under the guidance of the state and the international community. This has shifted care for orphaned children from institutions to alternative care in family-type settings, under a process referred to as deinstitutionalization. These reforms are believed to benefit a child’s development and well-being. New questions arise surrounding the role of the caregiver in implementing these reforms in their care practice, chiefly how caregivers strive to integrate the children into society while facing the persisting limitations of …