A Special Part of Europe: Nation, State and Religion Among Orthodox South Slavs

Abstract

This paper examines the interplay between nation, state, and religion for the South Slavic peoples, among them Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians, and Montenegrins. The authors detail how the relations between nation and church go back to the time of the Ottoman Empire, while those between state and nation were born from the Empire's dissolution. The paper goes on to examine how these relations have contributed to many of the conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia.