Towards Postsecular Memory Studies: The Serbian Orthodox Church and Hybrid Spaces of Remembrance

Talk by Karin Roginer Hofmeister (Charles University, Prague) in the SNAKLAB series, organized by the seeFField project in cooperation with IOS Regensburg.

This talk examines how the Serbian Orthodox Church has navigated the contested terrain of collective memory in Serbian communities, where political transition, social fragmentation, and the reconfiguration of national identity have defined the decades since the collapse of Yugoslavia. Drawing on the monograph Remembering Suffering and Resistance: Memory Politics and the Serbian Orthodox Churchalongside new findings from Negotiating ‘Serbhood’: Layers of Memories Among the Serbs in the Post-Yugoslav and Post-War Space, it explores the Church’s central role in shaping narratives of Serbian heroic victimhood.

The analysis highlights how the Church has employed both liturgical and non-liturgical practices of remembrance, blending sacred and secular elements to produce a hybrid commemorative landscape. In doing so, it has strategically mobilized its symbolic, ritual, and institutional resources to reassert authority and public relevance during times of instability.

The talk argues that in contexts of political upheaval and moral uncertainty, the quest for collective memory becomes especially urgent, and religious institutions such as the Serbian Orthodox Church emerge as influential actors in both memory-making and identity formation within the evolving post-socialist, post-conflict, and post-secular public sphere.