This book is the first of its kind to assess the origins and evolution of the many cults across Southeastern Europe, their literature, and venerated sites. It offers important new insights into the building blocks of nationalism and contemporary religion, and will appeal to those interested in the religious and cultural history of the region.

The cult of St. Jovan Vladimir, historical ruler of Duklja in the early eleventh century, is one of the oldest Slavic saint's cults in Southeastern Europe. Over time, the cult developed into a number of distinctive offshoots, and played a significant role in church- and nation-building in the region. St. Jovan Vladimir has become a symbol of nationalism in several of the region's modern states, but also a source of transnational cooperation between Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim religious communities. This study show the crossroads of national and religious movements in the many cults, sites and litterature. This book is the first of its kind to assess the origins and evolution of the many cults, and their literature and sacred sites, from the death of St. Jovan Vladimir to the current revival across Southeastern Europe. It offers important new insights into the historic building blocks of nationalism and contemporary religion, and will appeal to all those interested in the religious and cultural history of the region.

Autorentext

Emil Hilton Saggau is a Danish church historian working as a research fellow at the Department for Church History at Lund University, Sweden. He holds a PhD (2020) and Dr. habil (2025) from University of Copenhagen. His main interest is history and religion in Southeastern Europe, with publications including Nationalisation of the Sacred: Orthodox Historiography, Memory, and Politics in Montenegro (Peter Lang, 2024) and Saints in the Slavic Christian World Assessing Power, Religion and Language in Religious Literature (Peter Lang, 2025). He is a member of the Balkan History Association.

Inhalt

List of Figures - Foreword - Notes on Language - Introduction - Part I Making the Vladimir Cult - Chapter 1 Traces of the Early Tradition - Chapter 2 The Shaping of a Saint in the Latin Tradition - Chapter 3 The Greek Tradition of Vladimir - Chapter 4 Painting a Gallery of Personas - Chapter 5 Mapping Sites and Remains - Chapter 6 Rising Illyrian Ideology and Orthodox Defence - Part II Claiming the Vladimir Cult (Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries) - Chapter 7 Recreating a Slavic Catholic Image - Chapter 8 The Enlightenment Orthodox Image of Vladimir - Chapter 9 Rediscovering the Vladimir Cult - Chapter 10 Cultural Imagination - Vladimir at the Theatre - Chapter 11 Answering the Question of National Identity - Modern Historiographical Assessment of Vladimir - Chapter 12 From "Yugoslavism" to the Communist Deadlock in the Twentieth Century - Part III The Return of the Vladimir Cult after 1989 - Chapter 13 Vladimir Revitalized as a Serbian Saint in Montenegro - Chapter 14 Vladimir of Duklja - A Montenegrin Counter-Proposal - Chapter 15 The Albanian Bones - Shën Gjon of Elbasan - Chapter 16 Vladimir as a Muslim and National Holy Person - Islamic Bektashi Belief and Practice - Chapter 17 The Waning Remembrance of Vladimir - Chapter 18 Concluding Thoughts on the Shaping of Churches and Nations in Southeastern Europe - Bibliography