Institutionalization
With the end of Communist rule, Eastern Europeans have moved relatively
quickly not only to study religion but also to institutionalize that study. As
one might expect, many of these activities concerned the establishment of the
study of religion in universities or within national academies. For example, in
Ukraine a Department of Religious Studies was established within the National
Academy of Science in 1991 (Filipovych and Kolodny 2004: 84 ff.), while
a Centre for the History of Religions was established at the University of
Bucharest in 2003 and a Religious Studies Program at Central European
University in Budapest in 2005. Other programs in religious studies include
the Department for the Study of Religions at Masaryk University in Brno, the
Czech Republic; the Institute of Religious Studies at Jagellonian University in
Krakow, Poland; the Department of the Philosophy of Religion and Religious
Studies in State St Petersburg University in Russia; and the Department of
Religious Studies in Bratislava, Slovakia. Scholars of religions do not, however,
always work in departments of religious studies. For example, religious studies
are mostly represented at the University of Tartu within the Department of
Estonian and Comparative Folklore, which was re-established in 1993.
Perhaps more significant in the region, as bringing together scholars
interested in the study of religion, regardless of institutional placement, have
been the national scholarly associations. National associations from the Czech
Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine are
affiliated with the IAHR, and several of these have sponsored confer-
ences within the last ten years. The most recent was the the 6th Conference
of the European Association for the Study of Religion, held in Bucharest
September 18–23, 2006, with some 200 participants from about thirty
countries, ten keynote lectures and ten different panels integrating many
scholars from throughout the region. At this conference moves were made to
establish an Estonian Association for the Study of Religon.
Continuing the interwar tradition, when in the field of Graeco-Roman
religions alone the Année philologique regularly mentioned some thirty
periodicals, Eastern Europe is also home to a rich number of journals, as the
following selective list makes clear: in Bulgaria Balgarsko Iztokoznanie(Acta
Orientalia Bulgarica, founded 1990); in the Czech Republic Religio.Revue pro
Religionistiku(founded 1993); in Estonia Studies in Folklore and Popular
Religion(founded 1996); in Poland Przeglad Religioznawcy(founded 1957),
Folia Orientalia(founded 1959), and Rocznik Orientalistyczny(founded 1924);
in Romania Archaevs: Studies in the History of Religions(founded 1997),
Studia Asiatica: International Journal for Asian Studies(founded 2000) and
Chora: Revue d’études anciennes et médiévales.Philosophy,théologie,sciences
(founded 2003); in Slovakia Hieron(founded 1996); in Ukraine Ukrayins’ke
religiyeznavstvo (founded 1999).
1111
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1011
1
2
3111
4 5 6 7 8 9
20111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
30111
1
2
3
4
35
6
7
8
9
40111
42222
3
411
EASTERN EUROPE
65
