To render unto whom? Post-imperial theology, memory and legacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina

This doctoral project outlines the contextual premises of a post-imperial theology in order to understand how theological discourse is shaped by memorialization processes. The research concentrates on the historical period of the 19th and early 20th century in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a period when the Ottoman Empire was succeeded by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Using a case study approach, the project focuses on the memory and legacy of two most influential Catholic figures of the period, Franciscan friar Ivan Franjo Jukić (1818-1857), and Archbishop Josip Stadler (1848-1918), remembered as an imperial rebel and an imperial loyalist respectively. Comparative analysis of intellectual, religious and cultural representation of the mnemonic actors expands our understanding of how religious identities were relocated as a cultural resource to a national. Secondly, it critically interprets memory as a tool for both subversive and complicit theological praxis related to questioning oppressive spiritual-political loyalties.