ABSTRACT
The edited volume’s Introduction frames conversion as a broad, open-ended process of religious and nonreligious change and advances it as a heuristic for analyzing identity formation, power, and subjectivity in Central and Eastern Europe during the long 20th century. Rather than treating conversion as a discrete spiritual event or a purely individual choice, it situates conversion within shifting political regimes, projects of nation- and state-building, and competing truth claims, including socialist atheization. Drawing on insights from history, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, and political theory, it proposes a set of interrelated analytical coordinates – continuity and discontinuity, individuality and collectivity, conviction and conformity, enthusiasm and adaptation – to orient comparative inquiry without imposing typologies. By approaching ethnoreligious identities through the lens of conversion, the Introduction highlights their historical dynamism and political salience and presents Central and Eastern Europe as a generative site for interdisciplinary reflection on conversion as a multidirectional, historically embedded process with relevance beyond the region.
