About this ebook
The history of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Europe has always been one of persecution. This third volume documents this history, turning eastward. For the first time, the circumstances of a religious minority under different political systems can be compared across the continent. The studies gathered here provide insight into the methods of repression used by governments and mainstream churches, the survival strategies of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and their various experiences under Eastern European dictatorships. The initially cordial relationship with Jehovah’s Witnesses that developed after 1990 has steadily reverted to religious discrimination, culminating in Russia’s renewed ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 2017 and the confiscation of their properties. By violating the universal human right of religious freedom, the same conditions that prevailed in the Soviet era have now returned to “modern” Russia: With severest discrimination and abusing jurisdictional procedures to reach their political aspirations, the State tries to crush a religious community. Against this background, it is all the more important not to turn a blind eye to the situation of religious minorities in Eastern Europe, but instead to take an honest public stance against it.
About the author
Gerhard Besier, PhD, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Lund, Sweden, in 2009. He has held chairs in Contemporary (Church) History and European Studies at the Universities of Berlin, Heidelberg and Dresden, Germany, and teaches at several universities in Europe and the USA. He has published widely on the themes of German-Polish antagonisms, transformation processes in Europe since 1945, European dictatorships, and confessional controversies in Germany, Europe and the USA. His most recent publications include Neighbourhood Perceptions of the Ukraine Crisis. From the Soviet Union into Eurasia? (with Katarzyna Stokłosa, 2017).
Katarzyna Stokłosa is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Management at the University of Southern Denmark. She completed her PhD at the European University Viadrina, Germany, and her habilitation thesis at the University of Potsdam, Germany. She has published various books and articles on European border regions in comparison and on European history. Her most recent publications include How to Deal with Refugees? Europe as a Continent of Dreams (with Gerhard Besier, 2018).
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