Popular Religion in the Life of Students in Split

Abstract

The research on popular religion in the context of social and religious changes is based on the work of the well-known Croatian sociologist of religion, Željko Mardesic (writing under the pseudonym Jakov Jukic). According to Mardesic, it is historically possible to establish various reasons for the emergence of popular religion in the religious image of Croatia. Moreover, according to the same author, in Croatian society there are only four types of the emergence of popular religion, to be elaborated on further in the paper where upon applying the four types to the religious situation in the life of students studying at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Split. Reasonable interpretation and systematic understanding of the social, political, and cultural contexts of the mentioned students is included in modern typological analysis of sociological understanding of the theory of popular religion. The research implies statistical differences among the four typological realities of popular religion in order to study the correlation of each type of popular religion with all the others. In the light of the above-mentioned introductory notes on the four typological realities of popular religion, the aim of this paper is two-fold: to show the current relevance of the issue on the nature of social and religious changes in Croatian society, approaching the discussion in a less usual way. In this way, not only is popular religion reflected in social events but the social events are reflected in religion. This will be supported by an innovative attempt to explain social and religious changes which, according to Jukic, are the reasons for the occurrence of popular religion in Croatia.