No. LVI (2025)
Articles

Abuses against Serbs in the Districts of Otočac and Brinje in World War II with a Special Focus on Religious Conversions

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  • Filip Škiljan
Filip Škiljan
Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC2556177S

Published 26.12.2025

Keywords

  • Serbs,
  • Lika,
  • Otočac,
  • Brinje,
  • World War II religious conversion.

How to Cite

Škiljan, F. (2025). Abuses against Serbs in the Districts of Otočac and Brinje in World War II with a Special Focus on Religious Conversions. Balcanica - Annual of the Institute for Balkan Studies, (LVI), 177–204. https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC2556177S

Copyright (c) 2025 Balcanica - Annual of the Institute for Balkan Studies

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The text brings an overview of the abuses against Serbs in the districts of Otočac and Brinje, focusing on religious conversion in this area. It draws on archival sources, secondary literature, and verbal witness accounts. After a general introduction about the attitude of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) toward the Serbs, the author offers information on the mistreatment of Serbs in the Otočac area. He then discusses the position of the Roman Catholic Church on religious conversion, especially conversion from Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism in the territory of the Diocese of Senj-Modruš and 70 persons who requested religious conversion between May and July 1941. Finally, he recounts the fate of Orthodox churches in the Otočac area and the attitude toward the religion of the Serbs in Lika under the socialist regime as a result of Serbian suffering during World War II.

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