Date: 6 June 2026
Place: Centre for Protestant Studies Gáspár Károli, Serbia
Topic: RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY BEYOND MOHÁCS: Coexistence of Peoples in the Shadow of the Ottoman Conquest – in the Past and in Cultural Memory
Marking the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Mohács, the 2026 Károli Forum reflects on a historical turning point that not only brought about the military and political collapse of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, but also fundamentally reshaped the cultural, social, and religious relations of Central and East-Central Europe. The defeat at Mohács fragmented the region into three distinct political spheres — Royal Hungary under Habsburg rule, the Ottoman Empire’s newly conquered territories, and the Principality of Transylvania — while simultaneously reshaping neighbouring lands, including the division of the Kingdom of Croatia within the emerging Habsburg–Ottoman frontier zone.
These transformations unfolded within a markedly multi-ethnic environment. Slavic, Hungarian, Romanian, and German populations, alongside other groups, inhabited the region both before and after Mohács; however, their demographic balance, legal status, and confessional affiliations were profoundly reshaped by warfare, migration, and competing forms of imperial governance. Following the gradual retreat and eventual dismantling of Ottoman rule across much of the region in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, extensive resettlement policies further reinforced ethnic and confessional diversity, as new population groups were introduced alongside surviving local communities. The resulting mosaic of peoples and faiths became one of the defining characteristics of the post-Ottoman borderlands.
Within this fragmented and constantly changing political environment, the ideas of the Reformation spread with remarkable speed and became deeply intertwined with ethnic identities, social structures, political interests, and local cultural traditions. The coexistence of Catholic, Protestant (Lutheran, Reformed, Unitarian), various Orthodox, Islamic, and other confessional traditions was not merely a source of conflict but; in many cases, it also gave rise – at the level of everyday practice – to strategies of coexistence, pragmatic compromises, and distinctive forms of religious and social interaction.
The 2026 Károli Forum seeks to explore how the events surrounding Mohács, together with the long aftermath of Ottoman conquest and retreat, contributed to the emergence, transformation, and enduring presence of religious, ethnic, and cultural diversity in Central and East-Central Europe — both as a historical reality and as a lasting element of the region’s cultural memory.
The Concept
The annual Károli Forum aims to bring together scholars from various fields within the humanities and related disciplines, united by a shared commitment to multidisciplinary analysis of the relationship between Protestantism and humanity within broader social, cultural, political, and public contexts. Encompassing a wide spectrum of the humanities and affiliated research areas, the Forum remains attentive to contemporary perspectives and methodological diversity, and it encourages dialogue among historians, sociologists, philosophers, theologians, legal scholars, and researchers in linguistics, literary, cultural, and memory studies.
The 2026 Károli Forum invites contributions examining religious pluralism in the post-Mohács world and in the long aftermath of Ottoman conquest and retreat. Participants are encouraged to analyse how religious diversity emerged, how it was regulated, and how it was debated and negotiated in everyday life, institutional arrangements, and political thought. Equally important is the question of how these phenomena were later interpreted, preserved, and re-imagined in historiography, cultural memory, and public discourse. By addressing both historical realities and their subsequent representations, the Forum seeks to highlight the enduring relevance of early modern patterns of coexistence, conflict, and adaptation for understanding religious and cultural diversity today.
Public Call
The Centre for Protestant Studies Gáspár Károli invites all interested scholars to participate in the work of Károli Forum MMXXVI by submitting paper proposals in accordance with the Instructions for Authors.
The conference welcomes research-based scholarly contributions from a broad range of the humanities and related disciplines. Alongside historical approaches, the programme is pleased to receive papers from fields including cultural studies, law, anthropology, sociology, ethnography, memory studies, philosophy, political thought, and related fields. Particular attention is given to analyses of models of coexistence, conflict, and adaptation, as well as to examinations of how such experiences have been narrated, reinterpreted, and utilised from the early modern period to the present.
In accordance with the organiser’s research programme policy, special consideration will be accorded to papers addressing the region of Vojvodina. Accordingly, contributions are welcome in English, Hungarian, and Serbian, as well as in any of the official languages of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Croatian, Romanian, Slovak, or Ruthenian).
Authors are requested to submit the title of their proposed paper, the name(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s), an abstract and a set of keywords, via the online submission platform.
For further information regarding the conference programme, thematic scope, or submission procedure, please contact the organisers.
Abstract submission deadline: 10 March 2026
Conference Proceedings
All papers presented at Károli Forum MMXXVI will be published in a standalone, peer-reviewed volume as part of the annual Conference Proceedings series.
Agenda
The agenda of Károli Forum MMXXVI will be made available on the official website of the organiser prior to the conference.
