Viaggiare per fede. Il pellegrinaggio alla Mecca e la politica estera jugoslava (1949-1961)

• Main Author: Mario Giulio Salzano, è dottorando in Storia dell’Europa dal Medioevo all’età contemporanea “Università degli Studi di Teramo” presso l’Università degli Studi di Teramo. Tema della sua ricerca è: La questione nazionale bosniaco-musulmana (1949-1971).
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Diacronie 2018-12-01
• Series: Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea
• Subjects: pellegrinaggio; La Mecca; Bosnia-Erzegovina; nazionalismo; islam; pilgrimage; Mecca; Bosnia and Herzegovina; nationalism
• Online Access: http://www.studistorici.com/2018/12/29/salzano_numero_36/
• ISSN: 2038-0925; 2038-0925

In Yugoslavia, in the early post-war years, the organisation of the annual hadž (pilgrimage to Mecca) was bound by the strict guidelines laid down by the State Secretariat for the Interior – (DSUP, Državni Sekretarijat Unutrašnjih Poslova). Between 1949 and 1961, before it took on the dimension of a mass phenomenon, participation in the hadž was strictly limited to a small number of “trusted” religious officials. The attitude of the authorities, over the years, was controversial. For communist executives, the journey to Mecca was first and foremost an opportunity to project the “new face” of Yugoslav socialism in the Eastern Mediterranean Arab countries, during the same period in which it was consumed by the crisis between the Soviet Union Communist Party and the Yugoslav Communist Party (1948-1955). At the same time, the organisation of the hadž was determined by the direction of Yugoslav diplomacy in relations with the countries of the Middle East. The mediation of Bosnian Muslim officials in relations with the political and religious institutions of traditional Muslim Arab countries is evidenced in the numerous reports by the Commission for Religious Affairs (KZVP, Komisija za Vjerska Pitanja) and the Islamic Religious Community (IVZ, Islamska Vjerska Zajednica). The Yugoslav government authority’s attitude regarding the pilgrimage to Mecca, in its dual dimension of a religious and political phenomenon, is a good starting point for opening new areas of investigation into the relationship between the Yugoslav Communist Party, later the League of Yugoslavian Communists (Komunistička Partija Jugoslavije, since 1952 Savez Komunista Jugoslavije) and the Muslim component of Bosnia and Herzegovina.