Dr. Aira Võsa: Religious crises in early modern Livonia: Texts and Contexts

Dr. Aira Võsa (Under and Tuglas Literature Centre, The Estonian Academy of Sciences):
"Religious crises in early modern Livonia: Texts and Contexts"

Abstract
In the early modern period, Livonia was hit by a series of religious crises or depressions, accompanied by political and ecclesiastical changes. Religious crises in this context can be interpreted as the transformation of a clerically homogeneous and stable situation into an unstable one, deviations from the normative practices of piety, or the pluralism that replaced the monopolistic status of one denomination. From these presuppositions grew the theological-polemical literature that is the focus of the planned presentation. In particular, it will look at the texts of Livonian authors that were motivated by Counter-Reformation, superstition, syncretism, spiritualism and pietism.