Olha Smolina, Professor of the Department of Political Science and Cultural Studies of the School of Law, took part in the annual International Scientific Conference Religious Education and Religiosity of Young People in Belgrade (Serbia) as part of active cooperation with scholars from European universities and the exchange of experience and testing of research results at September international conferences.
The conference was organized by The Institute of Social Sciences with the broad support of scholars from Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, and Ukraine.
The conference papers touched upon various aspects of the perception of religiosity in all the confessions that are common in the European and Balkan region. The topic of the conference became relevant, given that confessionalism is considered to be a component of national identity in practice.
The conference was organized by Dr. Mirko Blagojevic, a Serbian scientist and specialist in the sociology of religion, with whom the department has maintained close relations for more than 10 years.
Olha Smolina continued to promote Ukrainian culture at the scientific conference “Българите в огледалото на близки и съседни съседи – проблеми при изграждане на образа” (“Bulgarians in the mirror of perception of close and distant neighbors: problems of image formation”), held at St. Clement of Ohrid University in Sofia.
The report was devoted to the image of Bulgaria and Bulgarians in the eyes of Ukrainians during the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917-1921 and today’s parallels and was aimed at strengthening Ukrainian-Bulgarian academic ties.