Željko Oset has been awarded a Keston Fellowship to conduct research at the Keston Center for Religion, Politics, and Society at Baylor University, Waco, Texas. The Keston Center preserves and provides access to the world’s most comprehensive collection of materials on religious persecution under communist and other totalitarian regimes.
Oset’s research focuses on Stella Alexander’s collection, particularly the materials she gathered for her monographs Church and State in Yugoslavia since 1945 (Cambridge University Press, 1979) and The Triple Myth: A Life of Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac (Columbia University Press, 1987). Alexander conducted interviews with Yugoslav interlocutors and accessed sources that are now publicly unavailable, offering a rare perspective on Church-State relations in Yugoslavia. Oset’s research will shed new light on the role of priests’ associations and the oath of allegiance, topics central to the communist regime’s attempts to control the Catholic Church.