The international conference CONTRA SAGAS – Early Modern Witch Trials in the Habsburg Monarchy (16th–18th Centuries), held in Zagreb on 13–14 October 2026 brings together scholars from eight countries whose research explores witchcraft trials and related phenomena across the diverse territories of the Habsburg Monarchy. As the first international conference in Croatia devoted specifically to this subject, CONTRA SAGAS seeks to provide a forum for presenting new research, exchanging methodological perspectives, and fostering closer cooperation among scholars working in different national and historiographical traditions.
The history of witchcraft persecution in the Habsburg lands cannot be adequately understood within the boundaries of individual modern states. Although the territories under Habsburg rule shared certain political, legal, religious, and administrative background, though the chronology, scale, judicial practices, and social dynamics of witchcraft prosecution varied considerably from one region to another. Local courts, municipal authorities, noble estates, ecclesiastical institutions, central governments, and rural and urban communities all participated – although not always in the same manner or to the same extent – in defining, prosecuting, and suppressing magical offences. The resulting diversity calls for approaches that combine detailed regional research with broader comparative analysis. One of the principal aims of the conference is to encourage dialogue between scientific traditions that have often developed separately because of linguistic, disciplinary, and national boundaries.
The presented lectures will address a wide range of interconnected subjects which are discussed at the conference: regional patterns and local specificities of witchcraft prosecution; legal procedures and institutional frameworks; religious and demonological discourses; gender, social marginality, and constructions of deviance; the political and socioeconomic circumstances of individual trials; collective fears, emotions, and community conflicts; and newly discovered or insufficiently studied archival sources. Together, they demonstrate the value of integrating legal, social, cultural, religious, and microhistorical perspectives in the study of early modern witch trials.
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
CONTRA SAGAS
Early Modern Witch Trials in the Habsburg Monarchy (16th – 18th Centuries)
Zagreb, 13–14 October 2026
DAY 1
Tuesday, 13 October 2026
9:15 – 9:45 – Opening of the Conference
9:45 – 11:20 – Keynote session (chair: Deniver Vukelić)
9:45 – 10:30 – Rita Voltmer: War on the Witches’ Dark Counter-State? The Structure of Witch-Hunting in the Spanish-Habsburg Lands and Their Border Regions
10:35 – 11:20 – Gábor Klaniczay: Habsburg Monarchy: Catalyzer or Moderator of Witch Trials in Hungary?
11:20 – 12:00 – Coffee break
12:00 – 13:45 – First session (chair: Blanka Szeghyová)
12:00 – 12:35 – Ildikó Sz. Kristóf: The Guild of Midwives: Historians’ Myth or Social History
12:35 – 13:10 – Gergely Brandl: Urban Witchcraft Trials in the Great Hungarian plain: State, Politics, Crime and Social Order in the Szeged Trials
13:10 – 13:45 – Bence K. Rácz: Panic in Pölöske: A Witchcraft Trial as Condensation of Conflicts in an Eighteenth-Century Hungarian Village
13:45 – 14:30 – Buffet lunch break
14:30 – 16:50 – Second session (chair: Ildikó Sz. Kristóf)
14:30 – 15:05 – Tünde Komáromi: Witchcraft in Torda county (comitatus) and Aranyos seat (sedes) in the 17-18th centuries
15:05 – 15:40 – Agnes Flora: Exorcism in a Glocal Context Demonic Struggle and Religious Competition
15:40 – 16:15 – Blanka Szeghyová: Before the Witch Trials: Early Magic Accusations in Hungary and the State of Research in Slovakia
16:15 – 16:45 – Coffee break
16:45 – 17:45 – Gábor Klaniczay, Tomasz Wiślicz, Blanka Szeghyová, Deniver Vukelić: Round table discussion and Q&A: On the future of the research for the Habsburg Witchcraft Trials (chair: Gergely Brandl)
17:45 – 18:00 – Conclusion of Day One
DAY 2
Wednesday, 14 October 2026
9:00 – 10:30 – Plenary session (chair: Petar Bujas)
9:00 – 9:45 – Tomasz Wiślicz: Burning the Subjects: The Role of the Nobility in Initiating Witch Trials in Rural Areas of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
9:45 – 10:30 – Deniver Vukelić: Witch-Trial Research in Croatian Historiography: A State-of-the-Field Review
10:30 – 10:40 – Coffee break
10:40 – 13:55 – Third Session (chair: Deniver Vukelić)
10:40 – 11:15 – Petar Bujas, Hrvoje Gračanin: Demonological Skepticism of Augustin Kažotić in the Context of Early Modern Criticism of the Reality of Magical Offences
11:15 – 11:50 – Zvjezdana Sikirić Assouline: The Specificities of Working with Manuscript and Published Early Modern Archival Sources on Witch Persecutions
11:50 – 12:10 – Coffee break
12:10 – 12:45 – Klaudia Kelemen: March 26th, 1756: The beginning of the end of the Croatian Witch hunt
12:45 – 13:20 – Lucija Pušonjić: (Institutional Violence Against Women: The Role of the Body in Habsburg Witch Hunts
13:20 – 13:55 – Kristina Milković: Superstition as a topic of reports on the Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier
13:55 – 14:45 – Buffet lunch break
14:45 – 17:30 – Fourth Session (chair: Tomasz Wiślicz)
14:45 – 15:20 – Matevž Košir: The typology and socio-economic context of witch trials in Styria and Carniola
15:20 – 15:55 – Davide Busato: Between Witchcraft and the Returning Dead: A Quantitative Approach to Exhumation Practices in Central-Eastern Europe (17th–18th Centuries)
15:55 – 16:30 – Karolina Anna Wojtucka: Not just witches: Men as defendants in witchcraft trials in Velké Losiny and Šumperk in the 17th century
16:30 – 17:00 – Conclusion and Conference Ending
