i asked claude about religion and political alignments and nationalism in the region and basically everything south and east of croatia is difficult to budge from its positions. the logic it gave was that during the ottoman occupation, religious/national identity was tightly coupled through turkish oppression. everything north and west was more the vienna enlightenment secularism. EU hasn't caught on or accession been permitted to happen in this region because it's politically unpopular. hungary is nominally catholic but factually agnostic.