The Vakëf: Sharing Religious Space in Albania

The fall of the city of Durrës in 1501 to the Ottoman armies, ended the Venetian administration of the southeastern shores of the Adriatic and led to the full installation of the Sultan's rule in North Albania. By the early 16 th century, the latter territory turned into a borderland and became an arena of fierce struggle for economic, political, and military supremacy between actors who competed for supremacy in the Mediterranean. At the macro scale level, this period was marked, on one hand by the establishment of the Ottoman institutions in these newly acquired dominions and the strengthening of their grasp over local population; and on the other, by the Papacy's plans to organize crusades against the Ottomans in Christian lands of Rumelia, and the Venetians and, later on, the Spanish military campaigns to uproot the Sublime Porte from its European possessions. Events of such a magnitude affected in irreversible ways the local population, which found itself at the centre of imperial clashes between competing centers with hegemonic aspirations while getting integrated into a new political, economic, and cultural order. This paper aims to contextualize the interaction between imperial competition with the social and religious transformations in the 16 th centurya time of

Balkan and Baltic States in United Europe - Histories, Religions and Cultures II, 2018

Albania is a country with different religions and a high tolerance between them. This statement is uttered often and willingly used by Albanians, state officials, clerics as well as by foreign media. Nevertheless, various scientists deconstruct this as self-credit and myth (see e.g. Pistrick 2013; Schmitt 2012; Endresen 2010). In fact, Albania was during its rigid communist regime and particularly between 1967 and 1990, the first and so far only atheistic state. During this time, all sacral buildings of the country were closed and then either destroyed or transformed into storages, libraries, sports-halls, and cultural centers. Nowadays there are four major religions active in Albania: Sunni-Islam, Bektashism as well as Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism. Starting from this background, when paying a visit to Albania, one can observe a significant religious re-sanctification in the country‘s cultural landscape. Since 1991, several new orthodox and catholic churches have been constructed in different zones of Albania. Nevertheless, the amount of new mosques is most evident in the entire country. Even remote settlements, semi-deserted areas and so called communist new towns – cities, in which the communist regime never permitted religious buildings – have witnessed a recent emergence of church towers and/or minarets as urban landmarks. Besides this, the religious affiliation of Albanians and their attendance of religious services still remain unmeasured, leaving unclear whether Albanians are really becoming more religious during the recent years of transition. The modern laic Albanian state itself does not actively support the construction of religious buildings. However, the high construction activity of new mosques in the country is supported by foreign donors, often coming from Arabic states. Considering the defective role of the state during the communist regime makes a close control and regulation of religions a "pariah" for modern Albanian politics. What remains, are publicly unresolved topics, like the fear of religious extremism, an imbalance between spatial and spiritual presence of religion in Albania and the question of political instrumentalization of religion and religious symbolism by foreign investors. My presentation critically discusses these topics using examples of communist new towns and the periurban area in Albania. It will at first give a synopsis on the historic and demographic setting of religions in Albania. From this point, the relation between the religious affiliation of Albanians and the (Islamic) re-sanctification of space will be drawn from a geographic point of view. It relies on data from recent interviews on national and local level, conducted with public administrations, religious communities, Imams and the resident population.

1986

The presentation deals with spatial elements of the Albanian identity. From a geographic perspective, it will follow the thoughts of Assmann (1988), Halbwachs (1991), Welzer (2008) and Kim & Park (2014) on the communicative transmission of cultural memory, as well as the immanent processes of cultural place-making and the negotiation of social identities (Tse 2014). It will discuss how Albania’s post-socialist cultural landscapes, consisting of several layers of history and its socio-economic discontinuities (Nitz 1995), are at the same time influencing and reflecting the Albanian identity. It will focus on lapidars and mosques, two cultural landscape elements that, due to their rectangular architecture, form dominant features in the Albanian landscapes. Lapidars are abstract socialist monuments that were a common instrument for expressing the ideals of Enver Hoxha’s isolated communism. Of more than 1000, some 700 of them are still scattered around the Albanian landscapes. While lapidars equally represent the socialist historiography, depending on the place, time and background or their construction, today, no common practice exists for preserving, removing, transforming or re-locating them. Instead, they are found in widely varying condition, showing that there is no common cultural memory but, instead, diversified identities regarding the socialist cultural landscape of Albania. At the same time, the often cited, but equally often deconstructed (i.e. Clayer 2007, Endresen 2012, and Pistrick 2013) myth of Albanian religious tolerance and the harmonious coexistence of Islam and Christianity is an important element of Albanian identity. Having declared Albania the first and so far only atheist state in 1967, Hoxha’s regime closed all religious buildings in the country and either transformed them into cultural centers, sports halls, cinemas, storage depots, barns etc. or – as in most cases – destroyed them. After the fall of the regime, hundreds of new religious buildings were constructed, mainly financed by foreign donors. With their dominant architectural features, such as church-towers and minarets, they are now re-defining the Albanian cultural landscape. However, most Albanians do not follow any religion. Instead, as a common identity on religious denomination, the Albanian poet Pashko Vasa’s expression that “the religion of the Albanians is Albanianism” is often evoked. The remains of the historic socialist, and at the same time highly re-sanctified, cultural landscapes in contemporary Albania are therefore a mirror for Albanians’ indifferent religious affiliation and diverse cultural memory regarding socialist historiography.

2012

Introduction by Maria Couroucli 1. Identification and Identity Formation around Shared Shrines in West Bank Palestine and Western Macedonia / Glenn Bowman 2. The Vakef: Sharing Religious Space in Albania / Gilles de Rapper 3. Kom iluk and Taking Care of the Neighbour's Shrine in Bosnia-Herzegovina / Bojan Baskar 4. The Mount of the Cross: Sharing and Contesting Barriers on a Balkan Pilgrimage Site / Galia Valtchinova 5. Muslim Devotional Practices in Christian Shrines: the Case of Istanbul / Dionigi Albera and Benoit Fliche 6. Saint George the Anatolian: Master of Frontiers / Maria Couroucli 7. A Jewish-Muslim Shrine in North Morocco: Echoes of an Ambiguous Past / Henk Driessen 8. What Do Egypt's Copts and Muslims Share? The Issue of Shrines / Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen 9. Apparitions of the Virgin in Egypt: Improving Relations between Copts and Muslims? / Sandrine Keriakos 10. Sharing the Baraka of Saints: Pluridenominational Visits to the Christian Monasteries in Syria / Anna...

This paper addresses the issue of religion in post-communist Albania. It is based on ethnographic material collected in the southeastern district of Devoll in the mid-90s. Through an analysis of the role of religion within local society it attempts to question the common assumption that religion in Albania 'does not matter', without, on the other hand, claiming that there is ground for religious conflict or fundamentalism. In this paper, I analyse the relations between Muslims (who are in majority in this district) and Orthodox Christians by looking at local ideas about 'culture'. This category, which should be understood as 'civilisation' or 'education', appears as a way to classify people and religious communities: Christians are generally granted more 'culture' than Muslims. The aim of this paper is to understand the meaning of such statements about the level of 'culture' of Muslims and Christians and to explain the use of the category of 'culture' in relation to the present state of Muslim/Christian relations.

ACN International, 2022

Albania’s Communist regime tried to stamp out religion completely. Decades later, the country continues to suffer from the mass emigration of its younger citizens, due to lack of opportunities. Project director for Albania Marco Mencaglia, from Aid to the Church in Need International (ACN), visited the country and describes a young, vibrant and hopeful Church. In this interview he explains how ACN is contributing to this rebirth. El régimen comunista de Albania intentó acabar con la religión por completo. Décadas después, el país sufre bajo la migración masiva de jóvenes al exterior por falta de oportunidades. Marco Mencaglia, responsable de los proyectos de la fundación internacional Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) en el país, ha visitado el país y describe una Iglesia joven, vibrante y esperanzada, y explica cómo ACN contribuye a este renacimiento.