After the communist regime seized power in Albania in 1944, the vilification, humiliation, persecution and execution of clergy of all faiths, including Muslim, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, ...were conducted publicly. Religious estates were nationalized in 1946, and around the same time, religious institutions were closed or converted into warehouses, gymnasiums, workshops or cultural centers. In the communist constitution of 1976, Albania became the first constitutional atheist state in the world. In Article 37 of the Constitution was stated “the state does not recognize any religion”. Albanians were forced to deny their religion, change their belief system and adopt the new socialist way of life that praised secular gods such as the Communist Party and its leaders. The image of the party leader replaced religious icons. Young people were encouraged to follow worldly pursuits, including offering their life for communist deities. With the fall of communism, Albanian clerics and foreign missionaries encouraged the revival of religiosity in the country. Because in Albania, religious institutions and clergy did not exist for more than 3 decades, foreign actors played a major role in the return of religion to social life and among young people. Post-communist Albania represents a quintessential case study of importing religion into a formerly atheistic country that lacked qualified clergy, religious institutions and strong religious beliefs. In the permissive post-communist Albania, people, especially young people, attributed different meanings to religion and religiosity. Mere investigations and surveys of faith communities along traditional lines would fail to provide useful insights into the significant transformations that have impacted the religious field in Albania after the fall of the communist regime and the current challenges faced by new and “traditional” denominations. The post-communist religious context is dominated by two opposing currents: The first trend is marked by the legal organization of religious practice in the public space, which grants freedoms and equality to the “traditional” religions recognized by the state, but autonomous and independent from it. The other trend is shaped by the rituals and practices of believers from abroad who are pushing for the creation of new autonomous religious communities. This paper is not investigating religious “communitarianism” along traditional lines but rather examines salient religious identification and societal relationships and discusses their implications. This analysis rests on survey data and free-flowing and open-ended interviews conducted mainly with students of the Political Science Department of the University of Tirana and of the European University of Tirana, as well as research of different social networks. The article is divided into three parts, which present the following: literature insights, the historical background of Albania’s secularization and current religious trends and practices.
U ovom članku istražujemo različite forme putopisa, medijskih izvještaja, diplomatskih zapisa, politika, istinosnih tvrdnji i svjedočanstava eksperata u kojima su različite narativne perspektive o ...balkanskim ratovima, kako starim (1912–1913) tako i novim (1991–1999), bile najevidentnije. Tvrdimo da su načini na koje su ove perspektive ukorijenjene u različitim vremenima i istorizacijama rezultovali u konstruisanju opšteprihvaćenih i zastarjelih predstava. U praktičnom smislu, istražujemo nekoliko obrazaca narativa koji su vodili senzacionalizmu medijske industrije i esencijalizaciji kolektivnog pamćenja. Uzeti zajedno, kao opšta odlika savremene politike i analize u dominantnom međunarodnom mišljenju, politici i nauci, ovi narativni obrasci pokazuju da se istorijsko znanje prenosi na načine koji stvaraju sadašnjost i predstavljaju izvještaje o drugoj prošlosti, kao i da se kolektivna vjerovanja aktera međunarodne zajednice konstruišu kao medijski događaji i javne hegemonističke predstave. Cilj nam je pokazati na koji način se određeni trenuci prekida istoricizuju i posljedično koriste i zloupotrebljavaju za anahronistično predstavljanje jugoistočne Evrope.
In this article, we explore the ways in which from the beginning to the end of twentieth century different temporalities and historicizations stemming from different narrative perspectives on the ...Balkan wars have constructed different commonplace, timeworn and enduring representations. In practical terms, we take issue with several patterns of narratives, such as the sensationalism of media industry, the essentialization of collective memory, the securitization of imaginary threats and the pacifist activism of normative transformations. It is our contention to argue that they historicize certain moments of rupture, which are subsequently used and misused to construct an anachronistic representation of Southeast Europe that may conceal hidden interests. Contrastingly, an alternative narrative that emphasizes a “history from below” as an apperception of the temporality of being can offer a revisionist approach that may show the futility of ahistorical accounts.
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In this article, we explore various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy-making, truth claims and expert accounts in which different narrative perspectives on the ...Balkan wars, both old (1912-1913) and new (1991-1999), have been most evident. We argue that the ways in which these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicisations and have resulted in the construction of commonplace and time-worn representations. In practical terms, we take issue with several patterns of narratives that have led to the sensationalism of media industry and the essentialisation of collective memory. Taken together as a common feature of contemporary policy and analysis in the dominant international opinion, politics and scholarship, these narrative patterns show that historical knowledge is conveyed in ways that make present and represent the accounts of another past, and the ways in which beliefs collectively held by actors in international society are constructed as media events and public hegemonic representations. The aim is to show how certain moments of rupture are historicised, and subsequently used and misused to construct an anachronistic representation of Southeast Europe.
In this article, we explore various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy-making, truth claims and expert accounts in which different narrative perspectives on the ...Balkan wars, both old (1912–1913) and new (1991–1999), have been most evident. We argue that the ways in which these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicisations and have resulted in the construction of commonplace and time-worn representations. In practical terms, we take issue with several patterns of narratives that have led to the sensationalism of media industry and the essentialisation of collective memory. Taken together as a common feature of contemporary policy and analysis in the dominant international opinion, politics and scholarship, these narrative patterns show that historical knowledge is conveyed in ways that make present and represent the accounts of another past, and the ways in which beliefs collectively held by actors in international society are constructed as media events and public hegemonic representations. The aim is to show how certain moments of rupture are historicised, and subsequently used and misused to construct an anachronistic representation of Southeast Europe.
In this article, we adopt a socio-anthropological approach to understand how hegemonic international representations are constructed in the politics and theory of international relations, ...specifically how Southeast Europe is perceived in West European imagination. We focus on various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy making, truth claims and expert accounts related to different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars, both old (1912-1913) and new (1991-1999). We show how these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicizations, and how they contribute to international representations that affect international politics, particularly in relation to perpetuating othering and containment of Southeast Europe. We demonstrate through a detailed analysis and problematization how these international representations are culturally and politically constructed. They do not neutrally refer to a reality in the world; they create a reality of their own. As such, how international representations are constructed is itself a form of power and hegemony in both the practice and the theory of international relations.
In the standard folkloric and ethnographic tradition of Albanian studies, various efforts to seize an authentic, traditional and popular culture, supposed to have really functioned in a society of ...official ideology, were devoted primordially to a catalogue of descriptivist and empiricist research, which only served to confirm the ultimate goal of constructing a primarily essentialized national specificity and a particularly antiquated view of national culture. Whereas the long-term continuities in the Albanian studies of people's culture (kultura popullore), which pre-dated and out-lived socialism, together with the ambiguous relationship to anthropology are emphasized elsewhere, in this paper we look more closely at the limited changes and innovations that occurred in the decades of communist regime in Albania. The aim is to uncover how the traditional ethnographic-folkloric studies of people's culture, marked by intellectual isolation and stigmatized by association with moralist and nationalist ideologies, were mobilized to service the shifting ideological needs and state policies towards the cultural hegemony of the communist regime.
This article introduces the socio-anthropological concept of international representations to examine the relationship between a civilizational rhetoric, the West European and the international ...politics of otherization and containment of Southeast Europe, and an essentialist and timeless bias in international relations theory, including both radical and constructivist trends. We first explore the different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century. Their subsequent problematization is aimed at challenging the way they have constructed commonplace and time-worn representations, which international society shares with different consequences in international affairs. This is a limited conception since international representations as a socio-anthropological concept are always socially, culturally and politically constructed, contested and negotiated. They do not neutrally refer to a reality in the world; they create a reality of their own. Moreover, this limited conception ignores the fact that how, by whom and in whose interest international representations are constructed is itself a form of power in international relations. Therefore, the way international representations are constructed can be problematized as an example of political and ideological projects that operate in the West as well as in the Southeast European countries that are the object of Western foreign policy.
This article introduces the socio-anthropological concept of international representations to examine the relationship between a civilizational rhetoric, the West European and the international ...politics of otherization and containment of Southeast Europe, and an essentialist and timeless bias in international relations theory, including both radical and constructivist trends. We first explore the different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars from the beginning to the end of twentieth century. Their subsequent problematization is aimed at challenging the way how they have constructed commonplace and time-worn representations, which international society shares with different consequences in international affairs. This is a limited conception since international representations as a socio-anthropological concept are always socially, culturally and politically constructed, contested and negotiated. They do not neutrally refer to a reality in the world; they create a reality of their own. Moreover, this limited conception ignores the fact that how, by whom and in whose interest international representations are constructed is itself a form of power in international relations. Therefore, the way international representations are constructed can be problematized as an example of political and ideological projects that operate in the West as well as in the Southeast European countries that are the object of Western foreign policy.
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