Search

The book "Une histoire en travelling de l'Albanie (1920-1939). Avec, au-delà et en deça de l'Etat" by Nathalie Clayer explores the construction of the Albanian nation-state and the formation of modern Albanian society. The book uses a micro-history methodology, with each chapter focusing on a specific case study. The author emphasizes the non-linear and contradictory nature of the state-building process, highlighting the involvement of various actors and factors. The book also examines the role of time, space, and individual trajectories in shaping the Albanian state. Overall, the book provides valuable insights into the complex processes of state-building and modernization in Albania during the interwar period. [Extracted from the article]

The interdisciplinary perspective, between history and anthropology, of our contribution has as its subject the pilgrimage at Kisha e Shna Ndout (Sanctuary of St. Anthony of Padua) in Laç, northern Albania, which is one of the most visited religious sites in southeastern Europe. The church, built there and ministered by Franciscans, is now an impressive place of worship frequented throughout the year by thousands of pilgrims. On the 12th and 13th of June of each year, an official pilgrimage is held, which reaches its climax on the night of the 12th, when thousands of Albanians sleep in the shrine seeking blessings and healing. The pilgrimage practices show how materiality is a privileged means of reaching out to a religious place. This materiality is grounded in the multilayered built environment, which has been built and rebuilt and especially reconstructed after the collapse of the socialist regime—a process that reveals the pivotal function of secular infrastructures in the case of religious places. Virtuality is also an important aspect of the pilgrimage, and so materiality and virtuality form a single milieu that reshapes perceptions. Through participation in this pilgrimage, virtuality is sacralized and promotes sanctity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Mikom Zeqo's (1949–2020) work Syri i Tretë ("The Third Eye", 2001) as a New Age reworking of Albanian Bektashism. The success of this book, and the recognition that Bektashi authorities themselves accorded it, make it highly representative of Bektashi neo-intellectualism and beyond: it is a cross-section that enables us to investigate the complex reworking of Sufi knowledge in a post-secular environment, such as Albania. This article examines this specific work while outlining a history of the Bektashiyya from the Ottoman era to the post-socialist Albanian period and highlighting its doctrinal and practical developments. Syri i Tretë is the expression of a secularist engulfment of post-socialist or even post-secular religion, which Bektashism embodies. Thus, Zeqo's work expresses a common trend in Albanian society that is beyond the members of the Bektashi community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instead, the term European Islam would be used - especially by Islamic authorities - to define the typical local cultural form of Islamic religiosity in Eastern Europe, which would be by its very nature non-normative and non-legalistic, as opposed to transnational Islam, which would be rigid and potentially dangerous. In this way, the state endorses the chosen form of Islamic religiosity as almost the official Islam of the country, I de facto i marginalising all other forms of Islamic religiosity. State-Islam relations and the governance of Islam in Eastern Europe are not so affected by immigration when a migrant Muslim community accommodates the established forms of Islamic religiosity historically defined in the region. [Extracted from the article]

This article reports several excerpts of Georgius Gemnicensis' Ephemeris , a travel journal in which the author recounted his experiences in Mamluk Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, and provided a number of details about customs, beliefs and Islamic practices in such territories at the beginning of the 16th century. Despite the fact that it does not outline a complete landscape, the Ephemeris provides many useful reports about Muslim daily practices (rituals, festivals, beliefs) and culture, in which mystical Islam played an undeniable role, intertwining with other religious traditions and various exogenous and endogenous narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work analyses the historical developments and the acculturation of Sultan nevruz's rite in post-socialist Albania. The general aim of this work is to examine the intertwining of social and cultural transformations with different religious discourses (native/foreign or Bektashi/sunni legacies) in Albanian society, which is shaped by communist patterns (nationalistic and secularistic heritage) and by post-socialist transformation (pluralisation). Firstly, it analyses public narratives and counter-narratives that Bektashi and other authorities produce about nevruz merging positivistic science, nationalistic rhetoric and ʿAlī's venerations; finally, the paper focuses on worship diversification and subjectivities by believers that could build their own individual religiosity embodying, recreating or reworking the discourses of "correctness" framed by Islamic authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An obituary for Professor Alexandre Popović is presented.