Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe: Crossing the Borders (Routledge Studies in Pilgrimage, Religious Travel and Tourism) [1 ed.] 9781472415929, 9781315600505, 1472415922

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: Crossing the Borders
Part I Creating New and Reclaiming Old Religious Homes
2 From the Chapel on the Hill to National Shrine: Creating a Pilgrimage ‘Home’ for Bosnian Croats
3 Pilgrimages to Gökçeada (Imvros)
Part II Inter-Religious Dialogue and Intra-Religious Competition
4 Pilgrimage Site Beyond Politics: Experience of the Sacred and Inter-religious Dialogue in Bosnia
5 Competing Sacred Places: Making and Remaking of National Shrines in Contemporary Poland
Part III Reconstructing Religious and Secular Space
6 From Religious to Secular and Back Again: Christian Pilgrimage Space in Albania
7 Sterilization and Re-sacralization of the Places of Secular Pilgrimage
8 Secular Journeys, Sacred Places
Part IV
9 Concluding Thoughts
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe

Since the beginning of the anthropology of pilgrimage, scant attention has been paid to pilgrimage and pilgrim places in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe. Seeking to address such a deficit, this book brings together scholars from central, eastern and south-eastern Europe to explore the crossing of borders in terms of the relationship between pilgrimage and politics, and the role which this plays in the process of both sacred and secular place-making. With contributions from a range of established and new academics, including anthropologists, historians and ethnologists, Pilgrimage, Politics and PlaceMaking in Eastern Europe presents a fascinating collection of case studies and discussions of religious, political and secular pilgrimage across the region.

Ashgate Studies in Pilgrimage Series Editors: Simon Coleman, University of Toronto, Canada Dee Dyas, University of York, UK John Eade, University of Roehampton UK and University College London, UK Jas’ Elsner, University of Oxford and University of Chicago Once relatively neglected, pilgrimage has become an increasingly prominent topic of study over the last few decades. Its study is inevitably inter-disciplinary, and extends across a growing range of scholarly fields, including religion, anthropology, geography, history, literary studies, art history, archaeology, sociology, heritage and tourism studies. This process shows no sign of abating – indeed, it looks set to continue to expand. This series seeks to place itself at the forefront of these conversations. Covering new work from both established and emerging scholars it encompasses themes as diverse as pilgrimage within national and post-national frames, pilgrimagewriting, materialities of pilgrimage, digi-pilgrimage and secular pilgrimage. Also in the series Muslim and Catholic Pilgrimage Practices Explorations Through Java Albertus Bagus Laksana

Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe Crossing the Borders

Edited by John Eade University of Roehampton and University College London, UK Mario KatiĆ University of Zadar, Croatia

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © John Eade, Mario Katić and the contributors 2014 John Eade and Mario Katić have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Pilgrimage, politics and place-making in Eastern Europe : crossing the borders / edited by John Eade and Mario Katić. pages cm. -- (Ashgate studies in pilgrimage) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4724-1592-9 (hardcover) 1. Pilgrims and pilgrimages–Europe, Eastern. 2. Religion and politics–Europe, Eastern. I. Eade, John, 1946- editor of compilation. BL619.P5P533 2014 203’.50947–dc23 2013043320 ISBN 9781472415929 (hbk) ISBN 9781315600505 (ebk)

To Mato (Bato) Katić 1970–1992: lost in vain but never forgotten

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Contents List of Illustrations   Notes on Contributors   Acknowledgements   1

Introduction: Crossing the Borders   John Eade and Mario Katić

Part I 2 3

5

1

Creating New and Reclaiming Old Religious Homes

From the Chapel on the Hill to National Shrine: Creating a Pilgrimage ‘Home’ for Bosnian Croats   Mario Katić

15

Pilgrimages to Gökçeada (Imvros), a Greco-Turkish Contested Place: Religious Tourism or a Way to Reclaim the Homeland?   Giorgos Tsimouris

37

Part II 4

ix xi xv

Inter-Religious Dialogue and Intra-Religious Competition

Pilgrimage Site Beyond Politics: Experience of the Sacred and Inter-religious Dialogue in Bosnia   Marijana Belaj and Zvonko Martić

59

Competing Sacred Places: Making and Remaking of National Shrines in Contemporary Poland   Anna Niedźwiedź

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Part III Reconstructing Religious and Secular Space 6 7 8

From Religious to Secular and Back Again: Christian Pilgrimage Space in Albania   Konstantinos Giakoumis

103

Sterilization and Re-sacralization of the Places of Secular Pilgrimage: Moving Monuments, Meanings and Crowds in Estonia  119 Polina Tšerkassova Secular Journeys, Sacred Places: Pilgrimage and Home-making in the Himarë/Himara Area of Southern Albania   Nataša Gregorič Bon

135

Part IV 9

Concluding Thoughts   Glenn Bowman

Bibliography   Index  

153

159 177

List of Illustrations 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7

Kondžilo with old chapel before the construction, August 2010   17 Procession arriving at Kondžilo. At the head of procession there are three flags: flag of Our Lady of Kondžilo, flag of Vatican and flag of Bosnian Croats, August 2013   18 Painting of Our Lady of Kondžilo arriving at Kondžilo, August 2013 26 Calvary with the altar of peace at the remaining of old parish church, August 2012   27 Old chapel in a new role: ‘door’ for the procession to Kondžilo, October 2011   28 Pilgrims at new chapel on Kondžilo, August 2013   30 Construction site of new national pilgrimage place of Bosnian Croats, August 2013   31

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5

Dereköy, a close-up view   Dereköy, from a distance   Festivities at Panayia Balomeni   Main Square, Tepeköy   When the inside turns to outside: a house in Tepeköy  

4.1 4.2

World Meeting for Peace held in Sarajevo, 9–11 September 2012   64 Muslim woman by the fence surrounding the Olovo shrine during the Mass on Assumption Day, 2011   71 Esad Pepić, the imam of Olovo, next to Fra Berislav Kalfić, the former shrine guardian, during the Mass at the Olovo shrine, 1 May 2010   72

4.3

5.1 5.2

5.3 5.4 5.5

Jasna Góra shrine, 2010   Members of a ‘Cavalry Pilgrimage’ after their arrival to Jasna Góra shrine presenting themselves in reconstructed military uniforms of old Polish Cavalry and holding a gorget and a copy of the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa depicted in a ‘Military Robe’, July 2010 Licheń shrine – main basilica, May 2006   Statue of Pope John Paul II at Jasna Góra shrine, 2010   Jasna Góra shrine, 2010  

39 39 42 44 47

81

86 92 96 97

x

6.1 6.2 6.3

6.4 7.1 7.2

Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe

Odhise Paskali, The Comrades, concrete, 1972, architectural complex of the Martyrs’ cemetery, Përmet   The architectural complex of the tombs of the Albanian Renaissance heroes, Punëtori quarters, Gjirokastra, 1970   The complex of houses in Galigat, Gramsh, where Enver Hoxha once found refuge. The Galigat hut, once a state-protected monument of culture, no longer exists; it was demolished by the very descendants of the peasants that received Enver Hoxha   Lapidary statue commemorating the battle of the 1st Offensive Brigade against Nazi forces in 1944, Pishkash, Elbasan   Map of Central Tallinn     Alyosha

107 110

112 114 122 124

Notes on Contributors

Marijana Belaj is an Associate Professor at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia). Her major fields of interest are contemporary pilgrimages, religion and politics, inter-religious dynamics, (non-institutional) practices and processes of consecration of places, persons and time. Her published works include Milijuni na putu. Antropologija hodočašća i sveto tlo Međugorja (Millions en route: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage and the Holy Ground of Medjugorje) (2012). Nataša Gregorič Bon is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Anthropological and Spatial Studies, Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Her research interests include place and location, border dynamics, movement and mobility, and Europeanization. Her regional specialization is in southern Albania where she has so far conducted over 20 months of fieldwork. She has published several articles in Slovenian, Albanian and English on topics such as place, pilgrimage, storytelling, material flows, Europeanization processes, including an article in Tourism, Culture & Communication on post-communism and locality, and in Local Lives: Migration and the Politics of Place (Ashgate 2010) on ownership and belonging. She is the author of the monograph Spaces of Discordance: Ethnography of Space and Place in the village of Dhermi, Southern Albania (ZRC Publishing House, 2010) published in Slovenian. She was a guest editor of the Special Issue of the Anthropological Notebooks, The Contributions to Albanian Studies (2008, xiv/2). Glenn Bowman is Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Kent where he directs the postgraduate programme in the Anthropology of Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Identity. He has done extensive field research on Jerusalem pilgrimage as well as on inter-communal shrine practices in the Middle East and the Balkans. He has worked in Jerusalem and the West Bank on issues of nationalism and resistance for more then twenty years; he has also carried out fieldwork in the former Yugoslavia on contemporary art, political mobilization and, in Macedonia, shared shrines. He recently edited Sharing the Sacra: the Politics and Pragmatics of Inter-communal Relations around Holy Places (2012).

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John Eade is Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Roehampton and Visiting Professor at the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto. His research has focused on global migration, urban ethnicity and identity politics as well as pilgrimage and tourism. His books include the single-authored The Politics of Community (1989) and Placing London (2000), the single-edited Living the Global City (1997) and the co-edited Contesting the Sacred (1991), Reframing Pilgrimage (2004), Transnational Ties (2008) and Accession and Migration (2009). He is currently researching the relationship between pilgrimage and politics across Europe, linked to returning to Lourdes as a helper after a break of 21 years. Konstantinos Giakoumis is Deputy Rector and Associate Professor in History and Art History at the University of New York in Tirana, Albania. He is a PhD holder from the University of Birmingham, UK and his regional research interests focus on the political, social, economic and religious history of the Balkans. His contribution in this volume is based on a wider, ongoing research project on Communism in Albania as ‘political religion’. Mario Katić is a teaching and research assistant at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at University of Zadar, Croatia. He teaches four courses: Pilgrimage and Sacred Places, Ritual Theory, Slavic Mythology and Introduction to Folklore Studies. His main areas of interest are pilgrimage and sacred places, death, memory and folklore. He is the author of numerous articles, editor and co-editor of two volumes about Bosnian Croats, and the co-editor of Pilgrimage and Sacred Places in Southeast Europe: History, Religious Tourism and Contemporary Trends (2014). He is currently undertaking research in the Dalmatian hinterland and Bosnia. Zvonko Martić is a Carmelite monk and a PhD student at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. His research interests lie in the field of inter-religious and inter-ethnic interactions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially multi-religious dialogue in pilgrimage sites. Also, he has researched the traditional attire of Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Anna Niedźwiedź is an anthropologist teaching at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. She is the author of articles and books concerning the phenomenon of Polish Catholicism and Marian cults in Poland. Her publications include The Image and the Figure: Our Lady of Częstochowa in Polish Culture and Popular Religion (2010). Her other research projects deal with the symbolic dimension of urban space and visual anthropology. Since 2009, she has been conducting ethnographic research in Ghana, which focuses on lived religion among members of Catholic communities there.

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Polina Tšerkassova is a PhD candidate and a part-time lecturer in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology in Tallinn University, Estonia. She graduated from Tallinn University and did her research on nationalism and the processes of state-making in post-Soviet Estonia. Her field of research also includes secular pilgrimage, place-making, sense perception and sound. She is currently involved in research with Sufi musicians in Turkey. Giorgos Tsimouris graduated from the Department of Political Sciences, Panteion University, Athens (1980). He studied Sociology at the University of Essex, UK (MA, 1994) and Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex, UK (PhD, 1998). For his doctoral thesis, he conducted research among refugees from the Greco-Turkish war of 1922 from Asia Minor, who settled in Greece. He has published in Greek and English on nationalism, intercultural education, refugee and migratory issues. He is the author of the book Imvrii: Fugitives from our Place, Hostages in our Homeland (Athens, 2007), which examines the trajectory of the Greek community from Imvros (Gökceada). He teaches at the Department of Social Anthropology, Panteion University, Athens.

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Acknowledgements Many people and institutions helped in different ways in the process of creating this volume. Chapters were originally presented as papers on a conference held at Zadar, Croatia, in 2012. So, our thanks first of all go to the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology and the Department of Tourism and Communication Sciences from the University of Zadar, and the university itself for financial support. We would also like to thank the Department of Social Science, University of Roehampton for supporting John Eade’s visit to Zadar. Tomislav Klarin from the Department of Tourism and Communication Sciences, and a member of the organizing committee, deserves special thanks and admiration for making everything work on time and as planned. While only a small number of presented papers were selected for inclusion in this volume, other papers presented at the conference with their interesting topics and quality research, amid pleasant surroundings, were very inspiring and we are very grateful to have met colleagues and with many we have continued cooperation. We would like to thank David Shervington and his colleagues at Ashgate and the editors of the new Studies in Pilgrimage series for recognizing the value of this volume and helping us to realize our ideas and aims. We also thank everyone else that helped us in any way in our work during these past two years. Finally, we thank our families and friends who un-selfishly allowed us to work on this volume in our free time, which should have been spent with them.

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Chapter 1

Introduction: Crossing the Borders John Eade and Mario Katić

Background This volume has emerged from a conference held at Zadar, Croatia, in 2012, which brought together those researching religion, politics, tourism and pilgrimage from both eastern and western Europe. The conference was born out of our desire to contribute to the breakdown of boundaries and stereotypes that have been shaped by both linguistic and disciplinary divisions. Here, we bring together scholars from very different nations across eastern Europe to challenge those divisions through explorations of the relationship between pilgrimage, politics and place-making. We see eastern Europe as an ideal area for exploring the relationship between religion and politics, and by focusing particularly on pilgrimage sites – religious and secular, old and new, as well as those which are being de-constructed. We can also study this relationship through the links between past and present. The sites we have chosen are located within nations whose histories are characterized by dramatic political, economic and social change, accompanied in many cases by traumatic conflict and shifting borders. Yet, as the deep divisions of twentiethcentury Europe soften, we can now challenge long-standing assumptions about the Other – whether this be other nations, religions, or other regions within a politically changing Europe, such as ‘eastern Europe’, the ‘Balkans’ or the ‘Baltic states’. We are focusing, after all, on an area where empires unravelled with unexpected speed during the early twentieth century. The revision of territorial boundaries after the First World War had a crucial impact on central and eastern Europe leading to antagonisms which encouraged the next, even more global conflagration in 1939. The defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies resulted in another spate of boundary movement as Stalin moved Poland’s borders westwards and supported the creation of a new nation – the German Democratic Republic – at the OderNeisse line. The closing of the ‘Iron Curtain’ and the creation of the Berlin Wall were two more radical changes which imposed a sharp division between European countries, which had been linked by centuries of economic and cultural exchange. Not surprisingly, the destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 visually signified the more general collapse of the Iron Curtain and socialist political, economic and ideological structures. The eastwards expansion of the European Union, involving the formal entry of the ‘A8’ countries in 2004, Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, and Croatia in 2013, encouraged young people, in particular, to migrate to the West, at least for a time (see Burrell 2009, Black et al. 2010). Membership of the European

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Union was not seen as an unmixed blessing by some of these migrants and those remaining in their countries of origin (see Eade and Valkanova 2009). There are encouraging signs that the flows of people, capital, goods, information and images across European borders are not just one way. In the academic sector, West European scholars are building networks with East European colleagues, encouraged by EU funding of the Erasmus exchange scheme and various research programmes. Research centres in former socialist countries, such as the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology at Halle/Saale, have also contributed to this breaking-down of intellectual boundaries. However, Chris Hann, the Max Planck Institute’s founding director, warns us against painting too rosy a picture of change and mutual understanding. Western scholars have been influenced by longestablished stereotypes about eastern Europe, which have been compounded by linguistic boundaries. In the sociology and anthropology of religion, for example, those stereotypes were given intellectual force by the great German pioneer, Max Weber. His understanding of secular modernity and capitalism was firmly linked to the Protestant Reformation and assumptions about the essential mysticism characterizing Orthodox Christianity (Hann 2011: 14). More recent interpretations reproduce the sharp separation in different guises. Charles Taylor, for example, in his influential A Secular Age (2007) brings Protestantism and Catholicism together into ‘a unitary “north Atlantic world”’ and ignores eastern traditions. As Hann notes, the ‘reader is left with the impression that Eastern Christendom is a radically different world’ (ibid.: 12). Western ignorance has been compounded by a lack of knowledge about research undertaken across eastern and south-eastern Europe on local religious traditions, which has a long history; see, for example, the work of those operating within the ethnology and folklore tradition, such as Lavtižar 1933, Czarnowski 1938, Stabej 1965, Ramovš 1977, Čapo 1991, Belaj 1991, Ramšak 1996 and Psihogiou 1996. Although German universities, in particular, have acted as an important conduit for the dissemination of East European research, their global influence has been restricted by the post-war dominance of English as the global lingua franca, as well as by the power of Anglophone universities and the academic publishing industry in an increasingly globalized market. East European conferences on the sociology and anthropology of religion, ethnology and folklore have been forced to adapt to this shift in academic and linguistic power. Many of their meetings now use English as the main means of communication and we followed suit at the Zadar conference. Even so, the adoption of English has enabled research on East European pilgrimage to cross territorial and intellectual borders. From the early 1990s, scholars from the East European region have made a significant contribution to this flow through their study of particular religious sites (for example, Vukonić 1992, Jurkovich and Gesler 1997, Buzalka 2007, Sekerdej, Pasieka and Warat 2007, Karamihova and Valtchinova 2009, Niedźwiedź 2010), religious pilgrimage routes and journeys (Jackowski and Smith 1992, Kozlowski 2008), or secular pilgrimages (Belaj 2008; Povedak 2008). They have also contributed to recent

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edited volumes led by western scholars (Margry 2008, Albera and Couroucli 2012, Hermkens et al. 2009). Awareness among western scholars of pilgrimage in East Europe has increased since 1989, partly through studies by western scholars of religion or some other segment of the culture (Duijzings 2000), or particular religious shrines (Bax 1995, 2000, Claverie 2003, Bowman 2010). Chris Hann and Hermann Goltzin in their edited volume, Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective (2010), have also helped to bring pilgrimage research within more general discussions of religious processes across eastern Europe, while studies by Kormina (2004, 2010) and Rock (2007) on pilgrimage and popular religion in Russia have shown us the danger of simply shifting stereotypes and boundaries further east. Interestingly, there still appears to be a certain reluctance to examine the contemporary relationship between pilgrimage, politics and place-making in western Europe. Admittedly, attention has been paid to the contested nature of pilgrimage, especially by anthropologists, but even here the emphasis has often been on the play of power and resistance at the shrines themselves rather than in relation to secular political institutions. The more open route of the camino to Santiago de Compostela has encouraged researchers to look beyond particular sacred sites and to the interplay of religious and secular processes. Frey (1998), for example, has explored the multifarious religious and non-religious motivations among those using the various routes while attention has also been paid to the involvement of political institutions in Spain and Brussels and the economic forces at play (Plasquy 2010). Until the recent publications by Jansen and Notermans (2012) and Fedele (2013), the most effective analyses of the imbrication of religious, political and economic processes had been produced by those discussing the relationship between pilgrimage and tourism (Badone and Roseman 2004, Timothy and Olsen 2006), or the emergence of a particular shrine such as Lourdes (Harris 1999, Kaufman 2005, Claverie 2008). The relationship between contemporary European pilgrimage and politics has been largely studied outside western Europe in eastern and south-eastern Europe (Dubisch 1995, Bax 1995, 2000, Duijzings 2000, Belaj 2008), or far beyond the region (see Sax 1991, Bianchi 2004, Reader 2006). This Volume The substantive chapters in this volume are grouped into three parts. In Part I, Chapters 2 and 3 consider the role played by pilgrimage in creating new homes or reclaiming old ones. Hence, in Chapter 2, Mario Katić examines the development, and re-creation of a Bosnian pilgrimage shrine. He explores the Catholic Church’s relationship towards the people, in particular, and its influence on the creation and preservation of Bosnian Croat identity through the building of a new national shrine – Kondžilo. This process of place-making involves the materialization of symbols in the landscape in order to project an image and communicate a story about the Bosnian Croat struggle and the need for national unity. Drawing on his

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own research and experience as a participant in the pilgrimage, he shows how building a shrine and creating new places in the sacred landscape of Kondžilo affects pilgrims, not only in terms of their religious practices and pilgrimage experiences, but also through their sense of belonging to a particular ethnic community. He shows how the Church seeks to materialize its role and influence in that community by leaving a permanent stamp on physical space. Through the building and rebuilding of the Kondžilo shrine, the Church asserts the permanent presence of Croats in Bosnia, despite their declining population and deteriorating economic and political situation. The religious celebrations at Kondžilo enable Croats from both inside and outside Bosnia to unite in celebration of their religious and ethnic identity. This theme of return and diaspora is continued in Chapter 3 through Giorgos Tsimouris’s study of the annual summer visit by Greeks to their original homeland – the island of Imvros/Gökceada – which is now part of Turkey. He outlines the historical background to their forced departure, the interpretation of the island’s recent history by Turkish officials and tourist office, and how the Greek returnees contest these interpretations of ‘what really happened’ in ways that can be tolerated by Turkish officials. Their return involves pilgrimage as well as a holiday, since it coincides with the Feast of the Assumption and is their way of reclaiming their homeland – however briefly. The Turkish authorities, on the other hand, see the Greeks as tourists, who are contributing financially to the island’s impoverished economy, rather than as pilgrims or exiles. They emphasize the democratic face of the Turkish republic, especially in an island that is a living testimony to intolerance and the negation of religious, cultural and national otherness. Tsimouris concludes that the Greek returnees through religious and daily rituals during their summer visits conflate past and present, mundane and sacred experience, and ethnic and national identity, and challenge fixed territorial imaginaries and national boundaries. In Part II, we see that the interweaving of religious and ethnic identities does not necessarily lead to the contestation of space between rival religio-ethnic groups. At the local level, there are opportunities for inter-religious dialogue and the sharing of sacred space. Furthermore, competition may be just as rife within a religious boundary as across that boundary. Zvonko Martić and Marijana Belaj in Chapter 4 show, therefore, how a pilgrimage site in Olovo, Bosnia, operates as a place where different ethnic and religious groups can collaborate and coexist – in this case, Muslims and Catholics. They challenge popular and political discourses about Bosnia (and its pilgrimage sites) that emphasize inter-ethnic and inter-religious separation and conflict, and they join other anthropologists in demonstrating how pilgrimage sites can – in practice – be shared by members from different religious affiliations. They show that the reality of Bosnia is much more complex when religion and identity are not perceived as exclusionary phenomena. Inter-religious dialogue in Olovo occurs occasionally, mostly during Catholic holidays. The balance of the involvement of Muslims and Catholics in the dialogue varies, while the dialogue itself extends beyond religious belief and practice. They analyse past and present inter-religious dialogue between Catholic and Muslim believers in

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Olovo on three levels: as a dialogue of religious experience, a dialogue of life and a dialogue of deeds. They conclude that the inter-religious dialogue does not mean that religious boundaries are totally porous; the believers remain firmly linked to their own religion and do not avoid their differences. Religion provides rules and guidelines for action, but the space of inter-religious exchange enables opportunities to emerge for solving problems imposed by the reality of everyday life. Competition between shrines within the same ethnic-religious community is the theme of Chapter 5. Here, Anna Niedźwiedź examines the concept of a ‘national shrine’ through an analysis of how the Polish national story (and history) is encrypted into the lived spaces and narratives of two Marian sanctuaries: Jasna Góra, seen as a traditional and historic ‘national shrine’, and Licheń, perceived as an aspiring new ‘national shrine’. The national dimension of Jasna Góra seems to be broadly accepted and recognized by Polish Catholics, at least since the 1990s – while the national dimension of Licheń is also gaining significant and competing attention. Responding to Licheń’s rapid spatial development and popularity, Jasna Góra has eagerly engaged visually and symbolically with the most pressing national issues and constructed further layers of national historiosophy encrypted into it. During the post-Communist period, the dominant national dimension of Polish popular Catholicism has been mirrored in the development of many shrines across the country but despite Jasna Góra’s continued national significance, the most radical and influential expression of that dimension has developed at Licheń. Part III contains three chapters where the secular dimensions of pilgrimage and place-making come to the fore. In Chapter 6, Konstantinos Giakoumis focuses on Albania where after the Second World War the Communist regime declared the country to be the world’s first atheist nation. He outlines the history of religious place-making before the Communist regime, the development of secular pilgrimage during Communism and the subsequent revival of Christian shrines since the 1990s. He shows how various combinations of person, place, text and movement have shaped both religious and secular pilgrimages. Person-centred pilgrimages were established around the remains of secular national heroes or where the blood of Communist fighters or ‘neo-martyrs’ of the secular regime was spilt. After the fall of Communism in 1991, some Communist pilgrimages were erased, while others underwent a process of reinterpretation, thanks to their polysemy which helped to disassociate them from state-imposed Communist ideology. Chapter 7 also investigates the contested process of place-making in the context of secular pilgrimage. Polina Tšerkassova focuses on post-Communist Estonia and its capital, Tallinn. She links the process of contested place-making to state politics in order to gain a more profound understanding of the interconnectedness between pilgrimage and politics as well as the processes of sacralization, sterilization and re-sacralization of certain public places of commemoration. Her case study concerns struggles surrounding the monument of the Unknown Soldier in Tallinn. Her main argument is that secular pilgrimage to the monument can be interpreted as a redemption of proximity not just with the victims of war but also with physically

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remote family members and dead relatives, whose graves are scattered around the vast territory of Russia. Hence, the nation’s sacred borders are continually contested and renegotiated through the attempts to redeem the connection with the deceased relatives, which is undertaken through movement, commemoration and other practices of pilgrims. In Chapter 8, Nataša Gregorič Bon addresses the discursive differentiation between religions, on the one hand, and tolerance and sharing at the level of practice on the other. She focuses on the relationship between two different religio-ethnic traditions (Christian Orthodox and Muslim), as well as local groups (emigrants and locals) in the Himarë (the official, Albanian name) or Himara (the local, Greek name) area in Southern Albania. She examines the Orthodox pilgrimage to Stavridi, which is undertaken on the day before the Feast of the Assumption. This particular pilgrimage brings together the local population with emigrants, who are originally from the area but mainly live in Athens in Greece. She interprets the emigrants’ homecomings as a secular pilgrimage and vice versa. She concludes that the emigrants reconstruct their sense of rootedness, constitute their identity and reinforce their attachment to the place, and that the religious and secular pilgrimage they are involved in can be interpreted as the trope of a route, with its temporal and spatial dimensions related to the process of place-making. The Central Themes in this Volume The Relationship Between Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making The influence of Communism as a political and ideological regime, not surprisingly, acts as a key theme in the chapters set in Albania, Bosnia, Estonia and Poland. Yet, the regime’s relationship with religion and religious institutions depended on how Communism developed both nationally and locally. We see in this volume how Communism’s collapse opened the door for religious communities to express their identity in countries where religion could be a vehicle for ethnic identity. We also see how their revitalized strength and presence in Albania, Bosnia and Poland has been most visually expressed through architecture with the construction of new shrines or the rebuilding of older ones. All kinds of state and church institutions try to influence, in a top-down process, the creation, re-creation and destruction of pilgrimage places, as well as the meanings and messages they send. Yet, pilgrims have their own politics and they are the ones that make a particular project successful or not. Through pilgrimage (migrations), permanent presence close to a site, or the financing of buildings, pilgrims create the changes from the bottom up, whether this involves supporting their local church leaders or confronting them. Albania provides perhaps the most vivid illustration of state politics’ influence on religion and religious institutions. As Konstantinos Giakoumis shows, the Communist regime introduced secular ‘sacred’ places and pilgrimages in an attempt to break the power of religious shrines and institutions. Yet, although religious

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sites in Albania and other post-Communist countries have been revived together with pilgrimages to them, Polina Tšerkassova’s Estonia case-study reminds us that secular pilgrimage places can retain their political, social and cultural attraction for some ethnic groups and have become symbols of a different time and events – times which may be seen by some as the ‘good old days’ (see Belaj 2008). In the Albanian, Bosnian and Turkish case studies, we also see how the growth of modern travel and virtual communications has enabled even pilgrimage places, located in regions almost abandoned by a particular community, have acquired significant political influence. They are sometimes the only reason why thousands of people come back to their native countries and at least for a brief period of time make an important political statement and presence. Movement, Contestation and Dialogue All the chapters consider the process of movement in different forms. For some, movement involves physical journeys to a country of origin. These are typically undertaken by those from the diaspora during the summer and centre around the Feast of the Assumption on 15 August, as well as Marian shrines which attract both Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians. The position of these visitors is sometimes highly ambiguous and their feelings are very ambivalent. Those participating in the Bosnian pilgrimage described by Katić and the Greeks visiting Imvros discussed by Tsimouris had been displaced by war or forced migration and are – formally at least – no longer members of the territories or nations, which emerged from subsequent treaty agreements. Their return raises the painful issue of belonging, seen in countless examples of loss and dislocation around the world. They are returning to a ‘homeland’, where they are seen as outsiders by those now occupying the locality. In the Bosnia example, Katić describes them as Bosnian Croats while those returning to Imvros call themselves Imvrii or Imviotes, that is, as those who belong to the island despite being displaced. The contested character of both places is evident in the mixture of religious and secular activities and the part played by religious leaders. At Kondžilo, Bosnian Croats from the diaspora mingle with members of the local Croat minority who returned after the early 1990s war. The ongoing political tensions and ethnic division within the new Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina are reflected in the Roman Catholic leaders’ comments about local politics and election contests. Katić does not tell us much about what the local Serbs think about the pilgrims, but in the Imvros case the Turkish officials see the Greek visitors as ‘tourists’ and they seek to unite them with other tourists through secular entertainments, which rival the religious festivities where the Imvrii seek to express their attachment to the sacred homeland. While these two chapters explore the tensions and conflicts around pilgrimages, coexistence and dialogue across religious and ethnic boundaries is clearly possible. Hence, Belaj and Martić seek to counter the influence of studies by Bax and Hayden which emphasize the role played by pilgrimage sites in former Yugoslavia – and

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Medjugorje in particular – as ‘spaces of religious, ethnic and political conflict’. At the Bosnian shrine of Olovo, Catholics and Muslims make ritual use of the same sacred space, even if boundaries are drawn in both physical and ideological terms. During the Catholic ceremonies, Muslims stay outside the church fence and do not confuse their devotion to ‘Holy Mary’ with Maryam, the mother of the prophet Isa. At other times, however, Muslims enter the church to seek Mary’s help. At the local level, therefore, multi-level dialogue challenges assumptions that sacred places will simply reflect or resist wider political conflicts – an example, in other words, of what others have discussed in terms of shared shrines and sacra (see Albera and Coroucli 2012, Bowman 2012). Religious and Secular Pilgrimage – Identity and Memory All the shrines discussed here are being used as markers of identity. Since identities are shifting conditions, so are the pilgrimage places as symbols of those identities. They can serve as a symbol of our pilgrimage place in the same religious community (Poland), symbol of our national identity in situation when we are nothing but a minority in some troubled region (Bosnia, Turkey, Albania), symbol of our community even if the pilgrimage place is not from our religious denomination (again Bosnia), or even be a symbol of some lost time, people and events (Estonia and Albania). Although most of the chapters consider pilgrimage as a journey to and from a religious shrine and the rituals taking place at a sacred place, the studies by Gregorič Bon, Tsimouris, Giakoumis and Tšerkassova show how pilgrimage can involve both religious and secular processes. For the Albanian migrant workers, who spend most of the year in Greece, the August holidays provide an opportunity not only for religious pilgrimage but also for a more general communion with their origins, like the ‘roots’ tourists visiting Ghana or Scotland described by Schramm (2004) and Basu (2004), for example. The interweaving of religious and secular processes can be accompanied by other conflations. At Imvros, the Greek returnees through religious and daily rituals during their summer visits also conflate the past and the present, mundane and sacred experience, and ethnic and national identity, and challenge fixed territorial imaginaries and national boundaries. In the Albanian and Estonian case studies by Giakoumis and Tšerkassova, we see how personal calendars can be affected by changes in public calendars with the collapse of Communism. Yet the transformations in time and space effected in Albania were less dramatic in Estonia, where the Soviet monument and associated May Day pilgrimage survived until recently, before being moved to the edge of Tallinn. Despite the monument’s forced mobility, Russian-speaking devotees still come to the empty space in the city centre to fill it with red flowers. They insist on commemorating a past conflict and a continuing struggle to maintain both their status as an ethnic minority in independent Estonia and their ties with another homeland – Russia. Different histories and calendars are again at work here with the new, highly demonstrative

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Estonian national monument appearing nearby acting as a rival place of secular, nationalist pilgrimage in the country’s ritual calendar. Through movement, people can switch their identities and become somebody else, or return to the people they used to be. This is where memory comes into play. Movement of people with distinctive identities, ideas and feelings needs a material and tangible place that will channel all these emotions and statements. Places are being created from the top down, others are being de-constructed in order to arrest these movements, expressions of identity and memorialization, while others are being preserved working from the bottom up. Person, Place, Text and Movement The relationship between person, place, text and movement explored in Coleman and Eade (2004) and subsequent volumes on pilgrimage is explicitly addressed by Katić and Giakoumis. Yet, other chapters reveal this relationship, especially Niedźwiedź’s Polish case study. Here, the national competition between the two shrines involves a very personal, highly charged relationship between devotees and Our Lady through journeys to and from a sacred place where there is space to develop a range of attractions. Through what might be described as a religious ‘Disneyfication’, the main attraction – the icon of Mary and child at Częstochowa and Licheń’s icon of Mary – are surrounded by statues, buildings and landscaping which are designed to stimulate the visitors’ imagination, emotions and religious understanding. This process of creating ‘thick places’ is assisted by textual representations – guidebooks, texts on monuments, references to the Bible, website pages – which are linked to other texts, such as theological commentaries and school history textbooks and communicated through the media industry and the Internet. This reflects the crucial advance of literacy across Europe and its impact on local devotions imbued with oral traditions and ‘folk’ memories. While other chapters demonstrate the importance of transnational ties linking diasporic communities to their ‘homelands’, the Polish case study explores not just the ties between religious and political elites and ‘ordinary’ people through networks, which bring the local and national together – it also reveals the growing influence of supranational, European identity. Hence, the Częstochowa shrine is represented as both a national and European sacred centre through a process of memory-making, where Poland is located at the centre of Europe rather than on its eastern border. The past informs the present where Poland is playing a prominent role in an expanding European Union. Monumentality and Changing Landscapes – the Intertwining of Religious and Secular Processes A striking feature of the case studies is the development of new and ever more imposing monuments. Both urban and rural landscapes are affected by the appearance of these monuments. Some shrines generate the growth of urban

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centres around them – Częstochowa is the obvious example here, while Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje provide more recent illustrations. Other shrines remain secluded rural venues – for example, Kondžilo – which only come alive on certain occasions. The changes in architectural design raise questions about aesthetic appearance. Are the new structures sympathetic to their surroundings? What values are being employed when we describe them as ‘kitsch’ or ‘overbearing’? These developments and the issues they raise are not peculiar to Europe or Christian pilgrimage – they appear around the globe and involve all the ‘world religions’ through hybrid forms of ‘spiritual’ religion and secular political institutions. In Japan, for example, Shinto shrines complicate western attempts to sharply separate religion and secular worlds, so that the Yasakuni shrine in Tokyo, which commemorates those who died in service of the emperor since 1868, is a complex of buildings where rituals of ancestor worship can be combined with a visit to a museum containing weapons employed during the Second World War. Statues and other features have been donated to the complex which covers a wide area of 6.25 hectares. The building of churches, temples, gurdwaras and mosques around the world are another expression of interweaving religious and secular impulses since they not only provide – sometimes on an impressive scale – space for worship but also affirm the presence of a particular ethnic or national group. In cities expanding through global migration, these buildings have sometimes emerged through a highly contested political process involving local, national, transnational and global identities (see Eade 1997, Garbin 2012). Economic Processes The rapid development of some of the shrines discussed in this volume points to the economic dimensions of contemporary pilgrimage which have attracted scant attention in pilgrimage studies. Where economic considerations have been addressed, this has usually been through discussions of the complex relationship between pilgrimage and tourism. Yet, the operation and expansion of major shrines involves massive accumulation and investment of resources generated by local communities, transnational networks, regional and national governments and, in some cases, supra-national institutions such as the European Union. Attention is turning belatedly to the ways in which pilgrimage and religion, more generally, contributes to and is shaped by neo-liberal market forces (see Gauthier, Martikainen and Woodhead 2011, Reader 2013). As Kaufman’s study of the development of Lourdes during the second half of the nineteenth century reminds us (Kaufman 2005), shrines have long been deeply implicated in the growth of modern modes of consumption. This point is clearly appreciated by those studying pilgrimage in Japan, for example, who have demonstrated that the interweaving of the religious and economic has a long history (see Reader 2006, 2013). Jesus Christ’s expulsion of the moneylenders from the Temple has encouraged a Christian ambivalence towards the presence of economic activities within sacred space which finds little resonance in Japanese traditions.

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Insiders and Outsiders The complex interweaving of meanings and material culture explored in this volume demonstrates the importance of avoiding simple distinctions between pilgrim, tourist, exile, visitor, insider and outsider, sacred and secular. It also raises important questions about territorial, ethnic, bodily and conceptual boundaries, the degrees of thickness and thinness in boundaries, their porosity and changing shape, as well as the overlap between and the collapse of boundaries. These interweavings and questions appear in various guises during this volume, but one classic ethnographic question returns consistently throughout – the extent to which the researchers themselves are insiders. This question is more closely explored by Mario Katić, who describes his role as pilgrim, organizer, researcher and Bosnian Croat. Here is someone whose family was displaced by the war in former Yugoslavia, who suffered the loss of family members and was brought up in Zagreb as a member of the Bosnian Croat diaspora. Polina Tšerkassova also reveals her personal engagement with the Russian-speaking minority in Estonia, while Zvonko Martić’s role as a Catholic priest clearly informs his research interest in inter-religious dialogue. Konstantinos Giakoumis clearly identifies with the Imvrii visitors as a Greek. Nataša Gregorič Bon is the most obvious outsider in terms of her ethnicity, but her research over a period of time enabled her to build relationships where she could, to some extent, become an insider. Crossing Boundaries This volume brings together, therefore, scholars from eastern and south-eastern Europe to explore the crossing of borders through the study of the relationship between pilgrimage and politics and the role which this plays in the process of both sacred and secular place-making. Because it is almost impossible in many countries across this region to separate religion from nations and nationalism, place-making is intimately associated with (changing) constructions of the nation. Religious institutions have frequently acted as guardians of the nation and national unity, and during inter-ethnic conflicts, religious leaders have been among the first to raise the flags of war and lead their religious-ethnic community in the fight against the Other. The disintegration of Yugoslavia provides a sobering illustration of how religious affiliation can mark a nationality and became involved in the denunciation of the Other. Such a pattern can be found across almost all of southeastern Europe. We have sought here to avoid yet another overview of papers, book, ideas and definitions. Our main intention in this introductory chapter has been to provide an outline of the chapters and discuss the main themes emerging from them in order to show how, in practice, politics and pilgrimage connect and how this connection influences place-making. The case studies from different areas of eastern and

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south-eastern Europe demonstrate the complexity characterizing the relationship between pilgrimage, politics and place-making and how careful attention must be paid to the micro historical context. The meaning and functions of a particular pilgrimage site and journey can go in various directions – they can be symbols of national identity or a sharing between different national and religious communities; they can be ways to keep one imaginary community together or serve as reasons for conflict and division; they can act as political statements or commemorate past periods and events. Through this publication, we seek to be the first to bring a comparative perspective to the complex and under-researched phenomenon of both religious and secular pilgrimage in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe. We hope that this volume will make a significant contribution to the development of studies of religion, pilgrimage, nationalism and politics in this highly dynamic area of Europe.

Part I Creating New and Reclaiming Old Religious Homes

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Chapter 2

From the Chapel on the Hill to National Shrine: Creating a Pilgrimage ‘Home’ for Bosnian Croats Mario Katić

During the last few decades, pilgrimages and pilgrimage places in ex-Yugoslavia, including Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), have been the focus of research by many scholars (Vukonić 1992, Bax 1995, Duijzings 2000, Hann 2006, Belaj 2008 and 2012, Bowman 2010, Katić 2010, Henig 2012, Albera and Couroucli 2012).1 Some of this research has concentrated on the sharing of sacred places by different religious communities (Henig 2012) and the complex relationships between those communities, which were willing to share the same sites at one point in history and then fought to the death at another. It was this kind of inter-communal relationship that prompted Robert Hayden to propose the concept of antagonistic tolerance. He explains the sharing of sacred places in south-eastern Europe as ‘a pragmatic adaptation to a situation in which repression of the other group’s practices may not be possible rather than an active embrace of the Other’ (Hayden 2002: 219). Recently, there has been somewhat of a shift in research on pilgrimage places in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in particular, as more and more scholars (Belaj 2012, Henig 2012, Sarač Rujanac 2013) have turned towards examining intra-communal interaction and relationships in and towards pilgrimage places. I follow this trend by describing the creation, development and re-creation of one particular pilgrimage place of Bosnian Croats in order to illustrate the complex relationship within this religious-national community between ‘ordinary’ people, on the one hand, and the Roman Catholic clergy on the other. In Bosnia, the Croats are the smallest in terms of population of the three constitutive nationalities (others being Bosniaks and Serbs). They possess a distinctive heritage based around the struggle for survival over many centuries, and are confined to the smaller towns and districts which have most frequently functioned as enclaves of some sort. The Croats are surrounded by the larger Bosniak and Serbian groups of inhabitants, and are deeply attached to the Catholic Church through a special relationship with the clergy. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995 has had a dramatic influence on this 1  I want to thank Marijana Belaj for her comments and advice. Especially, I want to thank John Eade for his enormous help in the process of creating this text.

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community, since it resulted in an even smaller population of Bosnian Croats, and made them nationally, politically and culturally vulnerable. Because Bosnian Croats have been politically divided between several parties, because economic and military conflict has forced them to leave for the European Union and Croatia, and because they are geographically dispersed across Bosnia, religion appears to be the only visible, stable, element keeping them all together. I will seek to provide an insight into the past and present situation in this particular ‘EuropeanOriental microculture’ (Lovrenović 2002) by focusing on the ways in which Bosnian Croats express their religious identity through pilgrimage. I will approach pilgrimage places as arenas where religious and national ideas are manifested, and analyse and problematize what happens at one particular shrine. I will examine the Catholic Church’s relationship towards the people, in particular, and its influence on the creation and preservation of Bosnian Croat identity through building a new national shrine – Kondžilo. About Kondžilo and the Key Themes When I first began researching pilgrimages to Kondžilo in 2010, little did I know that this pilgrimage place would change in a very short time from a small, wooden, hilltop chapel in a forest above the village of Komušina, into what is currently perhaps the Bosnia’s largest sacred ‘construction site’. Here we can see how a sacred landscape is evolving through the addition of new sacred topoi every year, thereby expanding the sacrality of the surrounding area (see Illustration 2.1). Kondžilo is located in the parish of Komušina, which is today part of the so-called Republika Srpska (Republic of Srpska). Although most people living in the area were Croats before the early 1990s war, by 2012, the demographic situation had changed dramatically. In most of the Croatian villages surrounding the Kondžilo hill there are now very few permanent residents and these are mostly elderly, while the nearby town of Teslić has become predominantly Serbian. The main reason for pilgrimage to Konždilo is the eighteenth-century miraculous painting of Mary, the Mother of God. The painting was probably brought by Franciscans, and since a Franciscan was the first to write down the oral tradition at the end of the nineteenth century about the arrival of the painting and the beginning of the pilgrimage, it seems that the Church was responsible for the creation of this pilgrimage place (Katić 2010).2 Before the 1990s war, pilgrimage to Kondžilo was limited to one a year – the Feast of Mary’s Assumption into heaven, on 15 August – and most pilgrims came from the few nearby parishes. Kondžilo was just another pilgrimage place in Bosnian and Herzegovina: neither more prominent nor important than other similar shrines. After the war ended, and since the miraculous painting’s return to Kondžilo, the shrine’s importance has rapidly increased. During the last few years, the number of pilgrimages  For a detailed analysis of the oral tradition, see Katić 2010 and 2013.

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Illustration 2.1 Kondžilo with old chapel before the construction, August 2010 to Kondžilo has increased to three times a year, though the most important pilgrimage celebration still takes place on 15 August, when thousands of people arrive, mostly Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croats ‘temporarily residing’ in the European Union, and those from Croatia and Switzerland. However, the first pilgrimage of the year takes place during May and involves young people from the Vrhbosna archdiocese, while the third is held during October and involves the inhabitants of the Usora deanery.3 In fact, pilgrimage to Kondžilo is one of the reasons, and frequently the only reason, for those who were displaced from the surrounding villages and parishes, to visit their houses, if only once a year. Pilgrimage to Kondžilo has become the symbol of the existence, homecoming and survival for Croats from this area, as well as for Bosnian Croats in general. In this chapter, I will begin by analysing the events that gave rise to the significance of this pilgrimage place, and prompted the construction of the shrine, which the Bosnian Catholic Church aims to turn into a national shrine for Bosnian Croats. The Catholic Church is now working with the local population and pilgrims to transform the small woodland chapel into a sacred landscape with multiple functions. This process of place-making crucially involves the materialization of symbols in the landscape in order to project an image and send out a story about the Bosnian Croat struggle and the need for national unity (see Illustration 2.2). 3  The parish of Komušina is a part of Usora deanery, which belongs to Vrhbosna archdiocese whose cathedral is in Sarajevo.

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Illustration 2.2 Procession arriving at Kondžilo. At the head of procession there are three flags: flag of Our Lady of Kondžilo, flag of Vatican and flag of Bosnian Croats, August 2013 Drawing on my own research and experience as a participant in the pilgrimage, I aim to demonstrate how building a shrine and creating new places in the sacred landscape of Kondžilo affects pilgrims, their religious practices and pilgrimage experiences, as well as the perception of their community. I will focus on the four pilgrimage aspects that have so far emerged as the basis for pilgrimage research in general – person, place, text (Eade and Sallnow 1991b) and movement (Coleman and Eade 2004)4 – realizing that these are very complex concepts and imply multi-layered phenomena that should be analysed from many different perspectives.5

4  For more details about the concept of movement in pilgrimage, in sacred places, and of movement of sanctity, see also Hermkens, Jansen and Notermans (2009: 6–8). 5  Kim Knott argues that locating religion entails the analysis of religion ‘in relation to social, economic, political as well as geographical aspects, and investigating the impact of a specific place on religion and of religion on that same place’ (Knott 2009: 156). The same aspects of analysis could be applied to any sacred place, including a pilgrimage shrine.

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My Research and the Beginnings of the Construction of Kondžilo Most of my text is based on my experience, observations, participation, interpretations and analysis. During my research, I tried to take advantage of my role as both a researcher and a member of the Bosnian Croat community. This dual role has been highly productive, especially in my attempts to experience the researched location which my informants occupy and in which they act (Fernandez 2003: 187). However, it has also been very problematic, because it was difficult to make sharp divisions between these roles. On the one hand, I had at my disposal the methodology and analytical model for approaching the location, pilgrims’ practices and the information I gathered from interviews, but on the other, I frequently got carried away by certain experiences on Kondžilo, moved by inspiring speeches, and sometimes limited by my own life experience from the time prior to my ‘initiation’ into ethnology. My first encounter with Kondžilo did not occur on any of the three pilgrimage dates. On an ordinary rainy, foggy day, I came to the village, which looked almost abandoned at first glance. The church where they kept the miraculous painting of the Our Lady was in relatively decent shape, even though it had served as a barn during the Serbian occupation in the Bosnian war. After a brief interview with the parish priest and a glance at the painting, I set out for the Kondžilo hill. The road was asphalt all the way to the foot of the hill, courtesy of the Croatian government, which in the past few years has been financially supporting the reconstruction of roads leading to certain sacred places, churches and convents. Although not an impressive structure, the chapel on the Kondžilo hill, built in 1958 by the people from the nearby village of Podkondžilo, had a very distinct shape and a certain mystical quality due to its positioning, especially on that particular day, all shrouded in thick forest and mist. Next to the chapel, there was an old bell-tower, inside which a bell-ringer would sit during pilgrimage and signal the arrival of the procession carrying the painting. Behind the chapel stood the remnants of a pre-war building where priests used to stay, because before the war the painting and the priests would stay at Kondžilo overnight, whereas today both the painting and the priests return to the parish church. On my way down from the hill, I took a moment to visit the remnants of the old church, which had lost its function as the parish church before the war, and was destroyed to such an extent, that all that remained was the altar section and the foundations. Most of the church was completely overgrown with grass, as was the nearby parish office. My next visit was on the very day of the Feast of Assumption. I came as a researcher, but on the outside I was just one of the many pilgrims, in no way different or more privileged. At the time, almost none of the church officials or local population knew me and I was treated like any other pilgrim. In the following years, and particularly after the publishing of the monograph about this region (Katić 2011), I have become well-known and I’m recognized. I have been asked to come for coffee and refreshments at the parish office and eventually I was made one of the stewards, who ensured that everything went smoothly. This role

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has granted me access to areas and activities I had previously not been able to see and experience, but it has also made it more difficult for me to participate inconspicuously and to observe pilgrim practices. My first Feast of the Assumption was spent conversing with pilgrims who came mostly from nearby villages, as well as watching the activities at and in the church during the pilgrimage to Kondžilo and then return to the church. At the time I was trying to find out what this painting meant to the people in the Usora region in terms of their identity. Most of the people emphasized two facts. First, the painting brings together Croats from both the locality and across BiH for the Feast of the Assumption and, secondly, most of those living outside of the country return to their homeland precisely because of Our Lady of Kondžilo. If it were not for Kondžilo they would probably visit much less frequently or practically never, since the main pilgrimage occurs only once a year. Most of these people have renovated their houses and stayed there during the ten days of vacation they had taken specifically for the feast. The process happening at Kondžilo seems similar to that in Gökceada (Imvros) where Orthodox Christian diaspora started to return to the island during mid-August to celebrate the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (see Chapter 3 in this volume). Their pilgrimage became a major meeting-point for members of a displaced community, a chance to ‘repair their homes, reclaim their fields and cry for the loss of the island’ (Tsimouris, Chapter 3). The Turkish authorities on Gökceada consider these events as important tourist attractions, but for those who were forced out about four decades ago, the pilgrimage is a way to reclaim symbolically their lost homeland and they refuse to consider themselves as tourists. Will pilgrims to Kondžilo in a few decades become tourists? Perhaps they already have.6 The event that is planted in everyone’s memory and is pointed out as the turning-point in the life of this shrine is the first pilgrimage after the 1990s war. During the conflict, the painting was first kept at the house of a distinguished member of the community, but after the occupation by Serbs it went into ‘exile’ together with the people, travelling through the woods into Croatia. It then spent some time in Split, was later taken to Zagreb, and finally ended up in another very well-known national Marian shrine at Marija Bistrica. Bosnian Croats went on pilgrimage to Croatia to visit all of the locations where the painting had been in exile. The pilgrimages were emotional meetings between exiled Croats and their Mother, as they called her, who had shared the same destiny through the painting’s exodus. As a child, I had also participated in one of those meetings in Zagreb, but was unaware at the time about what was happening around me. All I could notice were women with tears in their eyes and serious-looking, worried men. According to the pilgrims, the only event more emotional than these meetings was the return of the painting to Komušina. By then, the stories of the return had achieved mythical proportions, generating legends about the troubles and miracles 6  For a detailed analysis of the touristic aspect of Kondžilo pilgrimage, see Katić (2014)

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that had happened along the way. After seven years in exile, the painting of Our Lady was returned in 1999 on the Feast of the Assumption. These were times immediately after the war and tensions between Croats and Serbs was still intense. The arrival of Croats, especially the possibility of their return, was regarded as a great threat by Serbs and the visitors were not welcomed. During the period of my subsequent research, the situation changed completely. Over the last few years, the pilgrimage Mass has been regularly attended by the Serbian mayor of the nearby town of Teslić and the Serbian police collaborate very successfully with the local priest and stewards, and even escort the cardinal of Vrhbosna to and from the shrine. On the 2010 Feast of the Assumption, as I walked through the village which was almost entirely abandoned only a few months before, I could hardly recognize it. In front of every house there were people sitting, having coffee and spending time together, children were playing outside and cars with foreign registration plates were parked in almost every yard. Preparations for the Feast were in full swing. Tents arrived for the live music performances, involving mostly singers of Serbian folk songs or traditional Croatian music, meat was roasting and booths had been set up for the sale of souvenirs, toys, religious items, and so on. The church car park was reserved for dignitaries, distinguished guests and priests. However, on the meadow outside the churchyard, overlooking the church, the yard and the village cemetery, dozens of tents appeared during the day. People from other villages in the Usora region had arrived; they roasted the meat they had brought with them and drank, ate and sang almost throughout the night. During these few days, I noticed the existence of three separate worlds that seemed to collide but were also mutually tolerated. One was the world of entertainers, traders and beggars, who were mostly not pilgrims and saw this gathering as a good opportunity to make a profit. They were mostly Serbs or Roma, although there were also Croats with their own tents and sales booths. After the afternoon Mass for the sick, which is led by Cardinal Vinko Puljić, the archbishop of Vrhbosna, the multitude of pilgrims leave the sacred place through the parish church fence and into the profane world. Prayers are replaced by songs, drink, and shopping. The second of these worlds is the world of campers. Most arrive from the nearby Usora region but a relatively large number come from other towns and parts of Bosnia by foot, horseback, or motorcycle. They, too, take the tour around the tents after Mass but soon return to their campsite for a barbecue of roasted pig, and sing late into the night. I also stayed in my friends’ and relatives’ tent until early hours of the morning. There was a fire burning every few metres; some had brought wood and coal with them while others would chop down wood from the nearby forest. People sang a range of songs from popular to traditional and folk songs, and quite a few became drunk. When my friends went to sleep in their tent, I took my sleeping bag into the church where I discovered a third parallel world. It was filled with pilgrims sleeping on the floor or benches, as well as those praying all night in front of the guarded painting. One could hear the mumbling of prayers, some pilgrims snoring,

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as well as the singing, yelling, and music coming from outside. In this mixture of sounds, smells and impressions, I realized how complex this pilgrimage place (and others) really is, how many functions it performs, how many meanings are attributed to it and how many it actually has. This mix of devotion, celebration and socializing is typical of almost all pilgrimage places and it seems to me that one cannot exist without the other. This is the reason that pilgrimage places are so important for the community – they fulfil a multitude of functions – but also why pilgrimage is not reducible to one theoretical frame or research method.7 In these three pilgrimage worlds – shaped by the complex relationship between the Catholic Church in Bosnia as an institution, priests as individuals, church members and executors of the ideas of the Church, and the people – the issue of power emerges. Who has the power to influence the other here? Who makes decisions related to the construction of the shrine and the creation of its meaning and symbolism?8 According to Paul Rabinow, ‘on the analytical level, space could be used as one of several tools to locate and identify the relations of knowledge and power’ (Rabinow 2003: 354). While observing and analysing the construction of the Kondžilo shrine, from its conception to its realization, I tried to figure out these power relations. They were most evident during the making of key decisions for the construction of the shrine, for example, the matter of the old chapel on Kondžilo. The original intention of the parish priest was simply to tear down the old chapel, since it had become useless. Nevertheless, the local population, however quietly, expressed their disagreement, thus influencing the change of decision, which resulted in the conversion and moving of the chapel, albeit only in parts. On the other hand, I have also met pilgrims and parishioners who have expressed dissatisfaction with some of the parish priest’s decisions but to no avail. These were mostly trivial issues, such as the matter of the car park or the location for putting up tents. Drawing on years of experience, the parish priest tried to organize the car park, and decide where and how cars can be parked, in order to free up access to the church for guests and priests. He also sought to clear a way for the procession (the route of which is discussed at the last minute every year), working with the stewards, who acted on his strict orders. For two consecutive years, I was one of the stewards in charge of directing vehicles. The first year, we simply directed pilgrims to their designated car park, which frequently caused dissatisfaction, with some people trying, and some  For example, I have neglected here the tourist and migration aspects, the broader political situation, the rituals connected with the painting, the personal dimension of pilgrimage, the many contestations happening during the pilgrimage, the very performative journeys to Konždilo from other parts of Bosnia, and so on. 8  Although Hermkens, Jansen and Notermans argue that pilgrims invest power in Mary (2009: 8), I have focused on the power relations between the official Church and pilgrims since in this case the Church is the ‘owner’ of the painting and manages it. I agree with Jansen that questions about power are necessarily culture-specific (Jansen 2009: 33). 7

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succeeding, in circumventing our orders. The following year was an even more painful experience. It was decided to charge parking fees and this did not go down well, even among the stewards who expressed their dissatisfaction but only amongst themselves. However, the pilgrims, who were accustomed to free parking, expressed their disgruntled feelings very loudly, cursing in a manner one would not expect from pilgrims at a sacred place! Most did accept the rules of the game, while some decided to take matters into their own hands and ignore the priest’s decisions, and got away with it. A similar but more significant example involved the fulfilment of pilgrims’ vows before the painting of Our Lady. The usual practice is for pilgrims, who are fulfilling a vow, to circle the painting three times in the direction of the sun and each time kiss and touch it, either with their hands or other objects. Since there are thousands of pilgrims with this same purpose, chaos often results and stewards once again must act as controllers. To enable all the pilgrims to come to the painting, touch it and leave a donation, they direct pilgrims towards the entrance of the space where the painting has been placed and then escort them out on the other side. This frequently causes confusion among the pilgrims and turns an atmosphere of prayer and meditation into a conflict situation. Tensions particularly arise when the pilgrims’ vows include circling the painting while kneeling, since this drastically decreases their mobility. Stewards try to hurry them on but the kneeling pilgrims usually ignore them and continue their ritual. Thus, once again some individuals successfully circumvent the rules and avoid attempts to regulate their activities. It is extremely important to stress here that people are disobedient in various degrees only when dealing with stewards as representatives of the parish and, at that moment, of the Catholic Church. In case of a bigger problem or disagreement, an intervention from the parish priest, or any other priest for that matter, stops all discussion or disagreement. They are seen as occupying another level entirely and any attempt to debate with them is futile, since they have absolute power in this particular situation and also take all the major decisions during the construction of the shrine. Sometimes there is room for compromise, as in the case of the old chapel, although this seems to be more of an exception than the rule. Individuals who ignore regulations, disturb the set order, and question the power of the Church, were not discussed by either Rabinow or Foucault, since both ignore the everyday resistance of individuals to spatial forms of social control (Low and Zuniga 2003: 31). However, such everyday resistances are the main focus of de Certeau’s work. Analysing pedestrian movement in the city, he concludes that pedestrians frequently circumvent set routes and rules, thereby condemning ‘certain places to inertia or disappearance’ and composing ‘with others spatial “turns of phrase” that are “rare”, “accidental”, or illegitimate’ (de Certeau 2002: 163). Although some pilgrims circumvent set routes and rules, when the procession or any other official ritual begins, everyone fuses into one crowd and abides by the guidelines. It is the Church as an institution that demonstrates its power in practice, creating and maintaining the function of particular locations,

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giving them meanings which are then accepted by pilgrims, and confirmed in their practices. In the end, ‘power is exercised rather than possessed’(Hermkens, Jansen and Notermans 2009: 4). My next visit was in October of the same year. I came to participate in the pilgrimage that was merely local, and according to the pilgrims I interviewed, much more like Kondžilo as it ’once’ was. There were no entertainers, tents, campers, pilgrims from all over BiH, cardinals, or other church and political officials. Most of the pilgrims came from the Komušina parish and a few surrounding parishes. However, people from Komušina who now live in Croatia, Slovenia and Germany also come, mostly those who have retired. The gathering begins in the early hours of the morning. People stand around the church in small groups, talking quietly while preparing to depart for Kondžilo. While observing the gathering, I wondered: would this pilgrimage look the same if it were not for the pompous celebration of the Feast of the Assumption? And would the pilgrimage in a few years be reduced to this, if it was not for the construction of the national shrine on Kondžilo? Some of the pilgrims prayed in the church before the painting of Our Lady. When I left the church and went towards the outdoor altar, I noticed other pilgrims also praying before a painting and walking around it in fulfilment of their vows. Two paintings? I was astounded. This second painting was identical to the first one, except the frame was much more modest and there was no protective glass covering. However, the pilgrims treated it with the same kind of piety as the one inside the church. I asked one of the stewards what it was all about. He explained that the second painting was a copy of the original, made before the war, when the parish of Gornja Komušina separated from the parish of Komušina but still wanted to have ‘their own’ Madonna. At first glance this is a classic example of Frazerian sympathetic magic, ‘whereby the replica gains the power of the original’ (Coleman 2009: 31). Yet, this situation was odd because the ‘taken’ part has returned and now exists alongside the ‘original’ sacred item. I was surprised that the pilgrims’ attitude towards the copy and the ‘original’ was almost identical. They would stand or kneel before it with the same amount of awe, circle it on foot or knee, touch it with various objects, and kiss it. I was even more surprised when I realized that the copy was to be carried to Kondžilo in the procession, while the original remained in the church?! It was as though this pilgrimage by local pilgrims was less important than the one on the Feast of the Assumption. As I was walking behind this other painting with other pilgrims, countless questions were going through my mind. How could the pilgrims so calmly accept the fact that they are carrying a copy of the painting of Our Lady up to Kondžilo? Why do the pilgrimage at all and what was the real purpose of the pilgrimage if the miraculous painting was not really important? Was it the location of Kondžilo? Or was the very practice of the pilgrimage – that is, of returning home – its own purpose? As I was later observing the attitude towards the original painting, it appeared that the official shrine made a bigger distinction between the two paintings than the actual pilgrims. The original painting has a more massive frame of better quality, has protective glass covering and is guarded by stewards;

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the cardinal himself kneels before it, saying the rosary. The original painting is carried up to Kondžilo only on the Feast of the Assumption, and is situated at a special place in the church. Even though all of this does not apply to the copy, pilgrims treat it just the same. They pay no attention to these distinctions and do not consider the painting as any less worthy, all the while knowing it is a copy. A fellow steward, with whom I spent some time guarding the entrance to the churchyard, offered a very simple answer to all my questions: Our Lady is Our Lady, irrespective of the painting. In his opinion, the purpose of the pilgrimage, at least from the point of view of an ’ordinary’ pilgrim, is not the miraculous painting. Yet, although Our Lady is everywhere and on every painting, every year people choose to go on pilgrimage precisely to Our Lady of Kondžilo. It would appear that the crucial element is the location of the pilgrimage – people are returning to the homeland. While talking to pilgrims, who come from other parts of BiH only for the main pilgrimage on the Feast of the Assumption, I found out that their main motive is, in fact, the painting as a symbol of the holiness of the location. This is another example of how complex, multifaceted and multi-vocal pilgrimage places can be. For the local population, the pilgrimage to Kondžilo is actually a pilgrimage to one’s ‘roots’, and while Kondžilo is the motive for coming, pilgrims are not taking their pain, yearnings and hopes to a special place where the divine meets the human, but rather they are engaged in a homecoming which has an almost religious significance. One other pilgrim explained that the few days he spends in his native village, swimming in the nearby Usora River and coming to Kondžilo, is a way of ‘recharging’ his batteries for another year spent in Slovenia, where he now lives with his family. Creating a Sacred Landscape: Kondžilo as a Symbol of Identity and Home Analysing pilgrimage to Walsingham, Coleman writes that pilgrimage sites involve for the pilgrim complex and varying forms of engagement with the physical environment provided by the village and its landscape (Coleman 2004: 53). Through movement and performance, pilgrims recapitulate the complex theological, historical and mythical narratives offered by the site and its officiants (ibid.: 54). However, it is not just the engagement with the landscape that is important in the relationship between pilgrims and the pilgrimage site, but also the architecture that is built in that landscape. According to Lindsay Jones, architecture is the most visible and most powerful method of both expressing and stimulating religious emotions (Jones 2007: 251). In this chapter, I want to show how landscape in general, and in this example, sacred landscape, emerges as an experience, as a category, as a target of political and/or religious projects and as the subject of judgements (Arnason et al. 2012: 1). I have tried to apply ideas advanced by Coleman and Eade in analysing the movement of pilgrims, and also examined the sacred geography and architecture which provide the material and symbolic background to such movement (Coleman and Eade 2004: 17) (see Illustration 2.3).

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Illustration 2.3 Painting of Our Lady of Kondžilo arriving at Kondžilo, August 2013 My next, important visit to Kondžilo almost two years later brought many surprises and faced me with unexpected changes in the appearance of the pilgrimage place, as well as the landscape. As usual, I set out for Komušina a day early, when there are not as many pilgrims and the preparations had begun for the big day. The first thing I came across was a big sign in the neighbouring parish on the road one must take to go to Komušina and Kondžilo, which said: ‘Welcome back to your homes!’ This was a symbolically very powerful sign, which etched itself into the memory. People were being prepared, psychologically and spiritually, for the rest of their journey and given various mental images which were food for thought. The second item that appeared in the landscape, attracting attention through its appearance, size and position, was the bell-tower by the old ruined parish church. The old parish church is situated on the hill above the current church, giving it a dominant position, but since it was ruined and overgrown, it did not stand out. Now, however, one could see from afar an imposing, hollow bell-tower, made from non-corrosive aluminium, which dominated the landscape in all its shiny glory. I headed straight up to the bell-tower. As I was approaching, I realized that it was not a bell-tower at all but a monument to soldiers who had died in the war. At the foot of the monument, on four sides were plaques containing the names of fallen soldiers, while at the front there were a few wreaths left over from a delegation visit. Later I found out that the hill had been given an official name –

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Illustration 2.4 Calvary with the altar of peace at the remaining of old parish church, August 2012 Kalvarija (Calvary) – symbolizing the suffering of people from that region in all wars (see Illustration 2.4).9 Since the 2012 construction of the memorial park (as it is called on the official website of the shrine), many delegations have laid wreaths at the monument, including the president of the Federation of BiH, representatives of the Ministry of Defence of BiH, a number of generals and various veterans’ organizations. On 10 August 2012, after laying wreaths and paying respects to fallen soldiers, a Stations of the Cross procession began, which led up to Kondžilo,10 thereby connecting two sacred topoi – Kalvarija and Kondžilo. The old parish church had also been rebuilt. The only part left standing – the altar section – was preserved and partly reconstructed, while the altar had become the ‘altar of peace’ dedicated to all Croatian victims throughout history. The Kondžilo hill had undergone drastic changes too. The old chapel and bell-tower had gone and half of the hillside had been ‘stripped’ in order to create a flatter surface. Where the old chapel had stood, there was now the skeleton of a new one, the architecture of which symbolizes clasped hands directed towards Heaven. Behind it rose a large concrete building, designed to accommodate members of the clergy. There will also be a new outdoor   See .  Ibid.

9

10

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altar, as well as a building with toilets. The Stations of the Cross procession was to start at the foot of Kondžilo and lead along a new path which helped to shorten the climb, even though the climb itself was now a bit more demanding. As I descended to the parish church, I noticed changes there as well. Talking to local parishioners before the beginning of construction, I found out that they had opposed demolition of the old Kondžilo chapel built by their grandfathers and had asked it be given some other function. Clearly, there had been a compromise, because the old chapel had been given a new function enabling it to be both symbolically and physically close to the painting. As it happens, the old chapel was moved next to the parish church and functioned as the outdoor altar. Although the roof and roof construction had been entirely changed and the closed middle section had gone, leaving the chapel looking more like a gazebo, its familiar shape and the stone foundation, where the builders of the first chapel inscribed the year of construction (with letters which are now emphasized), did indeed confirm that this was the chapel of Kondžilo. This is where the painting is now kept during the Mass for the sick on 14 August, when pilgrims fulfil their vows and the cardinal kneels while saying the rosary (see Illustration 2.5). On the morning of 15 August, the procession with the painting left for Kondžilo, first passing through the old chapel as if through a door, making its

Illustration 2.5 Old chapel in a new role: ‘door’ for the procession to Kondžilo, October 2011

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way towards Kondžilo and the new chapel. This new practice connected the old and new chapels and, metaphorically, the older generations who had built the old chapel, and the new generation building the new chapel and modern shrine, which is rooted in and connected to the past and tradition. Although it is self-evident that particular architectural forms (in this case, the old Kondžilo chapel and the old parish church) have certain meanings, too often we assume that the real meaning is the one intended by the architect or builder. Lindsay Jones, on the other hand, claims that every built form functions as a multivalent symbol and evokes different meanings and responses from different audiences (Jones 2007: 257). This is what Jones calls a ritual-architectural event: … architectural meaning is not a condition or quality of the built form itself; works of architecture, and the meanings they evoke, are not once-and-forall. Instead, the significances and meanings arise from situations, or ‘ritualarchitectural events’, wherein people engage works of art and architecture in a kind of dialogical exchange. (Ibid. :252)

The change in the original meaning is most evident in the case of the Kondžilo chapel built by parishioners in 1958 and the old parish church. Not only does their meaning today vary, but so does their function, thus entirely changing the meaning, in order to accommodate new needs and circumstances (see Illustration 2.6). Like every year, in 2012, the Mass for the sick was once again led by the Bosnian cardinal, Vinko Puljić, a great orator whose sermons have always been well received by the masses, since he emphasized the return, the home, the survival of Croats in Bosnia, and so on. In his homilies, the cardinal also addresses current political issues. Hence, in 2012 he discussed the war, the situation after the Dayton Accord, and the need to return to one’s roots and protect the homeland: There is no truth about the war, and without real truth, there is no stable peace. There is no true justice without stable peace, because the peace after Dayton is a straitjacket … Children must learn about their roots. One must know how to protect one’s roots … If you sell your father’s and grandfather’s house, you have not sold a house, you have sold your father. You may leave your homeland, but your homeland will never leave you.11

The cardinal proceeded to discuss the local elections occurring in Bosnia that year, encouraging people to vote and urging those living outside BiH to come and vote, in order to help those who live in Bosnia but were unable to exercise their rights: ‘At the time of the election, everyone must show that they love their people. We have the power to legally secure our rights. Thus, it is necessary to understand the importance of solidarity with one’s birthplace, one’s homeland, one’s people.’12  Ibid.  Ibid.

11

12

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Illustration 2.6 Pilgrims at new chapel on Kondžilo, August 2013 Suffragan Bishop Pero Sudar led the procession towards Kondžilo the next day, which passed through the old chapel and by the old church, now converted into the peace altar, and past the monument to fallen soldiers. He led the Mass on Kondžilo, the first ever on the new altar and on Kondžilo under construction. And for the first time, the painting stayed at what was at the time still the skeleton of the new chapel. Bishop Sudar also delivered a passionate speech, relating the home (referring to the sign in the neighbouring parish I mentioned) and the return of Croats to Bosnia, with Kondžilo and the Mother of God, ‘our Mother’. His voice echoing through the speakers all over Kondžilo and the valley, and the view of the

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Illustration 2.7 Construction site of new national pilgrimage place of Bosnian Croats, August 2013

thousands of people around the altar, stirred mixed feelings among the pilgrims, making some of them cry (see Illustration 2.7). The construction and changes that had happened after my last visit has intensified the significance of this pilgrimage place and introduced some new practices. It has also created a sacred landscape consisting of a prominent topos, where the emphasis is put on the home, the Croatian struggle during the war, the sacrifice of those killed, Christ’s Way of the Cross, as well as Kondžilo itself as the central place and symbol of Croatian survival in Bosnia. Together, all of the topoi in this sacred landscape constitute the fundamental mission, which Kondžilo as an institutional pilgrimage aims to promote: the sanctity of the home, the necessity of Croats’ return to Bosnia, honouring one’s ancestors and fallen soldiers, and keeping the faith in Christ and our Mother – the Queen of Croats. Deliberately or not, it is as if the religio-political programme is present in the landscape, and while walking through this space, one can easily learn what our foundation is, what the reality is and how we should work on the future. Although all this looks like a political programme, there is no politics here – at least at first glance. Politicians do visit Kondžilo every year in a private capacity, or in delegations, but I do not have the impression that they have had any major influence on the shrine’s construction or appearance, or that their visit has

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had any major influence on their political success or failure. The project for the construction of the shrine and its surroundings, its appearance and the messages it conveys, appear to be exclusively the expression of the Catholic Church in Bosnia. The Church is once again, much like during the Ottoman Empire, reasserting the primacy of preserving and building national unity and the national survival of Croats in BiH. The fact is that today’s Kondžilo, with its sacred landscape, was created and persists through interventions from above, that is, from the Church which aims to institutionalize an otherwise quite informal pilgrimage place. However, pilgrims were quick to accept new practices and have, whether consciously or subconsciously, confirmed by their performances the status of Kondžilo as a national symbol of Bosnian Croats. Through movement, their bodies and performances, pilgrims have kept alive and given meaning to all of these locations built and created by the Church. The Komušina parish priest and keeper of Kondžilo published a letter, available on the parish website, happily announcing the commencement of the shrine’s reconstruction and the motives behind it: This is an old Marian shrine in the Vrhbosna archdiocese. It was completely devastated in the last war, as was Komušina. Due to the war, many have left Bosnia, cutting the number of members of our Vrhbosna archdiocese in half. Many are wondering whether there is a future for the Catholics and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina! Those who remained in the homes of their greatgrandfathers, just like those who have come back from exile, carry in their hearts the wounds of the war, the feeling of humiliation, and being abandoned by everyone. Once brave and proud, full of faith and perseverance, people are today broken down and hopeless. And whenever times were hard and troubled, the Catholics in our archdiocese turned to Our Lady for help and consolation. We need Her today, now more than ever. With Her as our advocate and protector, we wish to ask God for mercy and new spiritual strength to rise above, strength for renewal and zeal. We wish to renew our ancient faith, to strengthen our national roots and once again build our familiar Catholic identity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Kondžilo shrine will offer all this, to both old and young. The Blessed Virgin Mary has always been the refuge of sinners, comforter of the afflicted, and the help for the sick.13

This letter clearly reflected the fundamental ideas behind the construction of the shrine and actually outlined the plan of the events which were to occur after its publication and the beginning of construction. The key messages, which the Bosnian Catholic Church as a whole and certain priests were trying to convey whenever they had the opportunity in the last few years, have been materializing at Kondžilo and its surroundings. Kondžilo is becoming a religious-national theme park, where visitors/pilgrims can see and experience all the things that make them  Ibid.

13

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a part of the Bosnian Croat community, and the things that make Komušina and Kondžilo a Croatian place. However, if this process is to be successful, it must work both ways. Although the Church as an institution was the main instigator of the construction and the leading creator of key ideas and symbolism, without the participation of pilgrims (whose donations were the main source of funding for the construction), the development would not have been possible, nor would it have made any sense. Coming on foot from neighbouring parishes and wearing T-shirts and carrying signs with the image of Our Lady of Kondžilo, the pilgrims pass through the ‘warscape’ (Hermkens 2009: 69) of villages and towns in Republika Srpska, almost as if to demonstrate their presence and refusal to fade away. They also pass through the old chapel, next to the former parish church, and the monument to fallen soldiers, and walk the Stations of the Cross all the way to the new Kondžilo chapel. Here is the pilgrims’ response to the calls of the Church: a confirmation and re-energizing of the symbiosis between Bosnian Croats as a people and their Church in Bosnia. The strength of the bond between Croats and the Catholic Church in Bosnia, and especially the Croatian connection with the Franciscan order (the only order which was allowed to exist throughout Ottoman rule), is best seen in the old local name given to Franciscan friars – uncles (ujaci). According to legend, the name comes from the time when Franciscans were forced to hide from their Ottoman persecutors and were presented as members of the family or uncles who came to visit, when Ottomans visited the village (Lovrenović 2002: 132). Although all the available literature stresses the close connection between the Franciscans and Croats in BiH, which has almost fused their histories, Lovrenović warns that their relationship must be observed through a more layered and dialectical approach. Although the two groups are inseparably intertwined, they also differed in material, existential and cultural terms, and in terms of interests (ibid.: 134). Most authors, who have studied the Franciscans and Bosnian Croats, agree that the Franciscans were responsible for the survival of the Catholic Croatian people in Bosnia, as well as Croat religious-cultural, and national identity (ibid.: 145). However, Loverenović points out that ‘this frequently meant that the Franciscans had some sort of absolute power over the people, both on the outside before Turkish authority, and even more so on the inside, in every aspect of this community – spiritual, customary, familial, social … ’ (ibid.: 145). The situation changed drastically for the Franciscans with the onset of AustroHungarian rule and the founding of the Vrhbosna archdiocese in 1881. They lost their influence and their parishes, and became embroiled in a conflict with the bishop in Sarajevo which has more or less lasted until today14 (ibid.). Although many parishes, including Komušina with its Kondžilo shrine, are no longer Franciscan, the relationship between the Church and local people and its influence 14  In this chapter, I cannot go into details about these historical events and the conflict inside the Bosnian Catholic Church.

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has not weakened. Although the Bosnian Catholic Church is not the same as the one which was dominated by the Franciscans, Lovrenović claims that it is still an institution influenced by the religio-political views established by the first Bosnian archbishop, Josip Stadler (ibid.: 159). However, I cannot entirely agree with this claim, since I believe that the contemporary Catholic Church in BiH must be studied in the context of the current political and social situation, which is very complex, especially for Bosnian Croats. Although Lovrenović is right to point out the occasionally rigid attitude of the Church leaders and their engagement in national-political activities, I do not believe that this is rooted in history; it is rather a reflection of the current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where religion in general, especially since the war, has become once more the main vehicle for expressing national identity. Conclusion Places, in general, are ‘politicized, culturally relative, historically specific, local and multiple constructions’ (Rodman 2003: 205) and yet another example of a pilgrimage place – Kondžilo – shows how this also applies to sacred places in particular. Sacred places are complex, multifaceted, and multi-vocal and like other pilgrimage sites, Kondžilo is not reducible to a single meaning or experience; it is felt to be in everyone’s interest but for many different reasons (Schechner 1995: 157). As Rodman points out, ‘For each inhabitant, a place has a unique reality, one in which meaning is shared with other people and places. The links in these chains of experienced places are forged of culture and history’ (2003: 208). Even though a particular place may have a unique and special significance for each person, places also have significance and values which are shared among the community. In my research, I have tried to apply the ideas of Coleman and Eade and analyse the movement of the pilgrims. I have combined this analysis with an exploration of the sacred geography and architecture which provide the material and symbolic background to such movement (Coleman and Eade 2004: 17). At the same time I have not neglected the triad of person, text and place (Eade and Sallnow 1991b). By drawing on my experience as a pilgrim, a steward at a pilgrimage shrine, an ethnologist and a local, I have sought to shed some light on the development and re-creation of a pilgrimage place of Bosnian Croats, and use it to illustrate the complex processes taking place within this religio-national community. It seems that this Christian pilgrimage place was actually started by the Church. The Franciscans brought the painting of the Madonna with them to Komušina village and they were the first to write down the tradition explaining the miraculous arrival of the painting, thus giving to pilgrims a mythical story of the sanctity of place. They were very eager to spread this narrative to pilgrims coming to Kondžilo, and they are now creating a national shrine that is based on the historical roots of Croatians in this region and the divine choice of this

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particular place. The construction and changes that have happened at Kondžilo and its environs recently have intensified the significance of this pilgrimage place, introduced new practices, created a sacred landscape consisting of prominent topoi, which seek to promote the sanctity of the home and the need for Croats to return to Bosnia to honour their ancestors and fallen soldiers, and to keep the faith in Christ and His Mother – the Queen of the Croats. This programme is materially present in the landscape, and while walking through this space people can easily learn what their heritage is, what the reality is and how they should work on the future. This process works both ways. Although the Church as an institution was the main instigator of the construction, and the main creator of key ideas and symbolism, without the participation of pilgrims and their donations, construction would neither have been possible, nor would it make any sense. By coming on foot from neighbouring parishes, passing through villages and towns in Republika Srpska, passing through the old chapel, next to the old parish church, and the monument to fallen soldiers, and walking the Stations of the Cross all the way to the new Kondžilo chapel, pilgrims respond to the Church’s calls and confirm the symbiosis between Bosnian Croats as a people and their Church in Bosnia. In the relationship between individual pilgrims and the pilgrimage ‘worlds’ that coexist with the institutional Church, we can see how the latter exercises its power. Its officials direct pilgrims to their designated car park, forbid merchant tents near the churchyard, constrain the fulfilment of pilgrims’ vows, design and decide about the construction and new look of the sanctuary and inscribe meaning into space. The Catholic Church is, in fact, the only stable factor keeping the Bosnian-Croatian community, more generally, together. By building churches and shrines, especially such national pilgrimage places as Kondžilo, the Church seeks to materialize its role and influence in the community, and leave a permanent stamp on physical space. In the process, the Church asserts the permanent presence of Croats in Bosnia, despite their declining population and deteriorating economic and political situation.

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Chapter 3

Pilgrimages to Gökçeada (Imvros), a Greco-Turkish Contested Place: Religious Tourism or a Way to Reclaim the Homeland? Giorgos Tsimouris

In this chapter, I will begin with outlining the historical background to the forced departure of the Greeks from the island of Imvros1 after the 1960s. I will then discuss tourist and official representations of the recent history of the island, which attempt to depoliticize and to ‘folkorize’ the return of Greeks and their main pilgrimage and other performances. Finally, I will show that the returnees, by transposing their ordeals to the saints and to religious scenarios, compete with the tourist and official narratives about ‘what really happened’ in ways which can be tolerated by the governing elites. Recounting a Story of Forced Migration in the Era of Tourist Development The nation-building processes in Turkey and Greece over the twentieth century resulted in the simultaneous enforcement of discriminatory measures against the minorities, which were exempted from the exchange of populations agreed in the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. While the oppressive state strategies, tactics and consequences concerning these minorities were different, the goal of both Greece and Turkey was to get rid of unwanted minorities, especially those linked with the other nation state through religious, cultural and linguistic ties. In both countries, this process took place through the implementation of long-term oppressive strategies rather than the use of open state violence. These pressures were intensified in periods of Greco-Turkish crises during the course of which minorities were treated as ‘hostages of the enemy’. Moreover, as I argue elsewhere, from 1963:  Imvros and Imbros was the name of the island under Ottoman rule before the Treaty of Lausanne, while the ancient name was Imbroz. The Turkish state changed the name of the island from Imvros to Gökçeada in 1970 (as well as the Greek names of the villages), while the number of Greeks fleeing the island was increasing. The Greeks, who were forced to leave the island, refer to it as Imvros and describe themselves as Imvrii, or Imviotes. 1

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Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe … the Greeks of Imvros were subjected to intense and systematic discriminatory measures by the Turkish authorities … [including] the closure of their schools in 1964, the progressive confiscation of the largest[2] and most fertile part of their farmland … and the establishment of ‘open prisons’ for penal criminals in the early 70s. (Tsimouris 2001: 2)

The island has been classified as a ‘supervised zone’, meaning that the expatriates needed special admission to visit the island. The transformation of the demographic composition of the island may be seen as the Turkish state’s final onslaught against the Greek minority. From the 1940s, the Turkish government implemented a re-settlement project for the island. Gradually, the rural properties, which had been confiscated from the Greeks, were occupied by settlers displaced mainly from the Turkish mainland. This enterprise radically transformed the demographic character of the population: The most striking change on the island’s demographic structure … is related to its ethnic composition. According to the 1927 Population Census, the Turkish population was only 157, and it reached a figure of around 8000 by [the year] 2000 Population Census. In contrast, the Greek population declined from 6555 in 1927 to around 400 in the same period. With this trend the Greek population will disappear. (Bozbeyoglou and Onan 2000: 14)

The authors are right about the fading away of the Greek presence on the island. They also note that ‘the population movements on the island – both in-and-out migration – are parts of planned migration organised governmentally’ (ibid., emphasis added). Through the establishment of new state institutions in the island, such as the army, an open prison and a boarding school, the Turkish military and political presence in Imvros has massively increased (ibid.) (see Illustrations 3.1 and 3.2). Tourism and Pilgrimage From the early 1990s, the tourist industry was seen as the best way to develop this rural, impoverished island and a significant number of visitors from Istanbul and other large cities in Turkey began to arrive. Tourist development has resulted in a proliferation of narratives and representations about Imvros, through guidebooks, pictures, postcards and images circulating through the electronic media. All these accounts place considerable emphasis on antiquity and the island’s Ottoman past, but gloss over the turbulent history of the twentieth century in the area. History

2  According to the Association of Imvrii of Athens, 90 per cent of their arable land has been confiscated by Turkish authorities.

Pilgrimages to Gökçeada (Imvros), a Greco-Turkish Contested Place

Illustration 3.1

Dereköy, a close-up view

Illustration 3.2

Dereköy, from a distance

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seems to end with the Treaty of Lausanne. Blatantly missing are the specific pressures of the Turkish state against the Greco-Christian population of the island. The transformation of a turbulent past from a contested political arena into a folkloric spectacle suitable for the tourist gaze is almost the rule among tourist accounts about contested places. Unlike the persistent narratives of the Imvrian diaspora recounting their sufferings and their attachment to their villages, tourist guidebooks, brochures and other representations by the host community ignore the pressures that compelled the Greek community to depart. In this context, the festival becomes a highly charged political arena where the returnees assert their long-term attachment to the island in an attempt to undermine the tourist misrepresentations disseminated by the local authorities and tourist agencies. A number of studies focus on the close association between tourist representations and the re-fabrication or invention of the national past (see Corner and Harvey 1991, Yalouri 2001, Silverman 2004, Graml 2004). Tourist representations sanitize a recent past full of disturbing memories. Especially in countries like Turkey, which have a poor record concerning minorities associated with neighbouring antagonistic nation states, guidebooks are used as a purifying enterprise for the re-signification of a disturbing past. The festivities that take place annually on 15 August lie at the centre of this re-signification endeavour and, consequently, become a contested arena between Turkish authorities and the returnees. When the guidebooks refer to the post-war period, they explain the departure of Greeks as a process of economic migration. They follow the same strategy when explaining the establishment of new settlements by the Turkish government, especially after the 1960s and the radical transformation of the island’s demography. Let me give you some examples starting with the way in which a young teacher tries – through essentialized interpretations of ‘tradition’, ‘being an islander’ and ‘friendship’ – to deal with the flight of the Greek community and the drastic resettlement of the island by the Turkish government: Gökçeada has been in the process of changing since 1964. New villages, new establishments and of course a new but developing community of islanders can be observed there. Some characteristics have been essential for being ‘an islander’ since the early times in history. (Saygi 1985: 19–20)3 From the front page of the guidebook, we learn that Erol Saygi, the Turkish author, has dedicated his tourist guide to his Greek friend, an old teacher who generously helped him to write the book. Despite the author’s declared good intentions, there is no mention of the discriminatory measures that compelled the Greek community and, of course, his friend, to leave the island between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s.  The book has been written in both Turkish and English.

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Similarly, Halil Rustu Akgun, currently the island’s mayor, provides us with the following explanation regarding the departure of the Orthodox population: A rapid change has happened in the population structure of Gökçeada in the recent years. Greeks, who were the majority of the population, are the minority now, since they moved away because of economic reasons. However, migration from different parts of Turkey to Gökçeada still continues. (Rustu Akgun 2005: 36)

He goes on to describe the settlement in more detail without any reference to the pressures to which the island’s Orthodox population had been subjected. It is also interesting to see how the Greek diaspora is depicted through an article, ‘Where does the Diaspora of Gökçeada come from?’, published in a journal that has been recently established by Gökçeada’s Tourism Office: Finally the Diaspora (capital D in the original) of Gokceada, too, came out. We knew the Diaspora of Armenians but this diaspora have emerged just recently, they call it Imbros, probably they didn’t like the name of the island anymore. I call it the Diaspora of European Union. Because it is the product of an imaginary project. (Rustu Akgun 2005: 19)

The Mayor argues further that these Orthodox Greeks are just immigrants, like those living in Germany, who hold a Turkish passport and periodically return, and that all their claims against the Turkish state are just lies. This tourist account, written in poor English, shows that tourist representations in Turkey and elsewhere operate within a strictly defined nationalist vision. Aporia over the origin of ‘the Diaspora’ fits perfectly within this framework. A brochure, published by the municipal administration, follows the same strategy in its celebration of the island’s multicultural history. No mention is made of the conditions under which the Greeks were forced to depart: Turkish and Rum citizens used to live in peace in Gökçeada under the governance of Ottoman Empire for 471 years. They practiced their religion … without any restrictions … In our island where several cultures meet one can find mosques, churches, monasteries, old Rum houses and examples of modern architecture co-existing with each other. (Babul 2003: 69).

The Greek Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Tourism Over the last decade, about 2,500 Imvrii from the diaspora gather on the island to celebrate the Virgin Mary’s Assumption and other religious events (see Illustration 3.3). The festival has developed as a meeting-point and a major event

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Illustration 3.3 Festivities at Panayia Balomeni for the members of this displaced community. The Turkish authorities welcome the festival as a major tourist attraction and, at the same time, they organize parallel tourist events in their attempt to overshadow it and to radically change its significance. For the returnees, however, it is a huge pilgrimage during the course of which religious emotions are inextricably overlapped with feelings of homesickness. Imvrii do not consider themselves ‘tourists’ in a place from which they or their significant others departed as fugitives. The local governors, the mayor of the island and the municipal administrator (kaymakam) present themselves to the Greeks as hosts. They express their official capacity on every occasion possible, for example, by providing a licence in order to renovate their houses and repair the infrastructure of their villages, or give permission for their festivities. Greeks reciprocate this hospitality by offering them presents or inviting and honouring them publicly during the festivities. For instance, they often invite the Turkish officials to open the dance and to dance with them. During my visits, the kaymakam was repeatedly the referee in the football competition organized between the island’s two main Greek villages, Agridia and Sxoinoudi (Tepeköy and Dereköy respectively in Turkish). However, as I shall explain later, this rhetoric of mutual hospitality can be seen as a competitive tactic about identifying who is the island’s authentic host. It is important to note that the returnees are mainly hostile to the authorities and, to a certain extent, the Turkish settlers, rather than to the few old inhabitants of the island. Indeed, in most cases, they enjoy good relations with their former Turkish neighbours, teachers and friends, and have regular communication with them.

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Glenn Bowman may have good reasons to criticize Hayden’s approach for its essentialist identity overtones, in the sense that Hayden emphasizes what groups really ‘are’ and therefore virtually downgrades the situational aspects of identity (Bowman 2002: 220). The Imvrii respond to this situation by foregrounding their local identity rather than their Greek ethnicity in an attempt to address their ‘antagonistic sharing’ mainly towards the authorities, who are seeking to alter the significance of their festivities, and – to a lesser extent – towards the settlers who replaced them on the island. Both the authorities and the settlers are in different ways associated with their own misfortunes as a displaced community. However, my ethnographic research supports Hayden’s claim that conflict and sharing are not mutually exclusive and that the avoidance of violent conflict over shared religious space depends not on persuading the members of differing communities to positively value each other’s differences but on convincing them that the costs of intolerance are too high (Hayden 2002: 218). One could pinpoint many instances during the summer return when this negative sharing and antagonistic tolerance becomes apparent. Let me give you some idea by quoting the work of Babul, an anthropologist of Turkish origin, who visited the island almost at the same time as I did: ‘The municipality represents its attitude of indifference to the Panayia as an act of “tolerance”, as the sovereign’s grant to “allow” the existence of “other” cultures on its land of sovereignty, which in turn works to affirm the island as belonging to the sovereign’ (Babul 2003: 77). As for the Imvrii, they often invite the mayor and the chief of the municipality to both public festivities and private events, such as homecoming parties and celebrations following marriage ceremonies. As I observed several times during my fieldwork and as Babul also emphasizes, these events are opportunities for the returnees to practise their own ‘hospitality’ and act as the real hosts. Indeed, political tension and intolerance of the Greeks would cost the Turkish authorities in terms of democratic accountability and the absence of some 2,000–2,500 ‘tourists’ every summer. Similarly, the returnees need to tolerate the presence of Turkish authorities at their festivities in order to expand their presence in their homeland’s public space (see Illustration 3.4). Not a Tourist Attraction but the Pilgrimage of those ‘Forced Out’ Now I am thinking that Turks see our people coming back and renovating their houses and may be anxious about it. Some people construct nice houses, real villas so they are wondering, what is happening here. They see us like tourists and from this point of view they want us to come. (An old man from Imvros)

As the Feast of the Assumption (Panayia) is organized by the diasporic associations, the organizers attempt to include only their compatriots. Tourists and Muslim settlers usually stay on the margins of the festival and, holding a drink, spread

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Illustration 3.4

Main Square, Tepeköy

around the stairs of the Greek cemetery or the edge of the square observing what is happening but not actively participating. During the early visits by the Imvrii, these controls were not easy to establish and as tourist numbers have gradually increased, the issue of control has become very complicated and indeed, almost impossible. Disappointed by the overwhelming presence of tourists at the music festival in 2000, some of the organizers decided not to get involved in the following year. One of them, Kostas, concluded bitterly that ‘our festival has degenerated … this is the end.’ He and other colleagues, who had taken a leading role in previous years, arrived quite late at the event and vehemently rejected an invitation to sit at the table with the bishop of the island where some other community officials were seated. In 2000, instead of an orchestra there was now an electronic apparatus and a large number of the entertainers had come from the film festival that was taking place at the same time. Actors/actresses and producers were among the participants. A crowd of journalists, photographers and diverse ‘cultural tourists’ from Greece and Turkey added to the touristic character of the festival. The folkloric and picturesque aspect of this tourist scene was strengthened by the participation of a large number of Muslim small traders across the road, which leads up to the square. Among the items on sale were T-shirts bearing the slogan ‘I love Imvros’ in English, as well as posters of Orthodox saints and small icons. The presence of Turkish soldiers – ‘for reasons of safety’ – was interpreted by the Imvrii as an attempt on the part of the Turkish administration to declare its sovereignty over the island and a sign that the festival was a tradition under its protection and care.

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As one member of the Athens association declared, ‘They send their soldiers under the pretext to protect us but, in reality, they seek to make clear the presence of the Turkish state.’ The returnees felt deeply insulted by all these disorientating practices and reacted either by not participating at all or by leaving very early. Some of the young people preferred to continue their entertainment in their houses after splitting up into small groups. Those who remained, avoided joining in the dances and sharing the square with this strange and diverse crowd of people, who were not dancing together. They preferred to remain silent or started to make bitter comments, behaving in either case as strangers in their own place. A native woman in her forties, sitting at the table opposite me, suddenly exclaimed: ‘This would have been impossible to happen before our departure. When we were living here there was not a single Turk around, they didn’t dare to come … but now they have turned the whole event into a Turkish bazaar.’ Other people declared that ‘if the festival is like this it’s better not to happen at all.’ Nevertheless, in the following years, they continued to actively participate in the festival despite the voices arguing that ‘this is a tourist event and has nothing to do with our Panigyri and with us.’ Their attitude and their behaviour during the summer visits was characterized by ambivalence as people were undecided about what was proper to do and how to do it and what they had to avoid. Panigyri may be seen as a hallmark summarizing this ambivalence. Both the summer return and the festival raise ambivalent sentiments among the returnees. There are people, especially among the members of the first generation, who have never gone back because they cannot bear seeing their homeland deserted. I was told several times during my fieldwork that ‘Imvros is not the right place to celebrate … I cry every single moment when I am there.’ Others declared, ‘Why should I go back and give them my money? Besides, I can’t behave as a tourist there. If I want to entertain myself I can go to another Greek island.’ They claimed that those who did return to celebrate were inspired by the desire to gain revenge. In one case, an old man refused to see any of the photographs taken on the island by his daughter, an amateur photographer. Kostas, a key informant in his late thirties and one of the leaders of the Athens Association, explained to me that for him and those of his generation, the Assumption Day festival is an assertion that they have not compromised with the situation – ‘it is a direct way to assert that we are back again.’ On another occasion, he explained that ‘it is important for young people to be attached to the place of their beloved ones through events like the festival. If this happens, if young people become familiar with the place, nothing has been lost. Our youth is the most precious capital for our future as a community.’ This moral attitude explains why the returnees are so sensitive to every attempt undertaken by the local government or the tourist agencies seeking to folklorize the tradition of ‘those forced out’. Similarly, as I shall explain below, transferring their collective ordeals to the saints and to religious scenarios is another way of reclaiming their homeland.

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For those who were settled on the island by the Turkish government mainly after the 1960s and who are living in poverty, the Greek visitors are seen as wealthy tourists who spend a lot and dominate the island’s public life during the summer. Several factors contribute to this idea: the places they visit for entertainment, the expensive cars they bring from Greece and the money they have spent to renovate and furnish their houses. Although both the authorities and the Turkish population are aware that the Greek returnees were forced to abandon the island and that, in many cases, they come back to take care of their properties, the belief that ‘they bring money into the island’ makes the local population more friendly – or this is what some Greeks believe. There were several occasions during my fieldwork, which supported this belief. ‘Don’t trust them, they are not as polite as they pretend to be’ were the first words uttered by a young Greek woman whom I met on the island, as soon as she learned that I was also Greek. ‘First, they forced us out and now they pretend to like us just because they treat us as tourists for our money’, she went on angrily. Another Greek man described his experience of buying a sofa from a small shop in Merkez (Panayia),4 the main village on the island. ‘After negotiations, I arranged not only to pay in small instalments but a better price overall. On the top of that the guy used to call me Bey[5] … Can you imagine my authority? If I had to furnish the whole house, I would have been upgraded to a Pasha!!’ he concluded laughingly. While the festival may be seen as an opportunity for the Greeks to reclaim their homeland in both symbolic and material terms, many believe that the Turkish authorities use tourist representations and events in order to transform the place from a contested borderland to a site of pleasure and to wipe out their recent dramatic history. The film festival, inaugurated in the mid-1990s, is seen by the returnees as an attempt to diminish the significance of their own festival and to reshape their return according to the perspectives of Turkish administration. Let us see how Elif Babul, a young anthropologist of Turkish origin, discusses the inauguration and the significance of the Film Festival in her Master’s thesis: ‘… the year when the municipality first organized “the Gökçeada Film Festival” (which was not a film festival back then) coincides with the years of the lifting of the restriction related to Imbros. In 1995, the municipality of the island organized a music festival’ (Babul 2003: 44). Babul further explains in detail the measures which the Turkish state took in order to develop the island as an attractive tourist destination, concluding that through these measures ‘it is possible to track the state project of Imbros changing from a restricted zone to a tourist attraction’ (ibid.). According to the bulletins edited by the municipality, the ‘Traditional Gökçeada Film Festival’ takes place from 11 to 18 August, exactly the same time as the Greek religious festival. The 2001 summer bulletin, advertising the film festival, refers to the following:  Panayia is the Greek name of this village.  A term for an Ottoman official.

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This year, it is expected that the participation to the film festival, which is organized in order to promote Gökçeada … will be as high as it was in the previous years. In addition, the August 15th festival of Virgin Mary, which will fall in the same interval with the film festival, will turn the island into a festive land. (ibid., emphasis added)

The leaflet also mentions that Patriarch Bartholomew was also coming to visit Gökçeada at the same time and that the presence of Orthodox visitors from all over the world for their religious festival would add colour to the film festival. By emphasizing the folkloric aspect of the festival, the editors of the tourist guide attempt to undermine the political significance of the Christian summer gathering. Clearly, Babul, documenting extensively her general points, has good reason to argue that ‘the real intention of the municipality was to trivialize the Panayia by making it look like one among the many events happening on the island’ (ibid., emphasis added). The Greek community has been eliminated in these brochures not only textually but also photographically. Exploring the brochures’ photographic content, one cannot see the deserted land to which the Greeks refer. For example, before the Greeks left, Shinoudi (Dereköy in Turkish) was a very big village with a population of 4–5,000 and more than a thousand houses. Only about 40 people live there now, mostly elderly Greeks and a few Kurdish families, who had arrived after the 1980s. More than 80 per cent of the houses are dilapidated, without doors and windows and sometimes even roofs – ‘like people without eyes’ as a returning woman bitterly pointed out (see Illustration 3.5). It is hardly possible to take a

Illustration 3.5

When the inside turns to outside: a house in Tepeköy

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picture without including the traces of this catastrophe. The only way to overlook the ruins is either to get pictures of the new settlements inhabited by settlers or to take photographs of the old villages from a very long distance. Both the municipal authorities and the private agencies adopted these techniques in their attempt to depict tourist sites of happiness. The ‘tourist gaze’(see Urry 2002) usually avoids such distressing places and the stories to which they give rise. In addition, Imvros is advertised as the biggest Turkish island of the Aegean (En buyukada, in Turkish) and tourist brochures are addressed to summer tourists who are looking for sun, sea and Mediterranean food. A Diasporic Pilgrimage in a Contested Place From the early 1990s, due to the removal of strict visa controls for holders of nonTurkish passports, a large number of people with Imvros origins increasingly started to visit the island during the Feast of the Assumption. As one of the protagonists of the Athens Association explained to me, ‘In the beginning we were a few, most of us were young, and we arrived in the island with feelings of fear … however, since we did not face any troubles, year after year our number was growing.’ Indeed, during August 1997 when I visited the island for the first time to conduct pilot research, the number of returnees was more than 2,000 while the number of elderly Greeks living on the island was approximately 300. Since then the number of visitors has increased, despite the homesickness and bitterness which they expressed during their visit. The Assumption festival is a major socio-religious event across Greece, but for the Imvrii returnees it has a particular significance. People, who left as fugitives during the 1960s and 1970s, taking refuge in the nearby Greek islands or another European country, were returning after twenty years or more. As they devastatingly explained, they left as fugitives because Greece refused for a long time to provide them with a visa in a vain attempt to keep Hellenism alive beyond the territorial borders of the Greek state. Their pilgrimage to Imvros shows how the Virgin Mary is seen in various cultures as having the ‘power to provide assistance and comfort, and to empower those who pray to her’ (Hermkens 2007: 4). It also provides an ideal stage for collective remembering, through what Connerton calls ‘acting out’ (1989: 25), as opposed to merely cognitive remembering. Connerton emphasizes the collective aspect of memory, placing considerable emphasis on ‘commemorative ceremonies’ (ibid.: 41), such as the festivals of Christian saints. In response to the question whether ‘such ceremonies play a significant role in shaping the communal memory’ (ibid.: 48), Connerton answers that ‘if there is such a thing as social memory, we are likely to find it in commemorative ceremonies’ (ibid.: 71). My ethnographic data fully supports his argument about the significance of ‘bodily social memory’ in an environment that encourages the proliferation of collective memories.

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The religious character of public life in the island and the performance of the pilgrimage and associated festivities operate as sensory and material vehicles for the collective memory (Seremetakis 1994). During the festival, the past is intensively actualized as people who have lost contact with the place and with each other for decades, meet again in an environment overwhelmed by a material culture that stimulates their childhood memories disrupted by recollections of loss. As people inhabit the same homes, walk the same streets and pavements, and prepare and consume the same food as dictated by the Orthodox calendar, the past is actualized. Nostalgia motivates them to operate again as neighbours and prepare together the same food and sweets they use to eat before their exodus. They often invite friends and relatives to share these homemade varieties and to remember the ‘old good days’. Walking through the villages during August, one can see many gatherings in the courtyards where people are drinking, listening to music, joking and speaking loudly, and inviting passers-by to join them. Apart from the Panayia pilgrimage on 15 August, many other locally organized pilgrimages take place in the small country churches across the island. The revival and intermingling of recollections associated with these religious and social events as remembered before their expulsion mingle with memories of loss and provides a space of intense shared feelings that we can call communitas (Turner 1969). The Church and its associated festivities lie at the very centre of social life during August. As I shall explain later, returning to a homeland and participating in its social life is a moral undertaking; the mere act of returning has a moral and sacred character. As Bataille notes, ‘The sacred is established through the painful process of loss’ (1971: 28). The peak of the festivities is reached on the eve of Assumption Day in Tepeköy (Agridia), one of the largest villages on the island. This event is organized by the Imvrii associations of Athens and Salonica and attracts a wide range of returnees. The associations’ members prepare a buffet with traditional food and wine and invite musicians from Greece and Istanbul to play. The festival begins in the evening and includes food, music and dance, sometimes lasting until the next morning, and is seen as the culmination of the August celebrations. Due to its centrality, the festival becomes a highly sensitive and politicized issue and the subject of debate among the organizers. Among other issues, the organizers try to avoid attempts to transform the festival from a meeting opportunity for the returnees and an Imvrii celebration into a tourist event. Afterwards, the Panayia festival is vigorously discussed, narrated and debated in the journals of the Imvrii associations. It is also represented in personal photographic albums, providing a prolific space where the memories of participants and non-participants are structured as ‘before and after our expulsion’. These recollections refer to ‘how nice and vibrant the festival was before our exile, how lively our village was, the animals offered for sacrifice in the good old days and the Turkish officials who avoided approaching our festivities’. The collective and ritual character of these manifestations may be seen as a canvas on which are inscribed embodied sensory memories, triggering more memories of a shared

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past. Even the place where the festival takes place is seen in terms of before and after. Before the Greek exodus in the 1960s and 1970s, the festival was held in Tepeköy’s main square but during the 1990s, the increasing number of participants led to its relocation to the edge of the settlement, close to the cemetery. After a few years, with the assistance of the Turkish local governor (the kaymakam), the earthen playground there has been transformed into a paved square. Saints in Exile: Sanctifying the Loss, Secularizing the Sacred For us, there is a psychic need to make a pilgrimage (proskinima) to our birthplace every now and then … I feel Imvrian both with my body and my soul. (Patriarch Bartholomew)6

Coleman and Eade point out that ‘the verb “sacralize” [may be preferable] to the noun “sacred” since [they] wish to emphasize the often partial, performative, contested character of appropriating something or someone as “holy”’ (2004: 18; see also Tšerkassova, Chapter 6, this volume). Therefore, sacralization should be treated as a performative process whch can embody secular concerns. What is most striking during the pilgrimages and the August festivities is the transposition of the exilic experience onto religious saints and scenarios. On 16 August, a pilgrimage takes place at the country church of Panayia Balomeni, literally, ‘Virgin Mary the Healed’.7 As this Panayia is located up a hill, people must cover the most difficult part of the journey on foot. After the end of the Mass, animals are sacrificed in the Virgin’s honour and then eaten at the ensuing feast. Quite often the priest or the bishop leading the service gives a speech at the end of the liturgy. During August 1997, the bishop of Annovero, who belonged to the Imvrii diaspora, was in charge. The speech he delivered had both patriotic and religious overtones. He stressed that ‘the Virgin Mary encouraged Imvrian people during their exile and they did well … Her icon is located in every family altar and every shrine. Virgin Mary ixenitemeni [literally, Mary the immigrant] is helping Imvrian people to get ahead and become famous.’ A similar speech had already been delivered after the main service on 15 August after the liturgy in the Panayia of Tepeköy, one of the two main Greek villages on the island. Bishop Meliton of Philadelphia, during August 2001, also made a connection between the Virgin Mary’s suffering and the returnees’ experience as exiles. Initially, he recounted the hardships of Panayia’s life and then he continued: Now, let me transfer these thoughts to our own current reality. We, people from Imvros, have we not suffered all those hardships, which the current circumstances reserved for us? … Didn’t our mothers weep and take refuge in  Imvros (ed. by the Association of Athens) 2011, 102–3: 33.  ‘Balomeni’ literally means ‘patched up’.

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our Mother, the Virgin Mary, and in the mercy of God begging for the protection of their children?8

In the same spirit during August 1999, Bishop Kyrilos, who officiated at the church of Panayia of Tepeköy (Agridia in Greek), in his speech at the end of the liturgy pointed out that: This place that has undergone the ordeals we all know is your own place, your own homeland. It is like your mother who gave birth to you. Is it possible to forget your own people, your own friends and relatives? Is it possible to forget your grandparents in the cemetery where they are resting? Is it possible to forget your homes, your roots and yourselves? Is this possible? We all have the task to remember, to visit and to help these older people who stay here under difficult conditions.9

This mixing of worldly traumatic experiences with religious suffering by the Patriarch Bartholomew adds to the moral tradition of those ‘forced out’: We came again this year to celebrate the Assumption of our Virgin Mary, to stay sleepless for long facing the vision and the reality of our Imvros. Of our Imvros that is anchored in the Aegean Sea and at the same time is traveling to the edges of the earth and is raised in the heavens of our souls.10

My point is that the reference to real events, with a language bearing the echoes of religious scenarios, operates as a frame for sanctifying the moral tradition of loss. The following extracts from a speech by the Bishop Miron Chrisostomos also fits within this framework. After the liturgy at the parish church of Panayia Balomeni on 16 August 2009, he also celebrated the relationship between the Virgin Mary, Imvros and those returning: Friends and benevolent worshippers, most of you are new this year in this popular pilgrimage of Imvros. Today, we all came here with labor and sweat to honour our Virgin Mary. Our Panayia with the thousand names, with so many names depending on our needs and our prayers, among others Panayia of Imvros and Panayia Balomeni who is patching up our traumas which cannot be healed. Today we need Panayia just for ourselves … [At] this moment Imvros, our homeland, needs so much Panayia because we are at a turning point.11

  Imvros (ed. by the Association of Athens), 2001, 63: 12.   Ibid., 2001, 55: 2. 10  Ibid., 2001, 63: 9. 11  Speech of the Bishop Miron Chrisostomos at Panayia Balomeni, Imvros (ed. by the Association of Athens), 2009, 95: 18. 8

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The fact that many bishops and the Patriarch Bartolomew himself comes from this island intensifies the religious framing of their experience. The following extract is an example of the way in which the 2011 visit by the patriarch was represented in the journal of the Imvrii Association of Athens: [The] Patriarch’s trips to the island, is a happiness and blessing for all of us. To accept him on the island, to meet him on the village roads, in his father’s coffeeshop with his friends. It’s a happiness and blessing to make our prayer with him in the churches of the villages as well as in the tiny country churches of the Imvrian land.12

Apart from the pragmatic considerations of the returnees, their summer return on the occasion of the festival may be seen as pilgrimage that takes place through a familiar acting out of family narratives and recollections, to objects of material culture and to the myriad details of the everyday life of the past. It is a return to an imaginary homeland that has not been adequately integrated within the places where the Imvrii now live and the national narrative. Certainly, the revival of the tradition of those ‘forced out’ bears many features of an ‘invented tradition’ (see Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983). While this pivotal festival is revived through the memories of past festivities and sensorial bodily memories, it is also reexperienced by feelings of nostalgia. In the words of Hobsbawm and Ranger, ‘it is probably most difficult to trace where such traditions are partly invented partly evolved in private groups’ (ibid.: 4). For obvious reasons, after the withdrawal of travel restrictions, the festival has been re-invented and has become a vehicle through which the harsh experience of the uprooted can be expressed. The loss is conceptualized through religious scenarios and symbols, which provide a fertile space for dramatizing and suffering as well as coming to terms with painful recollections. While it could be argued that the religious leaders’ testimonies sanctify the experience of persecution, the religious metaphors and symbols are also secularized in order to narrate an ongoing human drama. Saints are transformed into immigrants and suffer as humans, rather than humans acting as saints. Asia Minor refugees, who came to Greece after the 1922 war, also turned Panayia the Healed into a refugee in their attempt to narrate their drama (see Tsimouris 1998: 114). Conclusion I saw churches, places of worship, holy places that I was always taught to respect, desecrated. I visited one church next to the port that my mother always spoke of. I wanted to cry; the church was completely destroyed. I stood inside and looked  Imvros (ed. by the Association of Athens), 2011, 102–3: 34.

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up and saw the fallen ceiling … I was not supposed to feel I was in a church of God … .13

For the Imvrii, going back to ‘their’ homeland may be seen as a sacred journey both in secular and religious terms, since it is framed by both religious and lived experience. It is a sacred journey because they draw on a moral tradition when returning to reclaim their homeland, and because they journey as pilgrims for the sake of the Virgin Mary – a sacred symbol with both local and ecumenical associations. The Turkish authorities welcome the Greek visitors for at least two reasons. First, they see the Greeks as tourists who contribute a lot to the island’s impoverished economy. The summer visitors spend not only for their travel and living expenses but also in their attempt to improve the infrastructure of their villages and repair their houses, public buildings and churches. Secondly, the Turkish authorities want to emphasize the democratic face of the Turkish republic, especially in an island that is a living testimony to intolerance and the negation of religious, cultural and national otherness. In this context, the phrase ‘antagonistic tolerance’, coined by Hayden (2002), can be used as an interpretative framework for the returnees’ interaction with the Turkish authorities. As he explains, ‘competitive sharing is compatible with the passive meaning of “tolerance” as non-interference but incompatible with the active meaning of tolerance as embrace of the Other’ (ibid.: 205). Sharing of the same religious or ethnic space by both the Turkish authorities and the returnees is not a clear mark of positive pluralistic coexistence. The act of sharing and tolerating each other, framed by a performative rhetoric of mutual hospitality, is primarily the consequence of necessity or passive tolerance in Hayden’s terms. While pilgrimage can generate a condition of communitas where individuals foreground an egalitarian status undermining their social boundaries, it is necessary also to explore the particular historical and political rationale of pilgrimages in contested places. We need to investigate the historical conditions in which certain pilgrimages are revived and flourish while others wither. We also need to examine what else, beyond religious communitas, is at stake among antagonistic groups in the course of a pilgrimage. What are the material and political interests which lead the host authorities to tolerate unwanted rituals of belonging? To what extent are memories and hopes, motivated by moral traditions of loss and destitution, actualized for Mary’s sake as unique performative means in an unfriendly social environment? Following Bowman, we must ask how ‘the pilgrimage is discursively constructed’ (1991: 120) through lived histories in order to be tolerated by the Turkish state, or, more precisely, how pilgrimage articulates more mundane hopes and fears and becomes a sacred promise for the return of those who were violently forced out. 13  From a published account in English of a young returnee from the US under the title ‘Stories my mother always told me’, published in Imvros (ed. by the Association of Athens), 1996, 43: 32.

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Hermkens, Jansen and Notermans suggest that ‘while praying to Mary, pilgrims transfer and trust their own sufferings to her, and this movement relieves them and emotionally empowers them. They seek her out as an all-powerful mother who protects them in periods of grief, pain’ (2009: 6). This applies closely to the Greeks, who were forced to depart from Imvros during the 1960s and 1970s but have returned constantly, since the late 1980s, to reclaim their homeland and express their devotion to the Virgin Mary. Hermkens and her colleagues, inspired by Coleman and Eade’s 2004 volume, explore the association of pilgrimage with movement and such omnipresent late modern processes as ethnic and national conflicts, diasporic migration and tourism and the ways in which pilgrimage can act as an ‘empowering strategy’ operating through ‘cogent connections’ with the divine, especially the Virgin Mary (ibid.: 8). Indeed, these connections and the power which people from Imvros draw from their relationship with Mary enables them to reclaim their homeland not only in symbolic terms but also in pragmatic ways, despite their minority status. As Katić vividly demonstrates in his contribution to this volume, for social groups which were forced to leave due to state violence, ‘pilgrimage … is one of the reasons, and frequently the only reason … to visit their houses, if only once a year’ (Katić, Chapter 2). Through religious and daily rituals during their summer return, Imvrii also conflate the past (when they were the largest group in the island and Turks were a minority) and the present (as visitors in their homeland), mundane and sacred experience (by transposing their suffering to Virgin Mary), ethnic and national identity (as Orthodox Greeks reclaiming a homeland in a Turkish territory) and challenge fixed territorial imaginaries and national boundaries. In this respect, I agree with Hermkens, Jansen and Notermans that ‘lived religion during pilgrimage destabilizes the categorizations held so dearly by modernity’ (2009:12). By conflating systematically human sufferings with sacred resources and scenarios in an environment overwhelmed by images of material culture as manifested through the devastation of Orthodox shrines and houses, religious leaders and Patriarch Bartholomew generate what Coleman describes as the ‘permeability of boundaries between ritual performance and everyday life’ (2004: 20). Furthermore, the very presence of material culture, both sacred and mundane, operates as the memorial stage for a performative human/sacred drama enacted periodically. It also ensures the permeability of boundaries between past and present and, thereby, enables expatriates to be connected anew with the place. In this way, the modulation of sacred imagery, in connection with the experience of loss, enlivens memories and constructs a place called ‘homeland’ in an environment that is non-Orthodox and unfriendly to the ways in which the Greeks re-appropriate the place. Inevitably, their return on the occasion of the August festival motivates deep feelings and traumatic recollections of loss on a daily basis. During their summer visits, as they repair their homes and take care of their land, which includes checking out to what extent it has been encroached upon, the past is painfully actualized. They walk through the same routes and socialize in the same

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coffee-shops and squares. The process of walking may be seen as ‘thinking and perceiving the past, present and future, and combining them in references to routes (Lee and Ingold 2006: 75). Similarly, the familiar landscape operates as a vehicle for memory (Katić, Chapter 2). Most importantly, meeting with fellow-villagers with whom they have lost track over decades (since they come from diverse places including Athens, mainland Greece, Europe and overseas), gives rise to shared recollections of a togetherness irrevocably lost.

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Part II Inter-Religious Dialogue and Intra-Religious Competition

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Chapter 4

Pilgrimage Site Beyond Politics: Experience of the Sacred and Inter-religious Dialogue in Bosnia Marijana Belaj and Zvonko Martić There may be something about life along the edges of great tectonic plates that not only produces friction but also generates creativity, surprise and intrigue. (Shenk 2006: 1)

Throughout its history, Bosnia, as the nodal space of many ethnic and religious groups, has been a fertile ground for political discourses, which use religion as an agent for achieving ethnic integration and cohesion. Those discourses have also made the country a repository of differences, which have led to conflict. In a place of ethnic and religious borderlands, state ideologies and religious orthodoxies highlight the impenetrability and fixity of borders. However, in everyday life, borders function as spaces of interaction and interchange (Driessen, in Duijzings 2000: 12). Hence, while Bosnia’s history is marked by political turmoil, away from the centres of power there is another history of cohabitation. These two dimensions of Bosnia’s past and present are also inscribed into pilgrimage sites. While some accentuate the impenetrability of ethnic and religious borders, others represent places for interaction and interchange between various ethnic and religious groups. Inter-religious cooperation has been taking place and continues today in numerous pilgrimage sites across Bosnia and Herzegovina, which are generally situated far from the centres of power. One of the most famous of these sites is the Roman Catholic shrine of St John in the village of Podmilačje near the town of Jajce. Another very interesting example is the pilgrimage route in Sarajevo, which links three sacred places from different religious groups: the Muslim grave of Turbe sedam braće (Mausoleum of the Seven Brothers), the Franciscan church of St Anna on Bistrik and an old Orthodox church. Other cases of inter-religious cooperation are provided by the Catholic participation in the Orthodox feast of St Elijah at the village of Kožuh near the town of Doboj, while the Muslim religious site in Buna near Mostar is frequented both by Catholics and Orthodox. The only truly international pilgrimage site in the country is Medjugorje, where once again inter-religious and intercultural dialogue of pilgrims is taking place. Similar examples can be found in other parts of the troublesome Balkans where members of different religious and ethnic groups, regardless of inter-ethnic disputes, war

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and an insistence on the orthopraxis of their particular community, remain loyal to one saint or pilgrimage site (Duijzings 2000: 65). Sharing a pilgrimage destination undoubtedly implies sharing at least some values and ideals. During the past twenty years, in the context of the anthropology of pilgrimage, researchers have drawn more attention to the ways in which pilgrimage sites act as arenas for social, political and religious conflict, referring, in the process, to the concept promoted by Eade and Sallnow (1991b). In their definition of pilgrimage as a realm of competing discourses, however, Eade and Sallnow also stated that this view did not exclude drives towards consensus and the features of communitas in some cases (ibid.: 2, 5). We follow this suggestion by focusing on the pilgrimage site as a lived reality of cooperation and coexistence between different ethnic and religious groups. Our study challenges popular and political discourses on Bosnia (and its pilgrimage sites) that propagate inter-ethnic and inter-religious separation and conflicts. We want particularly to offset the influence of academic texts, for example, Bax (1995) or Hayden (2002), whose exclusive concern with nationalism and inter-ethnic competition and conflicts shares common ground with those popular and political discourses (Bowman 2002: 219). Bax and Hayden present a onesided and biased interpretation to the academic community of the general picture of Bosnian reality. Even though Bax’s study on Medjugorje has come under a great deal of criticism on account of its distorted data on ethno-religious relationships (see Belaj 2012: 65–8, Bringa 1997, Lučić i Ančić in Radoš 2008), it is still used as ‘evidence’ when pilgrimage sites are being examined as spaces of religious, ethnic and political conflict (for example, Bowie 2006: 240, 260, Margry 2008: 14, Hayden 2002: 214). Hayden relies on Bax’s research when he cites Medjugorje as a ‘case of long-term competition over territory’, which ended with ‘the Marian visions [which] permitted the establishment of the place as, definitively, Roman Catholic, hence Croat’ (Hayden 2002: 214). Like Bax, Hayden ignores the fact that the competition over Medjugorje is generated exclusively by internal contestation within the Roman Catholic Church (between Franciscan and diocesan priests) and is not part of some inter-ethnic or inter-religious antagonism.1 Hayden (2002) does not take seriously studies focused on coexistence and the respect of the Other; he accuses them of bias and critical weakness and, indirectly, lack of responsibility because they do not consider inconvenient facts. It is a pity, however, that he fails to employ the same sensitivity when developing his own perspective. This study joins, therefore, other anthropological studies which show how pilgrimage sites can be shared by the members of different religious affiliations 1  The Roman Catholic parish of Medjugorje had existed for more than 100 years prior to the Marian visions and the village had been part of other Roman Catholic parishes for almost 400 years. Croats with Marian visions in 1981 did not need, nor were they striving, to establish Medjugorje as ‘Croat’, as Hayden understands it. (Medjugorje is part of Čitluk municipality where, in 1981, Croats accounted for 97.85 per cent of the population and ten years earlier, in 1971, for 98.02 per cent.)

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not only in the Balkans region but also in the eastern and southern Mediterranean, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China (see Albera and Couroucli 2012, Bowman 2012). These studies point to diverse modes of inter-religious cooperation and the transcending of religious differences, while also demonstrating that the practices of mixing and sharing have a long history. The focus of our study is a Catholic shrine which is shared with Muslims in Olovo, a small town 50 kilometres from Sarajevo. Today it is mainly a local shrine, but during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, it was a multireligious destination for pilgrims from all over the Balkans. Although conflicts have occasionally broken out at the shrine, it has also functioned as a place of inter-religious cooperation and dialogue. Hence, the main link between the two ethnic and religious groups is their shared understanding and the experience of the sacred, which is located in space and embodied in the figure of Mary, the mother of Jesus –‘the Lady of Olovo’. ‘What Kind of Country is This?’: A Dialogue Challenged As already emphasized, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been characterized by ethnic and religious plurality for centuries. Today conflicting social memories and different interpretations of the past and present between the three ethnic (and religious) groups,2 make inter-religious (and inter-ethnic) cooperation and dialogue hard to accomplish. One of the obstacles was the understanding of religion and its role in a country shaped by the Yugoslav Communist period. The Yugoslav state had pursued an atheistic policy which confined the Catholic Church and other religious communities to a kind of a ghetto, forcibly marginalizing them and hindering the development of religious pluralism (Zovkić 2001: 636). The fall of Communism meant the collapse of this atheistic policy, ‘but the fighting spirit remained’ (Šarčević 2003: 440). Many of the major protagonists of socio-political and religious life ‘still talk and act as if religions were a necessary evil which could not be controlled by the power of the state any more’ (Zovkić 2007: 241). The recent war of the 1990s has added a new symbolic inventory. As Kazaz notes, ‘The war, as an interpretive space, has shaped ethnic groups into political nationalities, with the aim of defining national territories as national states’ (2012: 20). This inventory is linked to a complex socio-political statehood, legally determined by the Dayton Agreement of 1995, which has further weakened inter2  There are three constitutive nationalities (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats), a small Jewish population and 17 national minorities. The last published census of Bosnia and Herzegovina was done in 1991. The CIA claims that Bosniaks constitute 48 per cent, Serbs 37.1 per cent, Croats 14.3 per cent and others 0.6 per cent (estimate from the year 2000). According to religious affiliation the CIA calculated that Muslims constituted 40 per cent, Orthodox 31 per cent, Roman Catholics 15 per cent and others 14 per cent (The World Factbook 2012).

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ethnic and inter-religious cooperation.3 Although the Dayton Agreement was widely interpreted as a peace agreement, its effect was to forcibly territorialize the diverse ethnic and religious groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina and encouraged the emergence of a three-ethnic rather than a multi-ethnic society (ibid.). Current political processes are supporting this direction. The relations between the three centres of power – Sarajevo, Mostar and Banja Luka – are perceived in public discourse as paradigms of the general relations between ethnic and religious groups, while the diversity of inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations and perceptions at the local level are frequently neglected. The extent to which it was difficult for outsiders to understand the complexity of inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations in countries such as Bosnia was witnessed by one of the authors of this chapter, a Bosnian Croat. During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, he lived in Germany. His host, a German national, was following the events there and was marking the conflict zones on a map as they were reported by German and British television stations. The co-author of the chapter was asked to explain why Bosniaks and Croats were fighting together in one region and against each other in another. When the conflict between the Bosniaks themselves started in Western Bosnia, the host folded his map and concluded: ‘I really don’t know what kind of a country and what kind of people this is! I’m sorry, but I think no one in the West can understand you.’ Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina has transformed ethnic and religious plurality into separate ethno-national groups. Furthermore, as emphasized by the Bosnian Muslim theologian Adnan Silajdžić, religious communities, under the influence of ethno-national ideologies and programmes, have turned their religious creeds into a form of politico-national religion (in Curak 1998). Hence, belonging to one of the three constitutive ethnic communities is generally interpreted as belonging to one of the three dominant religions: the Bosniaks are Muslims, the Croats are Roman Catholics and the Serbs are Orthodox. The conflicts between these ethnic communities are frequently interpreted as religious, while religious differences are generally listed as the main cause of the conflict. During moments of antagonism, the Bosniaks quickly become the Turks, the Croats become the Crusaders and the Serbs become ‘non-believers’ or ‘St Savas’ (referring to Serbian nationalists and Orthodox Clericalists, that is, svetosavci). Prejudice and boundaries at the political level hamper attempts at establishing cooperation and dialogue. The constant exchange of conquerors and aggressors, dictatorships and coups d’état have caused this. It would not be difficult to assume that Bosnian Muslims 3  The Dayton Agreement divided Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republika Srpska, while in 2000 the International Court of Arbitration established the District of Brčko as an administrative unit of local government under the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This result is so complicated that not even the members of the legal profession can agree whether Bosnia and Herzegovina is a federation, confederation, confederate-federate union, asymmetric federation-confederation or a union or, possibly a protectorate (Bojić 2011: 142).

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feel differently from Catholics or Orthodox Christians about the period of the Ottoman rule from 1463 to 1878. Yugoslavia was the best of all possible solutions for the Serbs, while the Bosniaks today feel relieved that the international community has enabled them, through proclaiming independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to live their ethnic identity freely and nurture their culture. Under such circumstances, the dream of having joint schoolbooks in history, literature, or language which are openly pointing to the national identity of each of the constitutive nation remains just that – a dream (Zovkić 1998: 203). Inter-religious Dialogue at the Institutional Level The Muslim community and the Serbian Orthodox Church have no official documents which explain their attitude towards inter-religious dialogue. However, the Catholic Church made the first step in that direction during the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), when it defined its attitude towards non-Christian religions, especially towards Islam, in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen gentium (1964) and in the Declaration Nostra aetate (1965). Even though the Catholic Church in these documents recommends dialogue, they do not make clear how dialogue is to be pursued (Bižaca 2003: 80). In their search for inter-religious dialogue, the theologians have been trying to find the universal common ground between all the religions and mostly rely on the document of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue from 1991, Dialogo e annuncio. This document lists four forms of inter-religious dialogue: dialogue of life (coexistence in mutual respect and sharing), dialogue of deeds (cooperation for the general good), dialogue of theological exchange (meetings of experts with the aim of getting to know other religions and establishing common ground) and dialogue of religious experience (learning about the religious experiences of others and attempting to participate in them) (Bižaca 1997: 31). At the institutional level, inter-religious dialogue in Bosnia and Herzegovina is supported by the universities of theology (through courses and seminars), various institutes, journals, councils founded by religious leaders, different NGOs and groups of volunteers (Zovkić 2001: 635, 636–43). Hence, in order to establish mutual trust, build up peace and begin dialogue at the highest level, representatives of the Catholic Church, the Muslim community, the Jewish community and the Serbian Orthodox Church founded the Inter-religious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1997. The Council has agreed upon the Nacrt Zakona o slobodi vjere i pravnom položaju crkava i vjerskih zajednica u BiH (‘Draft of the Law on Freedom of Religion and Legal Status of Churches and Religious Organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina’), published the Knjiga o običajima muslimana, pravoslavnih, katolika i Jevreja u BiH (‘Book on the Customs of the Muslims, Orthodox, Catholics and Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina’) and, based on the findings from its monitoring programme, it has published the Izvješće o stanju prava na slobodu vjere u BiH (‘Report on the status of the rights to religious freedom in Bosnia and

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Herzegovina’). The Council also regularly publishes a journal, organizes meetings for young theologians and holds workshops for laypeople, teachers of Catechism and religious officials, and so on. However, it seems that this inter-religious dialogue displeases the Adventists, Baptists, Mennonites and the Methodists. They are only involved in efforts at promoting dialogue and peace-making through NGOs and they are ’angry at the Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox religious leaders because they ignore them in inter-religious encounters’ (Zovkić 2001: 641). The basic goal for pursuing dialogue at the level of institutional religion is peace-keeping (see Illustration 4.1). However, this is not a prime consideration for religious communities and therefore their involvement is highly secular, that is, limited to political agreements and deals (Silajdžić 1999: 213). A Croatian sociologist, Željko Mardešić, writing under the alias Jakov Jukić, claimed that peace between religious leaders reflects what is happening within civil society and what is enforced by the international community: Religious leaders actually only foster what has already been achieved and not what they have achieved themselves. In that sense, religious peacekeeping is falling to keep pace with civil peacekeeping and is successful only to the extent that is allowed by civil peacekeepers. Very troubling is the fact that secular or civil peacekeeping – if present – is much more successful than religious [peacekeeping]. (Mardešić 1998: 413–14)

Illustration 4.1

World Meeting for Peace held in Sarajevo, 9–11 September 2012

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Mardešić/Jukić and Silajdžić both claim that inter-religious dialogue at the topdown, institutional level is not linked to bottom-up dialogue, that is, the dialogue between the believers themselves. Bottom-up dialogue is not occurring through agreements and projects but spontaneously, through friendship networks and religious experiences and meetings. Hence, institutional inter-religious dialogue and friendships between lay people from different confessions are two pathways which do not go together since ‘the ecumenism of their beliefs is not the same: for the former (for example, the Inter-religious Council) it is more political and for the latter (the believers themselves) more religious’ (Jukić in Silajdžić 1999: 213). The Micro-world of Olovo: ‘We Live with Each Other!’ The shrine at Olovo is situated in an almost exclusively Muslim town in central Bosnia. There are only around twenty Catholics residents, who inhabit the new part of the town built at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The Marian shrine is situated in the old (Muslim) part of the town and contains a miraculous painting of Our Lady. Olovo also contains a mosque and an Orthodox church which has very few worshippers. The Orthodox priest left Olovo during the last war and another Orthodox priest, who is expected to take over the care of the church, only recently paid a visit to the town mayor. The shrine dates back to the fourteenth century, but it may be even older and is considered to be the oldest Marian shrine in Bosnia. The first records indicating its importance originate from The Dubrovnik Annals from 1454: … and Stjepan Herceg made peace with Dubrovnik, with his wife Jelena, his son Vladislav and his son-in-law (a Bosnian king). Both brothers-in-law were very pleased with the reconciliation and the two daughters, Katarina and Marija, sent gifts to the Church of Our Lady in Olovo. (Matić 1991: 13–14)

Olovo was then a mining town inhabited exclusively by Catholics. It remained Catholic even after the collapse of medieval Bosnia and its incorporation with the Ottoman Empire in 1463. The Ottomans spared the Franciscan shrine, maybe because of the Catholic control of the local mining industry, and during the first hundred years of Ottoman rule, the shrine became a significant pilgrimage site for the wider Balkan region. In their reports during the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, Apostolic Visitors mentioned pilgrims from Bulgaria, Serbia, Rascia4 and Albania, who were a mixture of Catholics, Muslims and Orthodox. The Turks did not prevent the local population from performing their religious practices at the shrine: ‘All the Catholic pilgrims confessed their sins and took Communion: publicly in front of the church right before the eyes of the Turks. The Ottoman  The area of today’s south-west Serbia.

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government was familiar with the celebrations and they respected them’ (Fra Franjo from Varadin in 1679, in Matić 1991: 33–4). In 1600, Bishop Franjo Baličević wrote a report about the miraculous painting of Our Lady before which many miracles had occurred. He noted that Muslims were still coming to the shrine and some of them had secretly converted to Christianity because of the miracles (Zirdum 2008: 137–8). In 1640, Fra Pavao from Rovinj reported the following: I have seen Muslim women pleading to the guardian of the shrine to leave the church door open late at night so they could practise their devotion to Our Lady. On bare knees, they would crawl from the church door to the painting of Our Lady, calling out to her with the most heartbreaking cries. (Jurišić in Mijatović 1988: 186)

Fra Nikola Ogramić Olovčić also wrote in 1672: In the town of Olovo I have found in all Turkey and neighbouring regions the oldest and most famous church of the miraculous Mother of God … Because of the great miracles which happen almost every day, the Turks and all other people of different religion worship this Mother of God. In her honour and in worship large groups from neighbouring nations: Hungarians, Slavonians, Croats, Dalmatians, Dubrovnicans, Turks, Orthodox Greeks and Jews, come here on Assumption Day. Then the most merciful of all Mothers of all humankind helps everybody in their distress, especially those possessed, before the very eyes of the non-believers. (Ibid.)

In short, all the written sources from the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries mentioned the multi-religious character of the Olovo shrine. However, some sources do refer to conflicts which accompanied the celebration of the feast of Our Lady. For example, Bartol Kašić in his report in 1613 mentioned two processions in Olovo, one from 1609 and the other from 1610, in which Don Šimun Maković, whose family originated from the town, participated: He heard from his father that, at the time, the Turks wanted to destroy the church of the Blessed Virgin and tear her sacred painting apart, before which miracles had happened especially with possessed people who had been freed of their possession, whether Catholics, Easterners or Muslims. They were all crying loudly: ‘Sweet Mary, deliver us from evil! Blessed is who believes in you! The Christian Catholic faith is the true faith’. Angered by this, some Turks commented: ‘As long as Mary’s painting remains here the Catholics will multiply; this will damage our faith. Let us break her painting!’ And they jumped on the Christians who were in the procession and caused them to flee and more than 10.000 people ran wildly away. (Zloušić 1933: 274–5)

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A report from 1626 mentioned a conflict between Franciscan friars and ‘drunken Gypsies’ (Zloušić 1932: 10). The report also mentioned how the introduction of the new calendar led the Orthodox population to protest against the Franciscans to the Ottoman rulers, claiming that they were trying to introduce a new religion (Smičiklas 1891: 86). The emergence of the hajduk outlaws5 and their conflict with local Muslims during the Assumption Day celebrations in 1681 further increased government pressure on the Franciscan friars, who had to pay fines every time something like this occurred (Filipović 1934: 274). Strict vassal obligations, conflicts and general insecurity in the region caused the emigration of Catholics from Bosnia and from Olovo. During the Vienna War (1662–99), Catholics almost disappeared from Olovo and, in 1687, the Franciscans also left for the town of Ilok (Croatia), except for the guardian of the shrine, but even he left in 1700. In 1704, a local pasha ordered the monastery and church to be burned down. However, the Franciscan reports emphasize the continuity of the pilgrimage to Olovo: ‘The priest would come on Assumption Day or the Day of Nativity of Our Lady or on some other day, as agreed. He would visit the ruins, hold a Mass and that would be the end of it.’ (Zirdum 2008: 133) By 1866, 5,000 believers gathered at the ruined shrine and subsequently, a wooden church was erected, only to collapse in 1913. A new church was begun in 1929 and completed by 1936. Muslims and other non-Catholics helped in the construction: Many people from other religions are interested in the construction. A Jewish merchant committed himself to acquiring nails for wooden parts of the roof, and a Muslim, who owns a saw-mill, promised to cover the tower with copper plating. (Zloušić 1931: 163) The transport from Olovo railway station will be carried out by a Muslim from the older part of Olovo, who is under a strict obligation to make sure that the plate for the altar table does not break. After a job well done and light refreshments, a cheerful Muslim exclaimed: ‘What about this story that we burnt the church down? Well, look – we are about to build it!’ (Matić 1991: 47)

One should add that mutual assistance in building religious edifices is common across Bosnia in general (see Baskar 2012: 57). During the period between the two World Wars and again during the 1990s war, the relationship between Catholics and Muslims in Olovo remained good. The recent history of inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations can be traced in the Kronika svetišta Majke Božje u Olovu (‘Chronicle of the Shrine of the Mother of God in Olovo’), which was kept from 1 December 1969. Fra Berislav Kalfić, a witness of numerous pre- and post-war events during the 1990s, wrote a lot of 5  Groups of highwaymen who were fighting independently against Turkish rule. Some considered them bandits, some treated them as heroes.

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entries in the Kronika, and emphasized the way in which local Muslims looked after the shrine and the importance it had for them. Even during the conflict in the wider region of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Catholics and Muslims, Croats and Bosniaks, continued their dialogue in Olovo. Muslims visited the shrine and participated in the Mass when it was very difficult for Catholics to come on pilgrimage. So, for example during the fighting in 1992, because of their love for Our Lady, Muslims tried to console the Franciscan priest and support the Catholic celebration: [A Muslim woman said to the priest] ‘Neighbour paroch,[6] don’t be worried and so sad! If your congregation cannot come, we will come and fill your church on that day, as we have done every year and will participate in the Mass … But if your congregation does come, even better. We also love Our Lady. Our holy book Qur’an teaches us that as well!’ … Exactly half an hour before the beginning of the main celebratory Mass, which was to begin at 11 o’clock, two Muslim men wearing military uniforms and ten Muslim women … arrived there and a number of ‘our’ believers also arrived from the town. There were 8 of them! … None of the other pilgrims, who traditionally came from many other places, arrived except for one pilgrim from Vijaka: her name was Janja Lekić. She arrived barefoot, faithful to her annual vow to the Lady of Olovo. (Kronika … 1992: 156)

This text was written by the former shrine guardian, Fra Berislav Kalfić, who was full of praise for the local Muslims. However, during the war, the soldiers of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina robbed the residential area around the shrine and were violent towards the Franciscan priests. During the police investigation of this incident, Fra Berislav repeatedly emphasized that the perpetrators were not local Muslims, since the burglars called him pop, which is a name Olovo’s Muslims would never use for a priest; they would call him friar, or simply, by name. Many accounts by Muslims from the town confirmed their connection with the Franciscans, especially with Fra Lujo Zloušić, who was the shrine guardian from 1929 to 1969 and whose grave is situated in the shrine. One Muslim woman reported: ‘I visit his grave, light a candle and say a prayer in my own way. For me, he is a saint.’ The relations between Catholics and Muslims during the 1990s were additionally strengthened when many Muslim families from Olovo lived as refugees in the houses of Catholics in the wider Vareš area. During the fighting, the area around the church was bombed but not a single grenade hit the church. Since the mosque and the church were a few hundred metres apart, the Muslims claimed that ‘the Lady preserved both places of worship.’

 In this part of Bosnia, the term paroch is used for the Franciscans and diocesan priests.

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Local Muslims and Catholics believe in the legend that the shrine was founded by Mary appearing at the site. Moreover, according to the legend, both groups deserve equal credit for building the shrine: Just like now in Medjugorje, many years ago Our Lady appeared before people here in Olovo. She was seen on those rocks above the church. Everybody saw her, the Muslims too. The Lady wanted the church to be built on the spot but the Muslims didn’t allow it. And then a terrible storm started, with hail and thunder, harsh winds. A terrible storm. Then the Muslims said this was because they did not allow the church to be built and one of them, who was said to be a Hodja, decided that the church should be built because it was impossible to live in those storms. When the church was completed, the storms were no more.

Muslims pay significant importance to the bells at Mary’s church, claiming that they have protective power and provide well-being and safety. They rang the bells themselves manually three times a day during the angelus before the bells were electrified and even later, when the power was cut. During the war, when the shrine guardian was seriously injured in a car crash, the Franciscans from Visoko (60 km away to the south-west of Olovo) came to visit the shrine and found Naila Smailović, a Muslim woman, ringing the bells. After she stopped ringing them, they greeted her with the Catholic (Croatian) greeting: ‘Praised be Jesus and Mary’, to which she replied: ‘Good afternoon. I’m not to be greeted this way!’ Surprised, they asked: ’How do you ring the bells then?’ ‘Easily! I pull!’ she simply replied. During the last war, in 1993, Muslim soldiers asked for the bells to ring during the Holy Week regardless of the general church ban, ‘because the bells gave them additional courage, but also assurance that the priests remained in Olovo’ (Kronika … 1993: 180). It was customary in Olovo to hear the azan from the minaret of the mosque first and then the bells from the Olovo church. Esad Pepić, the imam of Olovo, commented: ‘As we listen gladly to the words of the azan inviting us to prayer, so we listen gladly to the church bells announcing prayer, co-existence and the wellbeing of those people’ (in Karačić 2012). The Muslims also inscribe the stories related to Our Lady in local places and name them after her: they call the path through which her picture ‘fled’ when the monastery was burned down in 1704 the ‘Lady’s Path’ and the place from which she was ‘watching’ the fire, they call the ‘Lady’s Field’. An obligatory stop in the Olovo Catholic pilgrimage is a spring called the ‘Lady’s Water’, which the Muslims claim comes straight from under Mary’s feet in a cave situated just under the monastery. The cave is considered to be her residence. The Catholics are also familiar with this legend but they emphasize that they have adopted it from the Muslims. The records from the Olovo archives document these shared beliefs in Our Lady’s mystical powers. One account, for example, tells the story of a Muslim woman who freed herself from being possessed by the Devil with the help of the Virgin Mary, who appeared to her (Zloušić 1932: 256). Even today Catholic and

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Muslim women follow common practices in asking Mary’s help to solve infertility problems. A Catholic woman from Kraljeva Sutjeska considers herself to be Our Lady’s gift, because her parents had lost seven children before she was born: ‘My parents came here. My father went around the church on his knees and I was born as the eighth child and here I am, alive! Who wants to have children and who wants them to stay alive, should come to Olovo to make a vow.’ (in Karačić 2012). According to the minutes from the shrine (see Zapisnik o dobročinstvima … [Minutes about good deeds … ] 1960: 3) and accounts by informants, infertile Muslim women would also ask Catholic women to take their clothes to the church for blessing; the Catholics would pray for them there and then bring back the clothes. Muslim women, after a few miscarriages, would even come to the church to ‘donate a Mass for giving birth’. It is also important to mention that during major Marian holidays there was scarcely one Muslim house which would not play host to Catholic pilgrims and provide them with accommodation. There could be up to 15 pilgrims in one room. The Muslims would even give up their own rooms: ‘We [the Muslims] would go to a yard house and leave the main house for the guests.’ Even if the host was not at home, the Catholic pilgrims would go in, make coffee and wait for their hosts to arrive. The pilgrims used to … occupy the same house each year, since you get used to it … Our host played the tambura (a traditional stringed musical instrument). And we would dance and sing all night long! God, we were tired from the journey and aware that we had to go back the next morning on foot. But we would dance and sing through the whole night.

In the morning they would all go to the Mass, although their Muslim hosts would stay outside the church fence. Today, however, the Catholics do not stay overnight in Muslim houses, since they mostly come just for one day. Muslims still attend the Mass but not in great numbers (see Illustration 4.2). The dialogue between Muslim and Catholic believers in Olovo is also supported by a friendly relationship between the imam of Olovo and the Franciscan friars. They visit each other, send holiday greetings to each other and jointly participate in religious celebrations (see Illustration 4.3). Hence, for example, during the Mass celebrating Marian festivities in May 2010, the shrine guardian, Fra Gabrijel Tomić, in his introductory speech greeted Esad Pepić, the imam of Olovo, and also greeted ‘all our Muslim neighbours who are here with us and among us. You don’t know them but I do. Thanks to all of them and for the gifts they brought for our celebration.’ Unlike their institutional centres, for the imam and the Franciscan friar, religious cooperation and dialogue are not part of some formal peace-making or diplomatic project but are grounded in everyday reality: ‘We don’t live next to each other. We live with each other’ (Fra Tomić in Karačić 2012); ‘When they leave their home the first thing my children see is the church. This is not something

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Illustration 4.2

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Muslim woman by the fence surrounding the Olovo shrine during the Mass on Assumption Day, 2011

which is foreign to Bosnia, to Olovo – it is something that is a part of the heritage of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Olovo’ (Imam Pepić in ibid.). The Nature of the Olovo Dialogue In the shrine of Olovo, emphasis is placed on the dialogue between Muslims and Catholics, but instances of contestation or even open conflict are not unknown. Yet, judging from the whole archival corpus as well as the contemporary situation, these conflicts are relatively rare. Local Muslims and Catholics share the fundamental idea of a pilgrimage site – its sanctity. Hence, what emerges is the complex character of this pilgrimage site which does not allow a simple either/or approach, and which also warns at the same time that such an approach should not be used even generally. Situations revealing differences between groups can be found throughout the histories of all shared pilgrimage sites in Bosnia, as well as elsewhere (see Albera and Couroucli 2012, Bowman 2012). At the same time, if no consensus existed, shrines could not function as places to which different groups could come. Even though, like Hayden (2002), we have focused on a shrine shared by members of different ethno-religious groups, his approach is not much use to us.

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Illustration 4.3

Esad Pepić, the imam of Olovo, next to Fra Berislav Kalfić, the former shrine guardian, during the Mass at the Olovo shrine, 1 May 2010

Hayden insists that these shrines are all about ‘competitive sharing’, which is compatible with ‘passive tolerance’ or non-interference, and incompatible with ‘active tolerance’, that is, ‘embracing of the Other’. In his process-based approach, he emphasizes that syncretism in shared shrines is rare and that it represents a temporal manifestation of non-interference by different groups in the process of vying for dominance in the shrine. Because Hayden’s analysis of shared shrines, as well as his examples, are based on geopolitical relationships, domination and mechanisms of power, the analysis says little about sharing itself – relationships and mechanisms of coexistence, solidarity and cooperation are incompatible with his idea. Consequently, he considers shrines such as Olovo, where inter-communal competition, antagonism, or violence are not a characteristic trait, as irrelevant. During the episodes when violence in Olovo was committed by Muslims, the protagonists were Muslim political authorities and Muslims from outside the local community, not the population of Olovo using the shrine. The episodes of violence were a demonstration of political superiority in the region, not an attempt at Islamizing the shrine. Moreover, Catholic pilgrimages continued, even to the burned-down shrine, and local Muslims took care of the Catholic pilgrims and attended Catholic celebrations. During the recent war, when Catholics were

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unable to visit the shrine, the Olovo Muslims looked after it without any intention of conquest. The analysis of the past and present inter-religious dialogue in Olovo, conducted on three levels – as a dialogue of religious experience, a dialogue of life and a dialogue of deeds – indicates that, from the perspective of the believers, a very beneficial – perhaps the most beneficial – area for dialogue is the space where religious experiences could be exchanged. In other words, the ways in which the sacred is perceived and experienced and in which pilgrimage space and time are used, are marked and sanctified through narratives and practices. The key role here is taken by the belief in the protective and interceding powers of Mary, that is, the belief in her effective intervention in solving the existential problems not only of Catholics but also of Muslims. It is important to emphasize that even though Catholic theologians (alongside some anthropologists, see Albera 2012b: 11–12, 21) claim that Marian worship among Muslim population is the result of the significant position which Mary has in Islam, based on her presence in the Qur’an, Muslims in Olovo call her Our Lady and consider her to be a ‘Catholic saint’, while the imam of Olovo calls her the ‘Sacred Lady’ and ‘Holy Mary’. They do not link her with Maryam, the mother of the prophet Isa from the Qur’an. It is not rare to find Muslim women in Olovo and across Bosnia and Herzegovina more generally observing holidays linked to Mary and giving her respect by delivering gifts and paying for Masses on those days (Oršolić 1978: 128). This happens just ‘because she is holy’, as one Muslim woman commented. Moreover, Muslims in Olovo speak about the church at the shrine as their church and compare it to dovište,7 a Muslim place of worship where they pray for rain during dry periods. In the vicinity of Olovo, there are around twenty such places and their local inhabitants tease the Olovo Muslims for not having a dovište of their own. In reply, the Olovo Muslims declare that they certainly have one, which is also the greatest: ‘The Lady [Marian shrine] is our dovište’ and they invite their Muslim friends to Assumption Day and celebrate their Du’a together. Hence, in Olovo the shrine is shared through religious practices and experiences linked to the worship of Mary, as well as a shared body of narratives about the sacred landscape based on Mary as the central figure in its naming and understanding. Similar mechanisms have been recorded at other shrines, not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina (see Albera 2012a: 229). However, inter-religious exchange is not exclusively a question of religious practices and experiences. A 7  There is an anecdotal story told by the Muslims about a chance meeting between a Muslim boy and a stranger visiting Olovo. The stranger asked the boy to which religious community did the two local churches belong. The boy, pointing to the Catholic church said: ‘This one is ours’, and pointing to the Orthodox church, said: ‘This one is theirs.’ When the stranger asked the boy how come that he called the Catholic church ‘ours’, the boy replied: ‘That’s what babo [father] says.’ Muslims state that nothing connects them with the Orthodox church and that it is ‘dark and cold’.

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dialogue of life was accomplished by Muslims sharing with Catholics their living space and time, food, songs and entertainment during the pilgrimage period. Finally, the living dialogue of deeds was reflected in the considerable solidarity that was at work during the exceptional circumstances of the last war when, for instance, the Muslims of Olovo found refuge in the homes of Catholics in the town of Vareš. The dialogue of deeds also finds its expression in the Muslim care of the Olovo shrine when Catholics had to leave, to the extent that, out of solidarity, Muslims contributed to Catholic Mass celebrations through their presence. Within the framework of these three levels of Olovo dialogue (the dialogue of religious experience, life and deeds), the balance of Muslim and Catholic involvement varies. When it comes to religious experience – to ‘entering into’ the religious space of the Other – the accounts concerning Catholics mostly mention individual visits to a hodja to obtain written charms (the accounts note that the Olovo imams do not perform such a service).8 In contrast, the accounts show the heavy and sustained Muslim involvement in Christian symbols and practices. Catholics do not perceive this involvement as a threat to their own religiosity; on the contrary, they do not refrain from helping to solve the life problems of Muslims through religious practices. As in many other shrines where Catholics and Muslims meet (see Couroucli 2012a: 4), the Muslims in Olovo are more active than Catholics in the exchange of religious symbols, practices and experiences. Similar relations can be observed when it comes to the balance in the dialogue of life, that is, where different groups share living space and time. Since Olovo is inhabited almost completely by Muslim population, this refers to selfunderstanding. Yet, in contrast to these two types of dialogue, our research shows that in the dialogue of deeds – a realm of interpersonal cooperation and solidarity in exceptional life circumstances – both Muslims and Catholics are equally engaged. The term komšiluk (a good neighbourhood) is used to describe this type of dialogue in Bosnia both in the past and today where ‘different ethno-religious groups liv[e] in proximity to one another … [Komšiluk] attempts to maintain peace and stability and to resist outside attempts to destroy inter-communal ties’ (Baskar 2012: 62, 65). One of the aspects of komšiluk to which Baskar devotes a whole chapter, and which is relevant to Olovo, involves taking care of the Other’s shrine during the Other’s absence, even when political circumstances are unfavourable for cooperation.9 Bearing in mind these three types of religious dialogue, to what extent does the existing dialogue of religious experience encourage social cooperation and solidarity? Do the social relations of cooperation and solidarity transcend inter8  Visiting religious representatives of another religion to obtain written charms was a common practice in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the past and so it remains today. 9  For instance, the imam of Olovo has also decided to illuminate the Orthodox church in the same way as the mosque and the Catholic church. He has bought the reflectors, and the Catholic shrine guardian installed them at the shrine’s expense. The company that distributes electrical energy covers the cost of the electricity.

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religious boundaries? The activities of religious leaders and theologians indicate that the grounds for inter-religious dialogue can, at least theoretically, be found in the religions themselves. However, these representatives are unable to find a common denominator on which such dialogue can be accomplished. In the process, inter-religious differences have become even more obvious. Undoubtedly, political and diplomatic factors have played a key role in deepening those differences. Yet, in the small town of Olovo, we have seen developments which have undermined dialogical challenges and obstacles. The lived reality of Olovo provides a clear answer to the two questions we posed above. The sacred – that is, Mary – refuses to discriminate between those from different religions (see Albera 2012a: 232). As Our Lady, she encourages unity and harmony between people. Social interactions, such as solidarity and the hospitality given to Catholic pilgrims, generate a connectedness which surpasses religious divisions and supports religious interaction. In the interactions between Muslims and Catholics in Olovo, religion and sociability are reciprocal. To what extent are the inter-religious boundaries between Muslims and Catholics in Olovo permeable? A Muslim woman was ordering a Mass for her sister in the church of Olovo: ‘If she came to me in my dream, then I would pay a Mass for her and light candles.’ Muslim pupils and students also light candles out of their own needs, because ‘if you seek something from God … it is not good to give something only to the mosque – you should give it to the church, too.’ A Muslim woman commented on Muslim participation in the Mass: ‘If somebody wants, they can make a sign of cross. We all know the text of the liturgy. And when the priest says at the end “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost”, I make the sign of cross. And I’m not the only one. More people do it. There is one God.’ However, as we have already mentioned, during the Mass, Muslims mostly stand by the fence surrounding the shrine. Even though the fence is symbolic and does not prevent the effect of the sacred on an individual on the other side of the avlija,10 it is also real. If Muslims do perform some of their vows in the church they make them ‘in their own way’. Regardless of accepting certain practices from Catholics, they remain firmly linked to their own religion. Even though such situations are indicative of ‘tolerance as a passive noninterference’ of different religious groups (Hayden 2002: 206), this is not the case of Muslims’ ‘lack of ability … to overcome the other’ (ibid.), that is, the notion of ‘antagonistic tolerance’. Quite the contrary, this is rather the case of an affirmative act, of respecting the Other, but one’s own as well. As Couroucli emphasizes, ‘shared sacra do not imply a shared religious identity’ (2012b: 45). Likewise, for Catholics, the ‘entrance’ of Muslims into their religious space does not involve ‘contamination’ or a challenge to their Catholic identity. Findings from Olovo show that inter-religious exchange is based neither on leaving one’s identity behind or passing over it, nor on avoiding and denying differences. It does not result in fusion but leaves open space for differences. The  From the Turkish word for a yard fenced off by a wall.

10

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foundations and doxa of people’s religion are not abandoned; on the contrary, they present rules and guidelines for action. In the creative search for solutions to problems imposed by the reality of everyday life, the elements of a religious inventory of the Other come in handy. In contrast to the centres of religious orthodoxy where there is an insistence on the ortho-practice of religious tradition and where inter-religious dialogue is merely a goal (and still a bone of contention), inter-religious dialogue in Olovo is an instrument which provides great possibilities in the practical aspects of everyday life – achieving personal and general wellbeing. Hence, inter-religious dialogue for Muslims and Catholics there is a token of the orthos of their practices. Even though inter-religious exchange between Muslims and Catholics is actually occasional (at the time of Catholic holidays), it undoubtedly influences the general perception of living with different others. Muslims at the shrine are the others, but they are the familiar others (ibid.: 54), in the same way as Catholics are the familiar others in Olovo nowadays. For the wellbeing of both sides, keeping this dialogue alive is of vital interest for both of them. As in other parts of the Balkan region and the eastern Mediterranean (see Couroucli 2012a: 5, 8; 2012b: 45), this sharing of a local sacred place and inter-religious dialogue is not dictated by some contemporary multi-religious/ multicultural politics or ideology, because the practices of coexistence, sharing and similar interactions are deeply rooted in the past. Regardless of the occasional conflicts documented in the archival records in Olovo, from the whole repository of the shrine’s past, the believers (Muslims and Catholics alike) selectively choose and re-interpret those episodes and interpretations of events, which invoke and support cooperation, coexistence and solidarity and their bonds with the sacred place. Collective memory, disciplined in such a way, benefits the future continuation and development of inter-religious cooperation and dialogue. Here, cooperation and dialogue are important determinants of the local production of identity. Conclusion In this chapter, we have focused on the issue of pilgrimage sites shared between different religious and ethnic groups in Bosnia in the circumstances dominated by popular and political discourses that propagate inter-ethnic and inter-religious separation and conflicts. Furthermore, taking into account research studies by some authors, such as Hayden (2002) and Bax (1995), we have tried to show that the reality of Bosnia is much more complex when religion and identity are not understood and perceived as a kind of a ghetto or an exclusionary phenomenon. In numerous pilgrimage sites across Bosnia, inter-religious (and inter-ethnic) cooperation has been taking place and continues today. Such a pilgrimage site is the Catholic shrine situated in an almost exclusively Muslim town of Olovo, in central Bosnia. The shrine is a case of long-term sharing between local Muslims and Catholics. Episodes of violence have occurred there but they are rare events

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and have not interrupted cooperation and dialogue between Catholics and local Muslims. Inter-religious dialogue in Olovo occurs occasionally, mostly during Catholic holidays. The balance of the involvement of Muslims and Catholics in the dialogue varies, while the dialogue itself goes beyond religion as such. The data indicate that, in the interactions between Muslims and Catholics in Olovo, religion and sociability are reciprocal. The past and present inter-religious dialogue between Catholic and Muslim believers in Olovo has been analysed on three levels: as a dialogue of religious experience, a dialogue of life and a dialogue of deeds. When it comes to the sharing of religious symbols, practices and experiences and the sharing of living space and time, the Muslims are more active then Catholics. A firm foundation for the dialogue of religious experience is Mary, as Our Lady, and as Catholic saint of both groups. Greater involvement of Muslims in a dialogue of life stems from the fact that Olovo is now an almost entirely Muslim town. The dialogue of deeds is grounded in the concept of komšiluk, inside of which the Muslims and Catholics are equally engaged. However, the inter-religious dialogue in Olovo does not entail the sheer openness and flexibility of inter-religious boundaries. In those interactions, the believers remain firmly linked to their own religion and they do not avoid their differences. Their religion provides rules and guidelines for action, but the space of inter-religious exchange also generates many opportunities for creative solutions to problems imposed by the reality of everyday life for both groups. When people are faced by the challenges of everyday life, the religious inventory of the Other can come in handy. In Olovo, the inter-religious exchange, especially the benefits it provides in the practical aspects of everyday life, is very important in the local production of identity. Just as the concept of ‘Muslim identity’ or ‘Catholic identity’ includes many subjectivities and various constellations, so inter-religious sharing has many forms and tones. Olovo and other shared shrines (see Albera 2012b: 18–19) show that the sacred place does not have to absorb the dynamics of the wider political setting. Neither can we observe them as some kind of resistance to contemporary political antagonisms and conflicts, since here we deal with long-term sharing. What are the mechanisms at work which enable such a shrine to be preserved over the centuries? Judging from Olovo, it seems to us that it is less productive to search for the answer in political discourses or contexts than in the creative and dynamic understanding of the relationship between religion and everyday life.

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Chapter 5

Competing Sacred Places: Making and Remaking of National Shrines in Contemporary Poland Anna Niedźwiedź

Introduction Catholic shrines in contemporary Poland can be interpreted as phenomena that establish and confirm cultural landscapes and a symbolic topography experienced by a significant part of Polish society. Statistical data concerning post-Communist Poland demonstrate the dominant, even hegemonic, position of the Catholic Church.1 Even though involvement in Sunday religious practices among Polish Catholics has been recently declining,2 both statistical data and qualitative research reveal the continuing strength of ‘cultural Catholicism’ (see Sroczyńska 2008: 156). Catholicism is accepted as a cultural norm even by non-Catholic Poles. The latter in a study undertaken in southern Poland automatically used the term ‘normal church’ to describe not their own but the local Roman Catholic church premises, rituals, or religious education classes (Pasieka 2013: 3). It should be emphasized that despite its hegemonic position, Catholicism in Poland is definitely not homogeneous, and those who describe themselves as Catholics apply various strategies and attitudes towards their lived versions of Catholicism. Nevertheless, an involvement with the symbolic space of Christian shrines is one of the fundamental religious and cultural events in the lives of Polish Catholics. The ‘obviousness’ of Catholicism and its shrines in many people’s lives as well as within the Polish landscape is reflected in statistics. Official data enumerates as many as 800 official Catholic shrines (Datko 2000: 312). These shrines contribute significantly to a ‘religious culture’, which is shaped by people and shared by them through a pattern of religious life and symbolism (Czarnowski 1938). 1  The last national census, held in 2011, revealed that 87.6% of the Poland’s population claimed to belong to the Roman Catholic Church denomination. See (accessed 15 April 2013). 2  Report by the Catholic Church Statistical Institute based on a one-Sunday survey in 2010 estimates that 41 per cent of Polish Catholics are regular Sunday churchgoers while 16.4 per cent regularly take communion. See (accessed 15 April 2013).

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Of course, sacred places as contextual, multi-local and multi-vocal constructs (Rodman 2003) are lived diversely and encourage people to generate various, dynamic and complex narratives. The latter are not only ‘just told with words’ but can also ‘be told and heard with senses other than speech and hearing’ (ibid.: 215). In this chapter, I focus on the concept of a ‘national shrine’, analysing how national story (and history) is encrypted into the lived spaces and narratives of two Marian sanctuaries: Jasna Góra,3 seen as a traditional and historic ‘national shrine’, and Licheń, perceived as an aspiring new ‘national shrine’. I will focus on the relationship between the spaces’ designs and the experiences of visitors, who intertwine personal, existential, religious levels with the concept of communal unity, mythical national history and identity (see Illustration 5.1). Shrines as sacred spaces and pilgrimage sites can be approached from an anthropological point of view, first of all, as symbolic places which are lived and experienced by groups and individuals. They are continually established and re-established through various social, cultural and religious actions as well as through people’s lives. In my approach toward spatial analysis of shrines, I draw on those currents within the anthropology of space and place, which have been inspired by Lefebvre’s idea of space as a social construct and relational entity (Lefebvre 1991). This approach sees space as ‘socially constructed, and contested’ (Rodman 2003: 212) and it focuses on how space is ‘managed, used, lived and felt’ by people (Bartmański 2012: 140). Therefore, the making and remaking of sacred places involves reciprocal relations between shrines and people. Shrines can be seen as both mirrors and generators, which reflect and shape socio-cultural activities and existential experiences. Furthermore, shrines, especially those described as ‘national’, are intimately bound up with the dynamics of collective and personal identity formation and are places where various powers are implemented, manifested and negotiated. I will also draw on anthropological analysis of contemporary urban spaces in East and East-Central Europe, which presents cities as collective representations and complex social constructions based on a ‘reciprocal conditionality’ between ‘urban infrastructure’ and patterns of ‘urban imagination’ (ibid.: 133). I suggest that interpreting changing urban spaces and the various ways people live and experience those spaces is a way to discuss the deep social and cultural changes, which occurred in former Communist societies during the period of transformation. I will explore the changing spaces of Polish Catholic ‘national’ shrines in order to understand more deeply lived Catholicism and its relationship with the dynamic set of identities and various powers emerging after Communism. Urban space and city, sacred space and shrine will be analysed as a constantly reciprocal  I use Częstochowa and Jasna Góra interchangeably. The first name refers to the city where the Pauline monastery is located. Jasna Góra (Polish for ‘Bright Mountain’) is the name of the monastery where the famous Marian image (called Our Lady of Częstochowa or Our Lady of Jasna Góra) is kept. 3

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Jasna Góra shrine, 2010

conditionality, which depends on numerous powers and social actors, various groups and individuals, people’s feelings and their religious beliefs, as well as the architectural and material dimensions of the shrine, its art and spatial design. Like the shrine studied by Katić in this volume (Chapter 2), the local clerical hierarchy plays a crucial role in the architecture and design of Polish Catholic

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sacred spaces. Furthermore, like the Croatian shrine, while the design might be initiated or controlled by the clergy, it is finally empowered by pilgrims through their practices, pilgrimages, embodied motions, rituals and other lived experiences and narratives concerning sacred spaces. The ‘Thick Places’ of Polish Catholics White, in his work on national commemorative spaces of Americans, adopts Geertz’s distinction between ‘experience near’ and ‘experience far’ (Geertz 1983: 57). White states that the combination of personal and national levels is crucially involved in producing a deep and moving experience of commemorative spaces. An experience of a national museum or memorial ‘can involve engendering a sense of personal identification with an imagined national community’ (White 1997: 9). Dubisch, in her ethnographic study of an annual motorbike pilgrimage to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, describes a similar process that ‘combines the individual search for healing and identity with the creation of a collective narrative’ (Dubisch 2004: 109). Polish Catholics demonstrate this powerful and complex experience of space and its relation to private and collective identity building by walking for many days to sacred places, spending the whole night in a bus on their way to a shrine, kneeling in front of images, lighting candles, walking barefoot through icy rivers, drinking and collecting ‘holy water’, kissing stones, climbing on a steep ‘Golgotha hill’, touching monuments, gathering in thousands to listen to a Mass under strong summer sun, and performing so many other practices related to sacred places. In national shrines, small stories and personal, often embodied, experiences (‘experiences near’) are entangled with national stories, communal identity and mythical vision of the national history (‘experiences far’). In fact, the most powerful means through which sacred places are lived as ‘national’ is this complex and multi-level experience of space combining the personal and the collective, the human and the sacred. Religio-national shrines of Polish Catholics might be seen as ‘thick places’, which ‘enhance one’s sense of meaning and belonging, forging a series of affective and experiential connections in place’ (Duff 2010: 882). The meaningfulness and ‘thickness’ of shrines is related to the fact that their symbolic spaces are often experienced and remembered as involved in people’s biographies and life-turning moments. Ethnographic data, collected by myself as well as by other researchers at various Catholic shrines in Poland, reveal the pilgrims’ deeply spiritual and emotional relationship with sacred places. For instance, I talked with a female pilgrim several years ago during a two-day-long mystery play of Christ’s Passion in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska (a Marian and Passion shrine in southern Poland); after mentioning to me many difficulties in her family life and workplace, she confessed that ‘Kalwaria is everything for me. Without coming here every year I would not be able to live. Also my Easter would not

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be a real one.’4 Visiting a shrine is often seen as a remedy for various problems and misfortunes. Shrines make people’s lives meaningful, ordered, healed, ‘real’ and linked to the sacred. As Eade and Sallnow observe, a shrine can be seen ‘as a vessel into which pilgrims devoutly pour their hopes, prayers, and aspirations’ and it ‘appears to its devotees as if it were itself dispensing the divine power and healing balm which they seek’ (1991b: 15–16). The sacredness of shrines is widely acknowledged and they are described as ‘beautiful places’, ‘unusual places’, heavenly places (‘this place is like heaven, it is connected to heaven’) and above all as miraculous (‘it is a truly miraculous place, anytime I was there I got many blessings’). A significant number of visitors view Catholic shrines, with their material religiosity and intensive bodily and multi-sensorial experiences, as places imbued with the potentiality of miraculous happenings. Publicly displayed votive offerings, the crutches of those who were healed and the thanksgiving notes covering pages of ‘Books of Miracles’ reflect, generate, accumulate and materialize a miraculous consciousness (Olędzki 1989), which enforces the extraordinary ambience associated with a place. A 47-year-old woman, when recalling her visit to Jasna Góra, said: ‘I remember ex-votos in a Chapel of Our Lady. They impressed me a lot. And since that time I have started to have a truly deep faith.’ Intense feelings, emotions, crying, strange and unusual bodily experiences – all these occurrences are frequently recalled by pilgrims, who are asked to describe their visits to various shrines. People would also recount their own miraculous stories or stories heard from others about inexplicable cures, sudden conversions, pregnancies, breaking addiction (especially involving a close relative), passing exams, finding jobs, as well as stories which can be defined as ‘spiritual miracles’ – miraculous events which interviewees would relate to their religious and spiritual lives. The popularity of Polish shrines as sacred spaces is directly related to the popularity of pilgrimages and the cult of images. Most people experience sacred space through organized group pilgrimages; they travel to shrines by train, in hired buses, or on foot. Pilgrimage to the holy image and lived experience of sacred space is treated as part of Catholic religious education and is often an integral part of school curriculum.5 Children, celebrating their First Holy Communion, usually at the age of seven or eight, would be typically taken on a pilgrimage to a nearby Marian shrine. For most, it is the first pilgrimage they have undertaken and many go on pilgrimage further on in their lives. Secondary-school students and those  Interviews quoted in this chapter were collected during numerous field research trips led by myself in various shrines and places in Poland between years 2000 and 2012. Whenever I recall ethnographic material collected and published by another researcher I will add a bibliographic reference. 5  Since 1990, religious education is taught in primary, secondary and high schools in Poland. In most instances, religious-education classes mean Roman Catholic religious education. Public debate has frequently erupted over the domination of Catholic education in public schools and the tensions it might cause with regard to non-Catholic students. 4

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at high school a few months before their final exams often participate in mass organized pilgrimages to one of the biggest Polish Catholic shrines. Individual parishes and numerous social and professional groups also go on annual pilgrimage to the most popular shrines. A yearly agenda on the Jasna Góra shrine website illustrates the range of organized pilgrimages involving professional or shared-interest groups. For 2013, among others, pilgrimages are scheduled for Football and Sport Fans (January), Members of the Polish Parliament (February), Tourist Guides (March), Church Musicians (March), Caravanners, Motor Bikers, Anglers, Professional Truckload Carriers, Soldiers and Miners (all in April), Bankers, Professional Drivers, Amateur Radio Operators, Governmental Administration Officers, Polish Telecom Employees, Librarians, Volunteer Workers (all in May), Gardeners (June), Athletes (June), Unemployed (July) and so on.6 This fascinating list is complemented by an equally long list of official annual pilgrimages organized by various religious societies and Catholic organizations, such as the Families of Nazareth, Civitas Christiana and the Clubs of Catholic Intelligentsia (on the variety of pilgrimages to Częstochowa, see also Samson 2012: 74). The Jasna Góra shrine is also the most popular destination for pilgrimages made on foot. Every year, mostly during August (before the Feast of the Assumption), thousands of people from different age brackets and of various socio-economic status arrive on foot, taking part in pilgrimages lasting from a few days to a few weeks long, usually organized by various Polish dioceses.7 Consequently, for many people in today’s Poland, the words ‘shrine’, ‘pilgrimage’ and ‘sacred place’ are not hypothetical and distant terms, but words which are present in people’s ‘experiences near’. The reasons given by pilgrims for visiting shrines vary and represent a range starting from spiritually and emotionally grounded needs (‘God leads me here’, ‘My Mummy [Our Lady] is calling me’, ‘It is like coming back home’), through hopes for a miracle (‘I am coming to beg for help’, ‘Here Our Lady listens to my requests and fulfils them’), to the enjoyment of entertainment as well as social and cultural reasons (‘To see something new’, ‘Out of curiosity’, ‘I’m coming because I was taken here’, ‘It is part of our tradition’, ‘It is a custom’, but also ‘There is social pressure to come here’) (all quotes from Marciniak 2010: 277). Pilgrimages are also related to concrete memories, lived practices, family gatherings, school excursions, and so on. Photographs commemorating visits to shrines can be found in family albums, on private websites, blogs and Facebook pages. Souvenirs recalling visited shrines, such as copies of holy images, religious books, rosaries, medals, water from holy springs kept in plastic bottles shaped like Marian statues, are displayed in people’s homes, on their car dashboards, and even at the workplace and in  At (accessed: 11 March 2013).  Since the 1980s, the number of pilgrims arriving to Jasna Góra on foot is estimated as at least 150,000 annually. Organized pilgrimages on foot follow 50 different trails throughout Poland (see Bilska-Wodecka and Sołjan 2011 and Jackowski and Sołjan 2000). 6 7

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offices. Shrines are places inherited within a whole system of ‘religious culture’ and they are learned, made and re-made in people’s ‘experiences near’. That is why they are used as a powerful means of shaping not only personal and religious identity but also communal and national identities. Spiritual Capital of the Nation In case of Jasna Góra, the term ‘national shrine’ is used not only to describe the most visited and the most recognized place of religious cult in a country. This ‘national shrine’ is also lived and understood by numerous Polish pilgrims, arriving here from all over Poland and from abroad, as a ‘shrine of Polishness’ (Hannan 2005: 261), that is, a place where their national identity is shaped and celebrated through a sacred encounter. The coexistence of religious and national-patriotic symbolism is one of the most visible features of Jasna Góra’s spatial, architectural and visual designs. Probably every visitor would immediately recognize the religio-national character of the sanctuary space. A dazzling mixture of religionational symbols is on display through the monuments of religio-national heroes built around and inside the shrine, the chapels and altars decorated with national flags, the museum and patriotic exhibitions and, last but not least, the Holy Chapel with the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa surrounded by various offerings and memorial plaques commemorating historic battles and the Polish victims of Nazi occupation and Communist persecution. The shrine’s most sacred object – the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa – is described by pilgrims not only as a ‘real representation’ of the ‘Mother of God’ and their own, close and understanding ‘Mother’, but also as representing the ‘Queen of Poland who resides here’ and whose picture is seen as ‘a national symbol, even more important than the eagle’ (a white eagle is the official Polish emblem). Tourist and pilgrimage guidebooks, informative websites, devotional publications popularizing knowledge about the shrine, sermons preached at the sanctuary, articles published in the magazine affiliated to the shrine, songs, prayers, concerts of patriotic music, and so on, recall a vision of the Jasna Góra sacred space as not only a religious shrine, but also as a place dedicated to the commemoration and celebration of national Polish identity and nationhood. The main feature used to mix religious connotations with national ones is the mythical vision of Polish history. The ‘history of the nation’ is encrypted and manifested throughout the religious space of the shrine and decoded and lived by the pilgrims when they visit the sanctuary and pray before the icon. ‘The history of Poland is visible in the black face of Our Lady of Częstochowa’, said one of my interviewees. Another, when recalling the trumpet music being played in the Jasna Góra chapel as the image of Our Lady is ceremonially uncovered each morning, said that alongside the music she could hear ‘the hoofbeat of enemy horses, the sounds of battle and the final victory of the Poles’ (see Illustration 5.2).

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Illustration 5.2

Members of a ‘Cavalry Pilgrimage’ after their arrival to Jasna Góra shrine presenting themselves in reconstructed military uniforms of old Polish Cavalry and holding a gorget and a copy of the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa depicted in a ‘Military Robe’, July 2010

One of the typical descriptions of the shrine written by a Pauline father from the monastery emphasizes the indivisible connection between the sacred space and the mythical vision of Polish history: Jasna Góra is a place permeated with history. Maybe this sounds pompous. However, in reality a meeting with the history of Christianity in Poland or even a meeting with the history of Poland – at least the last few centuries – is here an absolutely evident fact. Even the shortest visit to the sanctuary is experienced as a meeting with the past. At the same time the presence of religiously involved real people shows that this is a contemporary event. However, this lively phenomenon of our times cannot be understood to its full extent without, at least, the generally remembered, historical perspective. (Jabłoński 1983: 9)

The contemporary ‘presence of history’ at Jasna Góra has gradually developed and builds on the centuries-old ideological construction of its sacred space. The shrine’s medieval origins, connected to the monastery’s foundation and the donation of

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the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa (which soon started to be treated as a protective image of Polish kings), were developed further during the Baroque Catholic revival in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During the CounterReformation, when the Catholic Church very eagerly promoted Marian-centred shrines (in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth more than a hundred new Marian shrines appeared in the seventeenth century, see Datko 2000: 312), Jasna Góra began to be treated as the most important, famous, symbolic and model shrine for a ‘nation of nobles’ (Zakrzewski 1995: 98–123). The shrine became integral to the myth, invented by Polish nobles, which depicted the nobles as Christian knights fighting against infidels at the ‘Bulwark of Christendom’ under the command of their Queen, the Mother of God. An immensely strong symbolic and mythical dimension was attached to the so-called ‘miraculous defence’ of the monastery during the Swedish wars of 1655–60. This led directly toward the unquestioned primacy of the shrine over the other Catholic shrines in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The 1656 royal vows declaring Mary as patron saint of the state, and the 1717 coronation of the Jasna Góra image with papal crowns confirmed and enforced the monastery’s primacy.8 This was also the moment when the cult of Our Lady of Częstochowa as a Queen and Divine Ruler was strengthened. The idea of the ‘Queen’ gained a new dimension and popularity during the period of partitions (1795–1918), when Our Lady of Częstochowa became not only a sacred patron but also the unifying symbolic ruler of the ‘Polish nation’, which at that time was politically divided among three partitioning states. Copies of the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa, as well as pilgrimages to the shrine, were extensively used by a national ‘imagined community’ to build a shared identity and strengthen resistance towards foreign political rule. Alongside the emerging idea of a modern ‘nationhood’, Christianity became part of a Polish national mythology and was strengthened ‘by becoming the focus of resistance to a conqueror’ (Casanova 1994: 92). Even this brief outline of the development of Jasna Góra mythology demonstrates that, during the last few centuries, the religious dimension of the sanctuary has been constantly involved in political and nationalist developments. Jasna Góra’s contemporary symbolism is grounded, therefore, in long-established structures of collective imagination. These structures are reflected in popular interpretations of sacred space, holy images and their relations to a mythical vision of national history. The Communist period (1945–89) was the crucial time when the religionational marriage of Jasna Góra’s spatial symbolism was strengthened and sealed. The confrontation between the secular state and the Church made the Church immensely popular within Polish society (Obirek 2009: 93). Furthermore, this conflict involved the symbolic space of the Jasna Góra shrine and its relationship to popular national historiography. Here ‘the cyclical and linear visions of past 8  The historic complexity of the vows made in 1656 and transformation and mythologization of their meaning in relation to the mythologization of the Jasna Góra sacred space is discussed in detail in Niedźwiedź 2010: 105.

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and present mutually combine[d] various aspects: the existential and historical, the temporal and holy’ (Kuniński 1993: 12) and became one of the most crucial weapons used by the hierarchy. In August 1956, the interned primate of the Polish Catholic Church, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, using letters sent to the Jasna Góra Monastery, initiated celebrations for the tercentenary of the ‘national vows’ to Our Lady as Queen of Poland and the ceremonial renewal of those vows. The vows were performed in front of the original image of Our Lady of Częstochowa, which was taken from the chapel and shown to the crowd of one million pilgrims gathered around the Jasna Góra Monastery. This religious spectacle took place as the Stalinist period of Communist rule was fading. It was religious ritual performed in the symbolic and ‘thick’ space of the shrine which transformed a historical anniversary (‘experience far’) into a complex religious and existential – ‘experience near’ – reviving it in current political circumstances and enhancing the feeling of belonging among its participants. Soon other ‘national anniversaries’ followed, such as the 1966 celebration of the millennium of Polish Christianity followed by the Millennial Act of Entrustment, the fiftieth anniversary of regaining independence in 1968, and the magnificent celebrations of the 600th anniversary of Jasna Góra in 1982. At the shrine, these festivities were supplemented by a ceremony in 1957, which marked the start of a replica of the Jasna Góra image being taken around the country, and six visits by Pope John Paul II. These events involved large-scale, highly emotional religious rituals, where people combined private religious and spiritual experiences with participation in a huge crowd, where they could express their identification with a religio-national community. In 1979, during his first visit to Poland as a pope, John Paul II used metaphorical language to describe the lived experience of this central sacred, national place: Jasna Góra is a sanctuary of the nation … If we want to learn how history works in the hearts of the Poles, it is necessary to come here, it is necessary to put one’s ear to this place, to hear the echo of the whole life of the nation in the heart of its Mother and Queen. (Jan Paweł II 1999: 49).

Inspired by those words, a specific ‘theology of the Jasna Góra sanctuary’ developed, mostly through a group connected to the Pauline Order. This theology strongly emphasizes the shrine’s national role where the concept of national history is incorporated into a mystical explanation of sacred space and presents national history as a lived religious experience. National history and its sacred dimension reveal themselves through the shrine’s sacred space and its most sacred object – the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa. Today’s pilgrims, who visit Jasna Góra and establish this place through their lived experiences, frequently confirm these mystical religio-national interpretations through their description of Jasna Góra as the ‘spiritual capital of the nation’ and the ‘palace of the Queen of Poland’.

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Making a New National Shrine Even though the national dimension of Jasna Góra seems to be broadly accepted and acknowledged by Polish Catholics – at least since the 1990s – the national dimension of another shrine, located in Licheń in central Poland, has started to gain significant attention. It is very interesting to observe the creation and development of this shrine in the context of Polish popular Catholicism, because Licheń is ‘the most actively developed cult place in contemporary Poland, which is a phenomenon surprising both the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and specialists in matters of religion and sociology’ (Marciniak 2000: 88). During my field research in the early 2000s, which focused on the cult of Our Lady of Częstochowa, quite a number of my interlocutors were wondering about Jasna Góra’s status as the main Polish national shrine, since they were aware of the creation of a huge basilica at Licheń. However, even those fascinated with Licheń’s growing fame emphasized that Jasna Góra possessed ‘older monuments’ and a far longer history. The principal developers of the Licheń shrine were well aware of this deficiency in ‘national history’, to which my interviewees alluded. In response, they attempted to compensate through the promotion of an ‘extended history’, a gigantic and pompous aesthetic and ‘national architecture.’ Before the 1960s, Licheń was a decidedly local shrine. The most important turning-point, which opened a new epoch for the sanctuary, was the coronation of a tiny image of Our Lady of Licheń with papal crowns in August 1967.9 The papal process, preceding the coronation, initiated the first extended documentation of the history of the image and its cult. Growing interest and publicity connected with the coronation changed the sanctuary from a local into a national shrine. However, the creation of the contemporary Licheń sacred space mostly took place during the 1980s and the 1990s. This transformation was initiated and supported by the shrine’s long-serving curator, Fra Eugeniusz Makulski. During his administration of the Licheń sanctuary between 1966 and 2004, he transformed the shrine’s space, popularized an extended version of its history and elevated the local cult of Our Lady of Licheń into the national cult of ‘Our Lady of Licheń, the Sorrowful Queen of Poland’. He also collected documents and stories to create and popularize an official version of the shrine’s origin and its Marian image. Let me first recount very briefly the legend of the shrine’s origin as described in contemporary official sanctuary guidebooks. For centuries. Licheń was a small village and a town (between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, it possessed a town charter), and its parish church catered solely for the local inhabitants. The story recalling a tiny image of Our Lady of Licheń – now kept in the new, huge basilica – dates to the year 1813 and involves apparitions of Our Lady to a Polish soldier, who was badly injured during the Napoleonic Wars. A man named 9  In the 1960s, the Church hierarchy promoted many coronations of Marian images and statues as part of a broader programme for the renewal of religious life linked to celebrating of the ‘millennium of Polish Christianity’ (1966).

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Kłossowski was supposed to have had a vision of Our Lady when he was lying injured on the battlefield near Leipzig. A female figure – as the story recalls – appeared to him with a white eagle held across her chest and promised to save his life. In return, he was expected to find an image of Our Lady as she had appeared to him and popularize its cult. Kłossowski survived and came back to his home village of Licheń. Years passed by and he could not find a proper image to fulfil his vows. Finally, one day as he was coming back from a pilgrimage to Jasna Góra, he found a small chapel where Our Lady was depicted exactly as he had seen her with the white eagle. Kłossowski bought the painting from a local owner and took it back to his home. However, instead of creating a cult place for the painting, he decided to keep it for himself at home. A few years later, he became very ill. When he was lying in his bed dying, he heard a voice. Our Lady from the painting complained about being kept selfishly in a private house. Once more, she promised to save his life. In return for saving his life again, she made Kłossowski take the image and hang it on a tree in a nearby forest. Years passed and nothing significant happened until the 1850s. At that time, one of the oldest and the poorest villagers, who had been a local shepherd, saw a beautiful lady in a nearby forest. Initially, no one believed in his stories, treating him as a local fool and a lunatic. However, when plague struck people started gathering in the forest around the tree where the image was hanging. Soon the small and modest image of Our Lady was taken to the parish church, the plague ceased, and the reputation of the image and Licheń church grew, giving rise to a new shrine. This story of origin has many elements in common with other Marian shrines in Poland. However, Licheń’s official story seems to be very tangled, as if many loose narratives, threads and figures were put together to create a more or less consistent story presented at the time of the coronation of the image. Nowadays, it is very difficult to evaluate how many elements of that story had been known and popular among Licheń’s villagers and local pilgrims before 1967. However, ethnographic research undertaken in the 1990s (Marciniak 1999) suggests that the part of the legend connected to the Napoleonic wars had not been so strongly developed originally and had not possessed such a significant patriotic and national dimension. The oldest written description of the image dates from 1852 and does not claim any special status for the picture, nor does it mention apparitions and war-related adventures. Moreover, the white eagle depicted on Our Lady’s chest was described as ‘the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove’ (ibid.: 5), rather than the symbol of the Polish nation. It was only after the coronation of the painting that the national dimension began to be emphasized. It seems that an inscription ‘Queen of Poland, bring peace to our days’, which is visible on today’s painting, may have been inserted as late as 1966 when the painting was restored (ibid.: 5). All these facts show that the coronation of the image, promoted by a local priest, opened a new era where the shrine was gradually elevated from a local to national level. The rapid popularization of Licheń has been connected with the creation of new narratives as well as a new sacred space. In both cases, the role of national history and its mythological vision linked with popular, emotional religious

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piety appear to be crucial. The narratives about Licheń have not only adopted national threads into a story of origin, but also – following the pattern evident at the Jasna Góra ‘national sanctuary’ – incorporated a symbolic, religious vision of national history into the story of Licheń. At this relatively new shrine, an extended version of history has been promoted, which includes events connected with the local area as well as the history of Licheń’s old castle, town and village. Let us recall one of the descriptions of the sanctuary published in a small brochure for pilgrims visiting the shrine. The relatively short history of the shrine is extended, surprisingly sending the readers back to the beginnings of the Polish state and relating it to the acceptance of Christianity in that part of Europe: Where Poland began … … Great plains, fertile fields and sandy ones. Surfaces of post-glacial lakes. Extensive meadows, and deep forests. Here, ages ago, Poland came into being. One thousand years ago it was here where the first light of the Gospel started to shine. Here, into that Polish soil, the Cross of Redemption was dug. Here, our ancestors and forefathers for the first time heard the sweet name: Mary. And immediately they fell in love with that name and with the Mother of God, loving Her with their warm, Slavic, Polish heart. (Makulski no date: 16)

The extended history of the shrine was also manifested in 1982, when the 750th ‘anniversary of Licheń’s existence’ was celebrated (Marciniak 1999: 28), together with the building of the castle by the Lichiński family in 1232. This historically over-interpreted jubilee becomes particularly significant when we realize that in 1982, the Jasna Góra shrine was celebrating its 600th anniversary and its longlasting and widely recognized association with Polish history and the nation. History appears in many popular descriptions of the Licheń shrine and the image of Our Lady of Licheń, where local sacred space is placed firmly in the context of a long-lasting national tradition: Since its beginnings a history of the image of Our Lady of Licheń has been connected with the history of Poland. This tradition is preserved in Licheń. In the shrine the most important historical events are commemorated and here you can find monuments recalling them as well as monuments celebrating eminent and distinguished figures from Polish and Church history. (Kubajak 2000: 44)

The presence of an extended history appears not only in Licheń’s narratives but first of all in Licheń’s sacred space and architecture. From the 1960s, an immense building programme has elevated Licheń to the national level, radically transforming sacred space of the shrine. Between 1994 and 2004, the biggest basilica in Poland was built in a huge area of 76 hectares (Marciniak 1999: 3) (see Illustration 5.3).

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Illustration 5.3

Licheń shrine – main basilica, May 2006

Located on the northern edge of this huge area, the basilica dominates the traditional, rural landscape of the neighbouring hills and modest villages. In Licheń’s guidebooks, the monumental building is compared to the ‘yellow wheat field’ in a typically Polish landscape. Even though the basilica is very young, it has ambitions to be seen as a ‘tribute to the past, and a message for future generations’.10 The Polish Episcopate declared it to be a votive offering for the year 2000 and its main architect hailed it as a ‘historical and biblical monument’: If this church is to be a gift for the year 2000 I have to put into it two thousand years of architecture. The concern here is about a real continuity, accepting the load of Antiquity and of Biblical sources. I can say that the Holy Bible consists – to a huge extent – of architectural tips (quoted in Dzienisiewicz 2002: 152).

Although the basilica is the main destination for pilgrims, it is not the only place visited by people arriving at Licheń. The huge area stretching from the old parish church to the new basilica is landscaped with colourful, trimmed gardens. Among artificially created lakes (sometimes even with fake swans and ducks floating on the 10  See the shrine’s official website (accessed 15 April 2013).

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surface) and lawns, paths meander towards the main, broader avenue. Numerous chapels, museum, commemorative sites, statues, monuments, plaques – usually monumental, colourful and kitschy – are scattered all over the park to attract the visitor. Those ‘small shrines’ are dedicated to a variety of topics which can be classified into four main themes: biblical figures and events, legends connected to the shrine’s origins, nationalistic subjects including statues of historic-patriotic heroes, and ethical issues related to Christian everyday life. Very often, those different themes intermingle to give a pilgrim a set of feelings, which combine ‘experiences far’ with ‘experiences near’ and locates them within the space of the shrine. All four themes are brought together in an artificial 25-metre-high ‘Golgotha’. Almost all pilgrims spend some time climbing on a top of the hill after the Stations of the Cross as well as visiting numerous caves inside the hill, which are dedicated not only to biblical but also to moral and patriotic aspects. Golgotha also includes a legendary story of Licheń depicting a scene of Marian apparitions during the Napoleonic wars. What is more, the origins of Licheń’s Golgotha recall the profanation of a crucifix by a German Nazi woman, who lived nearby during the Nazi occupation. Golgotha’s position as one of the shrine’s most popular and important places is established mainly through these visual representations, which weave together biblical, national and personal levels. As one pilgrim reflected: ‘All those places at Golgotha are taken from a real life, aren’t they? … A person really meets good and evil in his or her life’ (Kula 2002: 133). For instance, among the usual Stations of the Cross, pilgrims visit a chapel named ‘The Judgement’ where a lifesize statue of a man with a heavy load on his back kneels in front of a statue of Christ. Inscriptions painted on the man’s back enlist his sins: ‘DRUNKENNESS, DEBAUCHERY, LACK OF CHASTITY, VINDICTIVENESS’ and so on. A nearby plaque says: ‘For the sins of drunkenness, drug- and smoking addiction, Jesus forgive and save me and all the Polish nation!’ A similar feature is ‘The cave of the unborn children’ where, under a big crucifix with a bleeding statue of Christ, a grave clearly inscribed ‘Unborn Child’ is surrounded by a crying couple and a statue of a baby emerging from a lily. Large inscriptions on the cave’s wall read: ‘Mummy, Daddy! Doctor, Sister! My Polish nation! Don’t kill me!’ Finally, when pilgrims arrive at the top of Golgotha hill, a description under a cross at the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion reminds them that ‘Only under this cross, only under this sign is Poland Poland and a Pole a Pole.’ Licheń, like any other symbolic and socially meaningful place, is lived polyphonically and reveals various relationships between architectural and aesthetic design, the designers, visitors and other actors, who use the space and participate in the process of place-making. When pilgrims are asked about their impressions, they not only recall their religious, national and emotional experiences, but also frequently mention their appreciation of the entertainment and leisure provided by the shrine’s gardens, museum and chapels. Comparing Licheń to other ‘traditional’ shrines, especially Częstochowa, pilgrims would often emphasize that at Licheń there are always some novelties to be discovered and that

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everything is ‘new and big’ (see Dzienisiewicz 2002: 154). Licheń would probably be a good subject of analysis as a ‘religious theme park’ or even ‘amusement park’ (Sekerdej, Pasieka and Warat 2007: 440). Here, however, I would like to consider the significance of Licheń as a ‘new national shrine’ – ‘a second Częstochowa’ (as one of my interviewees put it) – in the context of post-Communist Polish society, and how its immense popularity and fame can be explained. Sekerdej, Pasieka and Warat suggest that one of the major factors in Licheń’s popularity is ‘the longing for familiarity, which includes post-socialist nostalgia’ (ibid.: 432). They suggest that the monumental, opulent and kitschy art and narratives of Licheń may be seen as a specific (and I presume subconscious) continuation of socialist realism, which is tangled up with a traditional, folk religiosity. ‘At the moment of change and insecurity (such as system transformation) when the longing for familiarity is particularly strong’ (ibid. 2007: 435), Licheń accumulated and mirrored nostalgia for both behavioural and aesthetic traditions from the Communist period. Paradoxically, as the lived space of the sanctuary reveals, the ‘former victim’ (the Catholic Church) adopted numerous aesthetic features, which in the past were associated with the ‘former persecutor’ (the socialist state) and the way that state expressed its power through transformations of space. This interpretation is inspiring and encourages further development. In my quest to understand the lived space of the Licheń shrine I propose to focus more on the grandiosity, which bombards visitors from various angles and which is often recalled by the pilgrims I interviewed – usually as a positive and attractive feature. Poland’s largest church (the seventh largest in Europe), the gigantic statues, the opulent language of its narratives can be analysed as classic manifestations of ‘national megalomania’. This megalomania was discussed a long time ago by Bystroń (1935), who showed how ‘Polish megalomania’ was entangled with the history of Polish Catholicism. In a liminal period of political, social and cultural transformation, megalomania seems to be a defensive response, which produces a discourse setting too high a value to the nation. This nation, furthermore, is based on a sometimes artificially extended religious history, which is established as a powerful, reasonable, safe, unquestionable ideological pillar of people’s lives. The lived space of Licheń shrine can be seen, then, as a representation of national megalomania, which revived and was strengthened during the period of post-Communist transformation. Furthermore, this megalomania confirmed the powerful position which the Catholic Church had gained during the Communist regime. In my opinion, the shrine should not be seen only as an invention by a charismatic curator or an experiment, which accidentally appeared in postCommunist Poland. Although the number of Licheń’s pilgrims has been declining since 2004 (Marciniak 2010: 240) and Częstochowa is winning the competition to be the most important and ‘genuine’ national shrine, the influence of Licheń’s megalomania on the lived spaces of Poland’s Catholic shrines is clearly visible. This megalomania mirrors important developments within Polish Catholicism during the period of state and social transformation.

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Further Nationalization or Paths Beyond Nationalism? The influence of the total ‘art of Licheń’ can be seen at other Polish shrines, which developed or transformed their sacred spaces after the fall of Communism. The ‘Licheńization’ of Polish religious art is recalled in various semiotic patterns produced by a fusion of religious, national and ethical meanings and expressed through a very specific artistic language (a kitsch, naïve and monumental style). Surprisingly, Licheń’s influences are easily recognized not just in the newer or developing shrines – for instance, in Kałków where a replica of Licheń’s sacred space has been developed (Marciniak 1999: 77) or in Świebodzin where the world’s largest statue of Christ was erected in 2010 – but also at historic,wellestablished shrines. These shrines often entered the post-Communist era with a well-preserved, pre-Communist appearance but have recently decided to re-create their sacred space and make it more attractive for contemporary pilgrims, often following Licheń’s successful example. This strategy was pursued at Ludźmierz, for example, where various chapels and a Golgotha were built. Its influence can also be seen in the garden and courtyard of the Skałka shrine in Kraków, which – as many architects and art historians claim – were devastated by a monumental ‘Altar of the Three Millennia’ erected in 2008 and soon named ‘the worst construction of the year’ and an example ‘of Licheń’s breath in Kraków’.11 It seems that Jasna Góra has not been immune to ‘Licheńization’. The shrine responded to the unexpected and rapid expansion of Licheń and its elevation to a national level, by emphasizing its historic position as Poland’s principal national shrine through a reshaping of its traditional sanctuary space according to Licheń’s megalomaniac art patterns. A monumental statue of Cardinal Wyszyński was erected in 1997 and a similarly monumental statue of the late Pope John Paul II appeared in 1999 (see Illustration 5.4), while the twenty stations of the Rosary were established in 2005 as a chain of small shrines encircling a green meadow at the foot of Jasna Góra hill. Following the dynamism of Licheń’s spatial development, Jasna Góra eagerly responded visually and symbolically to the most pressing national issues and constructed further layers of national historiosophy encrypted into it. After the 2010 fatal crash of the Polish president’s plane near Smoleńsk in Russia, a tiny piece from the wreck was incorporated into the newly embellished metal robes, which adorn the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa. A monumental memorial, dedicated to the deceased president and other victims of the crash, was also unveiled in front of the Marian Chapel. Probably the most significant new element at the Jasna Góra shrine, recalling and enforcing the national dimension and religious vision of Polish history, is the so-called ‘Jasna Góra Golgotha’. This Golgotha is not – as in the Licheń sanctuary – a hill recalling the idea of a holy mountain but a cycle of painted images similar to the Stations of the Cross inside Catholic churches. This cycle of huge 11  See (accessed 1 March 2009).

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Illustration 5.4

Statue of Pope John Paul II at Jasna Góra shrine, 2010

paintings (185 x 117 cm. each) was dedicated to the sanctuary and Our Lady of Częstochowa by their creator, Jerzy Duda-Gracz, in 2000 and recalls very strongly the national-patriotic tradition, which depicts the traditional Stations of the Cross within a framework of Polish history and its relation to Jasna Góra sanctuary and the image of the ‘Queen of Poland’. Once more in visual and very direct ways, the idea of Jasna Góra as the most important religio-national centre of Polish identity was emphasized. Duda-Gracz’s cycle consists of the usual fourteen Stations of the Cross, plus four others. These additional paintings close the cycle with a visionary picture titled ‘The Ascension to Częstochowa’, where the resurrected Christ is depicted above the crowds surrounding Jasna Góra shrine with its characteristic tall, slim tower. The artist explained that ‘On Earth, on Polish Soil, Jasna Góra’s Mother’s Home remains as our Gate and our Heavenly Jerusalem.’12 The national-historical vision of Jasna Góra (see Illustration 5.5) was reinforced during the post-Communist period by competing with the rapidly expanding Licheń shrine. However, another element of the meanings surrounding Częstochowa has emerged and has acquired a significant place in the contemporary vision promoted at the shrine. This element is built around transnational ideas, which appeared 12  See (accessed 1 March 2009). Since 2009, ‘Jasna Góra Golgotha’ has been part of an educational trail on ‘The Newest Polish History’ designed within the Jasna Góra sanctuary.

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Jasna Góra shrine, 2010

in some currents of Polish Catholicism. These ideas were influenced by a vision of European unity and Poland’s role in it and were advocated many times by John Paul II. In this vision, the Jasna Góra shrine retains its strong national dimension but the latter is placed within the context of new transnational relations and the shrine is described as a ‘Polish gift for Europe’ (de Busser and Niedźwiedź 2009: 99).

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In 1996, the city of Częstochowa joined the ‘Shrines of Europe’ association, which embraces six European shrine-towns. One of the websites described the shrines as encouraging pilgrims ‘to get to know Europe following the pilgrims’ footprints!’. The shrines are also described as traditional European centres, which ‘long before any attempts to economically or politically unite Europe’ attracted people, who ‘were crossing borders just to reach pilgrimages sites’.13 The transnational dimension of the Jasna Góra shrine is emphasized not only in a European context, but also in relation to ecumenism. Emphasis was placed on Jasna Góra’s role as a bridge between West and East European nations and cultures, as well as between Latin and Orthodox Christian traditions (Jabłoński 2000: 95–128). Within the last few years, references to the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa as an icon has become more and more popular among Catholic clergy as well as among regular church-goers. On the one hand, this name recalls the Byzantine roots of the image brought to Częstochowa in 1382–84, while on the other it enforces the idea of the European, transnational, ecumenical, or even transreligious dimension of the shrine. In such a vision, Jasna Góra not only introduces Poland and the Polish nation back to Europe, but also opens the ‘old Europe’ to the eastern European countries, which had been abandoned for decades. Conclusion The symbolic dimension of shrines and ways they are lived by contemporary Polish society reflect various currents and responses by Polish Catholics towards the changes affecting their social, political and private lives, which accompanied the period of state transformation after the collapse of Communism. In this chapter, I focused on two sites which were lived as ‘national’ shrines. The popular current of Polish Catholicism mixed with ‘national megalomania’ is clearly one of the principal features of religiosity in today’s Poland. The popularity and social and political influence of the Family of Radio Maryja – an organization established around a radically right-wing and nationalistic Catholic radio station – is probably the most visible representation of such a current. Interestingly enough, the Family of Radio Maryja, which organizes its annual pilgrimages at Jasna Góra as the ‘nation’s sanctuary’, happens to be labelled as ‘Licheń’s religiosity’ or ‘Toruń’s Catholicism’ (due to the city of Toruń, the seat of Radio Maryja). The more liberal faction of Polish Catholicism (often named ‘open Catholicism’) is presented as the counterpart to Radio Maryja. This faction’s approach is often referred to as ‘Łagiewniki’s Catholicism’, recalling the name of a new Divine Mercy shrine in Kraków-Łagiewniki, which presents itself in terms of the ‘global’ and transnational, softening any clearly national connotations. Anthropological analysis of the lived spaces of Catholic shrines plays a key role, therefore, in understanding important currents within Polish society. During  See (accessed 1 March 2009).

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the post-Communist period, the dominant national dimension of Polish popular Catholicism has been mirrored in the development of many shrines across the country and has found its most radical and influential form at Licheń. Various social phenomena appear to be lived and revealed through today’s national sacred spaces: post-socialist nostalgia, the longing for a prolongation of the role which the Catholic Church in Poland played during the Communist period, and a revival of national megalomania as an ideological anchor in times of enormous social and political changes. At the same time, an attentive scrutiny of the dynamic spaces of shrines in Poland reveals the appearance of new elements, which introduce a more transnational dimension to the nationally dominated landscape. As we have seen, the changing face of contemporary Polish popular Catholicism is crucially mirrored in the changing spaces of its sanctuaries.

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Part III Reconstructing Religious and Secular Space

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Chapter 6

From Religious to Secular and Back Again: Christian Pilgrimage Space in Albania Konstantinos Giakoumis

In this chapter, I will explore the role played by politics in pilgrimage placemaking through an examination of the construction, destruction, reinterpretation and reconstruction of Christian pilgrimage in Albania. Eade and Sallnow view pilgrimage as a ‘realm of competing discourses’ (1991b: 5). For them, ‘the practice of pilgrimage and the sacred powers of a shrine are constructed as varied and possibly conflicting representations’ by different sectors within and outside the cultic constituency, centred at the triad of ‘person’, ‘place’, and ‘text’ (ibid.: 9). In a later volume, Reframing Pilgrimage, Coleman and Eade add ‘movement’ as a fourth element to pilgrimage’s centre, viewing it as ‘involving the institutionalization (or even domestication) of mobility in physical, metaphorical and/or ideological terms’ (2004: 17). As I shall demonstrate, various combinations of ‘person’, ‘place’, ‘text’ and ‘movement’ construct the centre of Christian and Communist pilgrimages. Garbin defines religious place-making as ‘the appropriation and experiencing of space through various religious activities’ and recognizes the multi-dimensionality of this process that also involves aesthetics appealing to both the senses and the intellect (2012: 401). In Albania, the Orthodox and Catholic Churches attempted for centuries to appropriate pagan cultic space, ‘tame’ a spot in the wilderness possessed, according to popular beliefs, by pre-Christian ‘chthonian spirits’,1 ‘domesticate’ a place haunted by a deserted settlement, or appease a place obsessed by the blood of human beings unjustly spilt there, all of which involve politics. In popular belief, places close to springs, rivers and torrents, lakes or marshes, seas, caves, crossroads or dense forests with old woods, stony sites or places where unusual stones were to be found, were possessed by chthonian spirits, such as kuçedra, lubia, xhindërit, ksheta, laura, lugati, ora, hija or pëlhurëza (equivalent to such creatures as ghosts, elves, goblins, imps, sprites, lamias, ogresses, spectres, nightmares, shrews, hags, furies, termagants, and so on). This chthonian realm, deeply grounded in pre-Enlightenment, peasant communities and reinforced by the Church on the basis of the antithetical relationship between the faithful and the demonic powers, necessitated the existence of sacred shrines to provide a sense 1  For the definition and description of these chthonian spirits in another setting, see Couroucli (2012b: 44–60).

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of ‘security’ to local inhabitants and travellers at times when fear, as a collective feeling, could result in the desertion of entire villages (see Giakoumis 2002: 325–7). The inhabitants of places close to deserted settlements, where pagan rituals and ceremonies, including pilgrimage, sacrifices and prayers, had once been conducted, developed the cult of the ancient home and mythical creatures. These haunted places were seemingly ‘domesticated’ by pilgrimages to, for example, the St Anthony of Padua shrine at Laç and the St Kosmas and Ardenica monasteries. To claim sacred space for the construction of a Christian pilgrimage, appropriate religious prompts were necessary. We can identify the following: 1. The place of a saint’s life and/or miracle, where a saint or another holy figure is believed to have lived and/or worked a miracle (for example, the church of St Anthony of Padua in Laç, also associated with St Blaise) (Elsie 2001: 41). 2. The ‘martyrdom-place pilgrimage’, which consists in places sanctified by way of martyrdom of a saint (for example, St Kosmas the Aetolian, martyred in Kolkondas) (Elsie 2010: 94–5). 3. The ‘relics pilgrimage’, a visitation to a place where holy relics of saints are kept (for example, the relics of St John Vladimir initially in the homonym monastery or the relics of Ardenica monastery dispatched in peregrinations) (Elsie 2001: 139–40, Papageorgiou 2012: 124–35, 223–5, and Giakoumis and Egro 2010). 4. The ‘holy objects pilgrimage’, which consists in places consecrated through holy objects (for example, the Church of Labova blessed by imperial donation with a fragment of the Holy Cross, or the miracleworking icon of the Virgin ‘Labovitissa’) (Giakoumis, G. and K. 1994: 31, Labridis 1870: 325, Petridis 1871: 18–19, Triantaphyllopoulos 1999: 358). Interestingly, the Communist regime utilized similar prompts of a ‘socialist’ nature to claim the same or other places. The potential contestation of cultic space between paganism and Christianity is intriguing. The persistence of pagan customs in northern Albania long after the spread of Christianity was already noted in 1555 by Gjon Buzuku, in the seventeenth century by others, and in the eighteenth century by St Kosmas the Aetolian (see Çabej 1968: 61, 69, Tirta 2004: 38–9, Menounos 1979: 167–8). However, there is little concrete evidence of contact or borrowing from ancient cults and rituals in the pilgrimages cited above – a potential correlation does not indicate causality.2 Although there is no clear answer to how the pilgrimages emerged, the role of authority – political, economic and ecclesiastical – in their development seems crucial. The desire of some Byzantine emperor to enhance his image through church-building and endowment led to the construction of the church at Labova.  For the methodological difficulty of such correlations, see Lalonde 2005: 91–125.

2

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Here possession of a relic from the cross on which Jesus was crucified and an icon of the Virgin made it a popular pilgrimage destination (Giakoumis, G. and K. 1994: 31, Labridis 1870: 325, Petridis 1871: 18–19). The political determination of Serbian, Bulgarian and Albanian royal or princely elites to preserve the memory and elevate the cult of a significant saint to the wider Ohrid region made St John Vladimir and his monastery also a famous pilgrimage shrine and a place which was competed over by those elites (Papageorgiou 2012: 12–23, Bryer 2005: 62–4, Ακολουθία 1690: 2–3). The cunning and astute political aspirations of Ali Pasha from Tepelena (‘the arch-dodger’) must have compelled him to elevate a new catholicon dedicated to St Kosmas the Aetolian ‘to buoy up the hopes of the Greek Christians’ and to maintain good terms with the Christian subjects of his pashalik (1851: 204–5, Giakoumis 1996, Kamaroulias 1997, vol. 2: 568–73). The endeavours of Franciscan monks were also successful in replacing the cult of St Blaise with that of St Anthony of Padua during the nineteenth century (Elsie 2001: 11–12), thereby hammering a more ‘orthodox’ saint into a religiously volatile territory and strengthening links between Albania’s north and southeastern Adriatic coasts with Rome in an age of nationalism. The interests of the Church and commerce sometimes combined. Ardenica monastery, for example, was elevated to a regional centre of spiritual significance through the patronage of powerful Voskopojar merchants, coupled with the desire of ecclesiastical authorities to increase religious reference points in the westernmost parts of the Via Egnatia, thereby maintaining the safety of commercial roads (Giakoumis and Egro 2010: 90, 100–102, Giakoumis 2002: 325–7) It is also clear that pilgrimage sites in Albania did not retain their reputation, unless an authority supported them. In the eighteenth century, when there were no royal or princely authorities to promote the cult of St John Vladimir, Archbishop Joasaph II of Ohrid maintained, if not enhanced, the appeal of the saint and his monastery (Bryer 2005: 62–4). The pilgrimage of St Kosmas the Aetolian in Kolkondas was particularly revered by Greek nationalists,3 because of the saint’s role in the neo-Hellenic Enlightenment, his association with the Greek language and the shrine’s proximity to an area once claimed by Greek irredentists. Although any enquiry into the causes of pilgrimage decline is complex, the monasteries of St Kosmas in Kolkondas, St John Vladimir in Elbasan and St Anthony of Padua in Laç clearly demonstrate how the Communist regime sought to destroy them through political means.

 See, for example, Athanasios Gouzis, ‘Οδοιπορικό προς το Ύψωμα 731’, at accessed 12 April 2013; and ΣΦΕΒΑ, ‘Προσκύνημα σε Χειμάρρα, Κολικόντασι’, at accessed 12 April 2013. 3

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The Transubstantiation of Christian Pilgrimage to Communist Pilgrimage Albania’s Communist regime under Enver Hoxha saw all religious customs and monuments as remnants of backwardness and the regime proclaimed Albania as the world’s first atheist state in 1976 (Article 37 of the 1976 Constitution). All religious edifices not classified as ‘monuments of culture’ were destroyed, suffered fatal damage, or were put to other uses, such as warehouses, cultural centres, cooperative stalls, and so on. Regardless of whether or not the Albanian Communist party had deliberated on Jesus’ declaration ‘I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil’ (Matt. 5:17), it seems that despite their atheist beliefs, party members understood the power of religious manifestations, and used them from the outset for their own ends. As Enver Hoxha explained: We analysed religious beliefs in two directions: the concrete influence of religion among the broad masses of the people, and the danger from the religious hierarchy … So, the Party had the question of religious beliefs at the centre of its attention during the whole period of the National Liberation War, but also after the war, because in order to arouse the people to fight for the liberation of the Homeland and build a new Albania we had to avoid hurting their feelings … In the face of this imperative duty all the differences in ideological convictions and political sympathies, religious and regional differences, had to take second place. (Hoxha, 1984a: 29–30, 36–7, 57, 77–8)

This careful analysis led to a policy of infusing religious rituals with socialist norms and content. When the Bektashi Baba Mustafa (Faja) Martaneshi offered to discard clerical robes to become a member of the Communist party, Hoxha responded: You should stick to the robes you wear … because we have to respect the sentiments of believers and utilize the sympathy which the people have for you and the tekke of Martanesh. So, since you are resolutely for the war and love the Party, respect and apply its line, we will admit you as a member of the Party. (Ibid.: 271–2)

The retention of Christian forms, structures and functions was also evident in Albanian Communist aesthetics. In 1952, the Albanian Film Studios, constructed by Russian architects, were inaugurated. They were built in a domed, cross-shaped basilica type of building, but the apse was not oriented to the East, as is the case in churches, but to the North-East, facing Moscow. Furthermore, the links between Christian and Communist iconography are apparent in the Lushnja Historical Museum’s painting of partisans around Enver Hoxha in a reversed pyramid composition – the opposite of the Preparation of the Throne with the 12 Apostles which was included in the Last Judgement scene at Ardenica Monastery.4 Other examples include the 4  For illustrations of these artworks, see , slides 1–2, accessed 1 October 2013.

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similarity between Sali Shijaku’s Vojo Kushe and the iconography of the equestrian St George or St Demetrius,5 or Odhise Paskali’s 1972 ‘The Comrades’ concrete statue, which is currently displayed in the architectural complex of the Martyrs’ Cemetery in Përmet (see Illustration 6.1). The artwork presents distinct similarities with portrayals of Christ’s Lamentation.6 Furthermore, the original intention was to place the statue in a cavity of the huge meteorite rock in Përmet, so that it looked like the Holy Sepulchre. When the statue was finally placed in the Martyrs’ Cemetery, it was frequently visited by school excursions and hosted party festivities, such as the ceremony of the dressing of the pioneer.7 These and other artworks were not designed for mere display in museums, but as works of socialist aesthetics to be firmly integrated into the socialist calendar and the new society.

Illustration 6.1 Odhise Paskali, The Comrades, concrete, 1972, architectural complex of the Martyrs’ cemetery, Përmet  For illustrations of these artworks, see ibid., slides 3–4.  I am indebted to Dr Gëzim Qëndro, who kindly shared excerpts of his doctoral thesis with me, including these comparisons. I had already completed this work when his work was about to be published as Gëzim Qëndro, Le Surréalisme Socialiste. L’Autopsie de l’Utopie, (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2013). 7  Modelled after the Scout movements, Communist regimes held pioneer movements for children from the age of elementary school until puberty (its Albanian version was called ‘Pioneers of Enver’), after which age political socialization needs were taken up by the Communist Youth League (in Albania: ‘Labour Youth Union of Albania’). The dressing of the pioneer in Albania was an initiation ceremony in which a young pioneer would be handed a red necktie. 5

6

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The Albanian Communist regime also studied the utility and functions of Christian pilgrimage and was able to appropriate much of its structure. As we shall demonstrate, the politics and pragmatics of Communist place-making contested and transubstantiated religious space and constructed new pilgrimage space centred around various combinations of place, person, texts/memories and movement. Before looking at them, it is worth mentioning that the systematic attempts of the French Revolutionary regime, socialist regimes, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to create parallels with Christianity have driven certain scholars to call them ‘political religions’ (see Schumpeter 2003: 5–8, Sironneau 1986: 87– 105, Maier 2005, Gregor 2012). Contesting and Transubstantiating Religious Space The contestation of sacred locales by the Albanian Communist regime started by sharing those locales and continued by appropriating them. Gilles de Rapper has recorded a number of cases where early Communist meetings were held in vakëf space during the 1930s, referring to Pandi Kristo’s memories of the picnics organized by Koçi Xoxe in various monasteries (de Rapper 2012: 43).There is also evidence that such practices were not confined to a particular region. For example, Kaliopi Bici (b. 1950) from Labova e Zhapës, Odria, recalls that in the 1960s she and her secondary-school peers were called on 15 August (Feast of Mary’s Dormition and Assumption) to march from her village to a place called Shën Todër (St Theodore) in Lunxhëri. This involved an overnight stay either in nearby villagehouses or the countryside with ‘partisan fires’, to attend a ceremony by a statue which commemorated the 1943 formation of the Misto Mame partisan battalion. Këno Qyko from Saraqinishta, aged 81, also recalls that this battalion was formed in Stegopul on 26 August 1943 and that the first two annual feasts were organized at the same village. In order to attract more participants, however, the celebration was pushed back to 15 August and was celebrated in a church at Erind called ‘the Red Church’, before Shën Todër was selected in order reportedly to better accommodate the larger crowds. The ceremony consisted of a speech by a party official, an address by a war veteran, a greeting from a member of the partisan youth movement interspersed with music, singing and dancing, after which lunch was served for free. According to these informants, similar celebrations were held at the same time as pilgrimages. For example, the August 1943 establishment of the ‘Asim Zeneli’ battalion was commemorated on the 6–7 August festival of Christ’s Transfiguration at the Çepo monastery close to Kardhiq, Tepelena. The alleged formation of these battalions in these places appears to be a ruse by the Communist regime to appropriate religious space. The formation of the battalion at Shën Todër is unlikely,8 since it was a deserted place and must be 8  See ‘U përkujtua me solemnitet 66-vjetori i krijimit të batalionit partisan “Misto Mame”’, at accessed 28 March 2013, where the

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attributed to Hoxha’s attempt to involve as many people as possible from different places in the anti-Nazi war struggle. Even if people did ‘some minor work which in appearance had no value’, it still strengthened ‘the feeling that they [were] doing something for the “Homeland”’ (Hoxha 1984a: 46–7). The formation of the ‘Asim Zeneli’ battalion at the Çepo monastery is also dubious, since other reports claim that it was established in the nearby village of Prongji.9 Nevertheless, the Communist party succeeded in distancing these secular pilgrimages from religion in the minds of young recruits. My informant, Kaliopi Bici, notes that she did not suspect religious space had been appropriated by the Communist regime. Last but not least, several churches located in the centre of village and towns were transformed into Communist ‘Cultural Centres’, such as the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin in the old Bazaar quarters of Përmet (Giakoumis and Stratobërdha 2004: 20–32). The Politics and Pragmatics of Place-making in the Construction of New Communist Pilgrimages As well as appropriating religious space by introducing Communist pilgrimages at shrines, the regime also constructed entirely new pilgrimage spaces through various combinations of person, texts-memories, movement and place. Personcentred pilgrimages were established around the remains of national heroes or where the blood of Communist fighters or ‘neo-martyrs’ of the Communist regime was spilt.10 Especially after 1964, on 7 March (Teacher’s Day) and 28 November (Independence Day), as well as on several other occasions, students and hundreds of others paid homage at the hill of the Albanian Renaissance heroes (Alb. ‘Kodra e Rilindësve’) in the Labourer’s quarter (Alb. Punëtori) of Gjirokastra. Here the remains of Çerçiz Topulli, a fighter for Albania’s independence from the Ottoman Empire, were transferred in 1936 to rest beside the grave where his brother – also a hero – had been buried earlier. The remains of two other national heroes were also buried there: Koto Hoxhi, a late nineteenth/early twentieth-century pioneer of Albanian learning, and Pandeli Sotiri, who had become the first director of the Albanian School at Korça (Mësonjëtorja) in 1887. Finally, in its determined attempt to create a new national pilgrimage space, the Communist regime managed in 1964 to repatriate from Cairo the relics of Andon Zako ‘Çajupi’, a famous poet of the Albanian Renaissance movement. A staircase at a lower level leads to the place mentioned is the village Stegopul, Lunxhëri. 9   Xhevat Lluri, ‘Fshati Prongji, vatra e parë që ka jetuar nga afër krijimin e çetës partizane “Çerçiz Topulli”’, at accessed on 11 March 2013. 10  For the cult and ‘political lives’ of dead bodies, especially in a post-socialist setting, see Verdery (1999).

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five tombs which are aligned at the same level with their respective tomb-marks and plaques. Overlooking them is an obelisk, which bears the statue of a bronze double-headed eagle, Albania’s national emblem, thereby linking earth with the sky (see Illustration 6.2). This aesthetically pleasing, highly symbolic architectural composition became a person-centred pilgrimage for those who identified with ‘the national idea’.11 Person-and-place-centred pilgrimages were also constructed in memory of fallen Communist martyrs during the anti-Nazi war. Such pilgrimages were landmarked by lapidary statues all over Albania, a practice also observed in other former socialist states, as indicated elsewhere in this volume. To visit these places, on occasion, pilgrims-participants were forced to march distances as long as 20 km. While these pilgrimages were centred on martyrs for the national cause, others were ‘consecrated’ to the memory of the ‘neo-martyrs’ of the Communist regime’s attempt to ‘temper the new man of the new socialist Albania’ (Hoxha, n.d.: 290).

Illustration 6.2 The architectural complex of the tombs of the Albanian Renaissance heroes, Punëtori quarters, Gjirokastra, 1970

11  Dorian Koçi, ‘Kodra e Rilindësve’, dhe Memoriali i Përdhunuar i Tyre’, accessed 15 March 2013.

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The ‘self-sacrifice’ of Shkurte Vata12 was a turning-point in the Communist regime’s Cultural Revolution and the place of her ‘martyrdom’ became a national pilgrimage. Shkurte Vata was a 15-year-old female from the Dukagjin region and the third of six children (four girls and two boys) in Pal Vata’s family. After only four years of schooling, she began work in her village’s cooperative, which was set up in 1966, and around February 1967 she was sent as a member of a youth ‘brigade’ to help build the railway from Rogozhina to Fier. On 19 October 1967, she was seriously injured in a landslide and died a month later. After her death, a legendary, yet largely fabricated, correspondence between her father, Pal Vata, and Enver Hoxha was initiated and the Communist regime sought to turn her into a martyr to cover up the child labour sweatshop scandal. Books, essays, plays and verses were written, sketches were made (as there was no photograph of her), songs were composed, statues were carved in her honour and she was posthumously proclaimed a party member, thereby immortalizing her ‘bravery’ in dying like a decent northern Albanian woman (Alb. burrneshë). It was also claimed that her family was determined not to weep for her sacrifice but to rejoice at her martyrdom for the ‘noble’ socialist cause. The place where she was mortally injured was marked with a memorial13 and statue, and became a place of homage, especially for the youth members of the Party. Enver Hoxha ordered trains to pay their respects by sounding their horns when they passed by the site and he paid a visit to place a bunch of flowers at her memorial on 28 June 1968. A pilgrimage constructed to immortalize another ‘Hero of Socialist Labour’ was also established in Durrës harbour in honour of Adem Reka (1928–66).14 He was a dock worker who died on 17 November 1966, during a violent storm while attempting to secure a loading crane vessel. After his death, a group of soldiers was asked to march from Tirana’s countryside to Durrës harbour and back again loaded with sacks of stone as a kind of ‘penitential’ pilgrimage. Starting in 1966, innumerable visitors from all over Albania came to pay homage to Adem Reka’s room and statue.15 In 1967, Pal Vata was appointed as a guide to the spot where Adem Reka fell, thereby enhancing the pairing of blood and sweat in the Communist war and work symbolism.  This part was based on an article by Çelo Hoxha , ‘Abuzimi me një Minorene: Shkurte Pal Vata’, Online Standard (26 January 2013), at accessed 11 March 2013, triangulated by a fair number of informants. 13  For an illustration of her memorial, see , slide 7, accessed 1 October 2013. 14  This part is based on Paul G. Partington’s Who’s Who in the Postage Stamps of Eastern Europe (London: Scarecrow Press, 1971): 349 and Ben Andoni’s ‘Na Ishte Një Herë … Biga e Adem Rekës’, Revista MAPO (2010), at accessed 11 March 2013. 15  For Adem Reka’s statue, see , slide 8, accessed 1 October 2013. 12

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A fair number of new pilgrimages were also constructed in the developing cult around Hoxha himself. Person-centred pilgrimages were established at places where he lived using (sacred) objects from his life as prompts. His childhood home in Gjirokastra was turned into a museum (Hoxha 1983), as was the house in Korça where he stayed as a lyceum teacher between 1937 and 1939. Here, ‘young school children … [were] admitted to the ranks of the young pioneers’ organization’ and other young boys and girls were initiated into the Youth organization.16 His mausoleum in Tirana was also opened in 1988, at a cost of $54 million (Zacques 2009: 680) but never housed his remains; it operated for a considerable period of time as a museum, displaying a number of his personal objects. The legendary ‘Hut at Galigat’ (see Illustration 6.3) – the Albanian equivalent of the Razliv hut and barn where Lenin found refuge in the later part of the summer of 1917 – provides another example. Galigat is a village in the mountainous area of Gramsh, where Hoxha found refuge during early 1944 and which the Peoples’ Artist, Avni Mulla, commemorated in a song with the verse ‘Galigat, Galigat, I’ll never forget

Illustration 6.3 The complex of houses in Galigat, Gramsh, where Enver Hoxha once found refuge. The Galigat hut, once a state-protected monument of culture, no longer exists; it was demolished by the very descendants of the peasants that received Enver Hoxha 16  Llazi Opari, The House in which Comrade Enver Hoxha Lived (Korça, 1937–39) (Tirana: 8 Nëntori, 1984), especially on pp. 36–7, where photographs of the pilgrimages of children are displayed.

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that warm and fiery heart.’17 According to local inhabitants, on Hoxha’s birthday, delegations from schools in Elbasan, Gramsh and nearby villages would march to the hut, which was preserved by the state as a Monument of Culture, to give speeches, perform songs, and recite poetry, that is, the equivalent of a religious pilgrimage ritual. Even place-centred pilgrimages in important spaces associated with the Communist Party’s history were attuned to Hoxha’s cult through the primacy and centrality of his persona– a cult similar to that which emerged around Tito (see Belaj 2008). The cult was fostered at the house in Tirana where the Communist Party was established,18 or through the annual programme of festivities which commemorated the Communist Party’s first Congress in Përmet on 24 May 1944. Kristo Paskali from Përmet, aged 36, still recalls feelings of longing for the annual feast’s advent, to which pilgrims from all over Albania were attracted. Hoxha’s cult was grotesquely expressed at his funeral, which comprised the single most populous one-off pilgrimage in the history of Communist Albania.19 A final example of attempts to construct new secular pilgrimages was provided by an event which ended in tragedy. During the 1970s, Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu recorded their memories of the anti-Nazi war; these memories became the basis for several memoirs by Enver Hoxha which were published in the early 1980s (for example, Hoxha 1981, 1984a, 1984b). However, Mehmet Shehu’s role in the project was not mentioned: in 1981, he was discredited as a double agent, forced to commit suicide and his name was removed from all books. While the second of these books contains extensive parts of the crucial winter of 1943, when Communist fighters of the First Offensive Brigade, including Hoxha, suffered freezing cold in the mountainous zone of Çermenika, Librazhd, Gramsh and Korça (ibid. 1984a: 389–401), almost half of the third book is dedicated to stories of the encounters between partisan fighters and local inhabitants (for example, at the aforementioned Hut of Galigat). In January 1979, Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, the 1943 commander of the Brigade, ordered the Brigade’s reservist forces to restage the 1943 winter itinerary. Fifteen hundred reservists were mobilized in a forced pilgrimage, but under extremely harsh weather conditions, poor organization and logistics, and a failure in the safety plans, four people died and dozens of others were injured. The survivors were severely reprimanded or punished by Mehmet Shehu for their failure to prove worthy of the Brigade’s history and they were ordered to repeat the march after a few weeks, an order that was later annulled by Hoxha under the pressure of the events.20 A lapidary  Hoxha 1984b: 275–99. I am indebted to Dr G. Qëndro for this piece of information.  See Institute of Monuments of Culture and the Directory of Museums, Tirana, The Museum-House of the Party (Tirana: 8 Nëntori, 1981) filled with photographs from organized pilgrimages. 19  Invaluable and extensive footage from this pilgrimage event can be viewed at accessed 17 December 2013. 20  For the events, see Skifter Këllici, ‘Shkatërrimi i Brigadës së Parë Sulmuese në Marshimin e Vitit 1979 dhe Ndëshkimet e Mehmet Shehut’, Versionin Online i Gazetës 17 18

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statue in honour of the First Offensive Brigade was later installed at the village of Pishkash, Elbasan (see Illustration 6.4), a more easily accessible spot to ease the pains of the original text-and-memory-centred pilgrimage that continued after 1980.

Illustration 6.4 Lapidary statue commemorating the battle of the 1st Offensive Brigade against Nazi forces in 1944, Pishkash, Elbasan

Communist Pilgrimage Places After the Fall of Communism and the Revival of Christian Pilgrimage Sites The fall of Communism led to the demolition of Enver Hoxha’s statue in Tirana on 20 February 1991, which unleashed a process of subversive meaning-making (or unmaking) and destruction of Communist pilgrimage sites. Yet, while some Communist pilgrimage sites were erased, others underwent a process of Dita (21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 February 2013), at , , , and , accessed 11 March 2013.

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reinterpretation, thanks to their polysemy, which helped to disassociate them from state-imposed Communist ideology. Although these sites experienced some damage, they were saved through the construction of new memories associated with their materiality, their emotional connotations for certain communities, or for their practical significance. At the same time, they declined as massive pilgrimage destinations. Hence, the hill of the Albanian Renaissance heroes in Gjirokastra – after enduring sporadic acts of destruction such as the 1997 shooting of the bronze double-headed eagle or vandalism, such as the 2008 desecration of the tombs, the scraping of the tomb-marks at various times and graffiti – was restored in 2011, shortly before local elections by a youth organization called ‘the Boys of Gjirokastra’ (Alb. Djemtë e Gjirokastrës), at the expense of the Municipality of Gjirokastra and with the help of experts. Besides the political significance of the restoration ahead of local elections, its salvation was also due to the resurgence of nationalist zeal in Albania. It was associated with new meanings generated through the links of Tirana’s residents countering those who had migrated to Greece (cf. de Rapper 2005). Even so, new graffiti at the restored site (personal observations from an early May 2013 visit) indicates the absence of an agreed common memory and shared value regarding the site. Pilgrimage places constructed by Communists in memory of heroes from the National Anti-Fascist Liberation War had a harsher – though uneven – fate. The celebration of the ‘Misto Mame’ battalion has now shrunk into a minor event, where neo-Communists, war veterans and their relatives, or descendants participate for the emotional or family connotations that the event evokes. School students no longer celebrate any place or events. Enver Hoxha’s Galigat hut was demolished by the descendants of Ymer Çoha, its owner, who sheltered Mehmet Shehu and Enver Hoxha during the winter of 1943. Hoxha’s birthplace in Gjirokastra and the house where he lived in Korça have been preserved for their architectural value, but no longer commemorate the dictator. Furthermore, towards the end of December 2012, the old Museum-House in Tirana, where the Communist Party was established and which had promoted the cult of Enver Hoxha during the Communist regime, was removed from the list of Tirana Municipality’s monuments of culture. However, pilgrimage places associated with Communist ‘neo-martyrs’ met an even harsher fate. In urban centres and across the provinces, the anti-Communist rage unleashed after February 1991 destroyed, defiled, or erased most of the material heritage of Albania’s Communist past. The most recent manifestation of this backlash was the 2012 decision by Albania’s government to erase the Pyramid in Tirana. Shkurte Vata’s memorial and statue, situated in the provinces, was also destroyed but the floating loading crane ‘Adem Reka’ was retained and is currently in use at the Durrës’ dock fishery marina. Adem Reka’s room, however, was demolished, together with the warehouses and dock worker’s rooms during the port’s modernization, and his statue was moved to an inconspicuous corner

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within the protected zone of the port.21 During a visit to the site in early May 2013, most travellers appeared to be unaware of the statue’s fate and those under 30 years of age did not even know about the statue. The young security guard at the port was aware of Adem Reka’s story and in a clear indication of the way in which Communist sites were being reinterpreted, he stated that the memory of a worker, who had died doing his duty, did not necessarily refer to the Communist regime. The few travellers over 40 years old, who knew nothing about Adem Reka, indicate that, in spite of the state’s wish to preserve this relic of the Communist past, the process of recovering from the traumas of the Communist era involves either oblivion or denial. Apparently, these former Communist pilgrimage sites no longer attract any pilgrims. Only a handful of uninformed tourists take photographs of Adem Reka’s statue and are curious to know who this person was. The destruction of Communist pilgrimages coincided with the revival of Christian pilgrimages. The shrine of St Anthony of Padua in Laç was completely rebuilt soon after the fall of the Communist regime (Caroli 1994: 25–6), at the initiative of the Bologna’s Antoniano, Ernesto Caroli (Pllumi 1994: 15–16) and a local priest Fr Dionis Makaj (Caroli 1994: 19–20), in recognition of the powerful appeal of this shrine to Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim Albanians, including such minorities as Roma and Egyptian (Ashta 1994: 11). Currently, the shrine is the most renowned pilgrimage/religious tourist destination in northern Albania, attracting thousands of attendants throughout the year, especially on the shrine’s feast of 13 June. Some pilgrims arrive at the site on 11 June for a three-day pilgrimage to plead for the saint’s protection and to offer devotional objects for miraculous healing and good health. The monastery of St Kosmas in Kolkondas has also enjoyed a revival and is currently visited annually by hundreds of pilgrims, primarily from Albania and Greece, who come particularly on 24 August, the saint’s feast day. People combine visiting this monastery with the one nearby at Ardenica, where St Kosmas’ disciples found refuge after his death. On the saint’s feast day, both Christians and Muslims arrive and Muslim women join other pilgrims in laying their children’s clothes under the altar for blessing (Tritos 2007). On the feast-day of St John Vladimir (22 May), his monastery close to Elbasan attracts large number of pilgrims from different religious and ethnic backgrounds (Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim Albanians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbians, Vlachs and Greeks).22 The monastery has recently been restored and houses church youth camps every summer. In 1995, the saint’s relics, which in 1967 had been transported to the church of the Dormition of the Virgin in the Castle of Elbasan, were returned to the Orthodox Church and are currently kept in Tirana. On the eve of the saint’s feast day, the relics are taken to the saint’s  See note 15.  The feast is celebrated 3–4 June which, according to the old calendar, corresponds with the evening before the feast and the feast-day of the saint; cf. accessed 17 December 2013. 21 22

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monastery in preparation for the great number of pilgrims who are attracted to the shrine. During the morning service on the feast day, the saint’s reliquary is placed at the centre of the church under a canopy, before being opened. At the end of the liturgy, chanting priests and cantors carry the reliquary three times around the church, followed by the devotees, who hold lit candles, in the fashion of the Epitaph litany. Priests then lay the reliquary in front of the church to be venerated by the faithful, who are also given pieces of cotton kept for a year inside the reliquary as a blessing for their pilgrimage. Pilgrims narrate numerous stories of miraculous healings of people, both Christian and Muslim, after praying before the saint’s relics (Velimirović 2000). A cross attributed to St John Vladimir, which is kept in the village of Velji Mikulići, near Bar in nearby Montenegro, has also become a pilgrimage shrine and on the saint’s feast, it is carried in procession to Mount Rumija followed by numerous Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims.23 Although these pilgrimages have revived and attract large followings, others have not been so successful. The monastery at Ardenica was handed back to the Albanian Orthodox Church in early 1990s, but its reputation has never reached the heights it is rumoured to have once enjoyed, even though the monastery is regularly visited by newly-wed couples, regardless of their religious identity, on their wedding day to elicit the protection of Virgin Mary. There was also a very popular procession of a cross and an old icon of the Virgin, kept in Labova’s church, to a number of local villages – a tradition that is said to have persisted until 1967.24 However, the church’s feast day and pilgrimage is nowadays but a shadow of its past. Afterword In this chapter, I have explored the role played by politics in the changes affecting Christian pilgrimage space in Albania before and during from the period of ‘secular’ Communism to post-Communist revival. In so doing, I have emphasized the ways in which the Communist regime determined the contestation, appropriation, reinterpretation and destruction of Christian pilgrimage sites and the construction  Željko Milović and Suljo Mustafić, Knjiga o Baru, (Bar: Informativni Centar Bar, 2001), pp. 57–9. According to the Annals of the Priest, upon John Vladislav’s invitation to St John Vladimir to come and meet him, shortly before his beheading, St John Vladimir replied ‘send me a wooden cross in the hands of religious men, then in accordance with the belief and conviction of the Lord Jesus Christ, I will have faith in the life-giving cross and holy wood. I will come’: Papageorgiou, Το Χρονικό, p. 131. 24  Leonidas Pappas, ‘Η Εκκλησία της Γέννησης της Θεοτόκου στο Λάμποβο Αργυροκάστρου. Γιατί Πολλά Πανηγύρια στην Ήπειρο Λέγονται και “Λάμποβο”’, , accessed 12 January 2013, and Panagiotis Barkas, ‘Η Σχέση της Ορθοδοξίας με τον Αρχαίο Ελληνικό Πολιτισμό στην Περιοχή της Βορείου Ηπείρου’, , accessed 12 January 2013. 23

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of new, ‘secular’ pilgrimage sites. After the collapse of Communism, some secular pilgrimages faded but others survived through complex processes of top-down or grass-roots reinterpretation, or because they were still considered useful. I also explored the attempts by Albania’s Orthodox and Catholic Churches to reconstruct Christian pilgrimage space after 1991. Besides outlining the role played by politics and authority (political, economic, or ecclesiastical) in making and sustaining pilgrimages, I also explored the various prompts appropriate to constructing pilgrimage cultic space, as well as the ways in which Christian and Communist pilgrimages centre on persons, places, texts/ memories, movements, or combinations of these different elements.

Chapter 7

Sterilization and Re-sacralization of the Places of Secular Pilgrimage: Moving Monuments, Meanings and Crowds in Estonia Polina Tšerkassova

In this chapter, I propose taking secular pilgrimage as a point of departure for exploring state politics and for gaining a more profound understanding of the interconnectedness between pilgrimage and politics as well as the processes of sacralization, sterilization and re-sacralization of certain public places of commemoration. I am going to describe the process of place-making in terms of how people participate in their commemorative pilgrimage to the grave and the monument of the Unknown Soldier in Tallinn. The notion of ‘secular pilgrimage’ is an ambiguous one, especially as it contains words which are often viewed as binaries (Margry 2008: 30). The term ‘pilgrimage’ is also troublesome. As Simon Coleman and John Eade note, pilgrimage involves ‘sometimes unpredictable encounters between liturgical forms, personal imagination and memory translated into the acts of the body’ (Coleman and Eade 2004: 17). Adding the word ‘secular’ reproduces the binary opposition, but for me it also implies the extension of the Turnerian idea of pilgrimage as strictly religious and connected to communitas to a more individualistic expression of veneration and expiation in the non-religious context. In the case-study that I provide in this chapter, I will trace the nation-making process in Estonia, which is shaped by politically or ideologically informed decisions and actions. Although the state appears all-powerful in its ability to mould and change the public space, endowing it with favourable meanings, the removal of the Soviet monument from the city centre did not decrease the religious dimension of the place allocated to it by the crowds of commemorative pilgrims, who still come to the emptied space on the Soviet Army Victory Day. Monuments and tombs have often been at the centre of attention, and their removals or reburials are ideologically informed and organized by those in authority (Verdery 1999). Sometimes they have attracted so much negative attention that they have fallen victim to acts of vandalism. On such occasions, I would even say that they were exposed to ‘acts of sacrilege’, to emphasize a particular degree of sacralization assigned to them even in the most secular political contexts. Hence,

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places like the monument and grave of the Unknown Soldier in Tallinn’s city centre attract crowds of pilgrims, unifying them in their euphoric commemoration, but at the same time marginalizing them against the Other, be it the main ideology or another interpretation of past events. Movement is what intersects any kind of pilgrimage, be it religious or secular, short or long-lasting. Movement can be understood as performative and embodied action, as semantic field and as a metaphor (Coleman and Eade 2004: 16). The movement intrinsic to secular pilgrimage is also utterly politically informed by what Paul Connerton calls ‘mnemonic power’ (2011: 43). Stirring personal memories and imaginations, binding together an individual and the state, pilgrimage to secular shrines has the power to amplify contrasting interpretations of histories and interfere with active place-making. As I argue in what follows, it is through commemorative pilgrims that the place is re-animated and re-sacralized. In the case of the Unknown Soldier, pilgrimage movement happens simultaneously on many levels. Both the place and movement are multi-layered and movement involves not just physical arrival at the sacralized place.1 It is also a metaphysical journey, since it links the living and the dead, the immigrants and their overseas relatives and families. The case of the removal of the Unknown Soldier’s monument from Tallinn’s city centre was frequently discussed by scholars soon after the events took place. The case was mostly seen as an ethnic conflict, a ‘war of monuments’, a contestation of national identity and an identity threat, a reconstruction of memory and a prevention of further turmoils, and all these accounts provide detailed description of the events (Brüggemann and Kasekamp 2008, Lehti, Jutila and Jokisipilä 2008, Ehala 2009, Kattago 2008, Smith 2008). However, here I do not want to produce yet another ethnographically based case study of identity politics, ethnicity and state ideology. Instead, I propose to approach the events from the angle of secular pilgrimage. This provides another framework for understanding the political complexities of post-socialism in a country often regarded by Europeans as one of the most secular countries where Christianity does not have much impact. This approach also helps to reveal the intentions, personal motifs and the more general lived and experienced complexities which transcend the ordinary classifications of ‘Estonians’, ‘Russians’, or ‘Estonian Russians’, which are often coined in simplified, reified terms by state discourses. One of my main arguments is that secular pilgrimage to the grave of the Unknown Soldier can be viewed as a redemption of proximity not just with the victims of war but also with physically remote family members and dead relatives whose graves are scattered around the vast territory of Russia. The ethnographically informed case study of a secular pilgrimage in Estonia that I draw on here for the basis of this discussion involves different kinds of 1  I prefer to use the verb ‘sacralize’ rather than the noun ‘sacred’, because it emphasizes the performativity and negotiability of place and place-making (see Coleman and Eade 2004: 18)

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movement. There is the movement of crowds of Estonian Russian speakers who come to perform commemorative ceremonies near the monument of the Unknown Soldier. There are the movements by the state to reorder the meanings of the landmarks in public space through its sterilization of unwanted connotations. There are also re-sacralization processes and the movements of commemorating pilgrims to the new, re-sacralized places of secular pilgrimage. Finally, there is my own movement as a researcher performing anthropology at home. My ethnographic fieldwork and my understanding of the reciprocal influence upon which the fragile mutual coexistence rested, unfolded in what Nigel Rapport calls the process of ‘zigzagging’ (Rapport 2012: 154). This movement formed my methodology, which drew together nation-making narratives and individuals’ stories, the politicized, sacralized, and even fetishized narratives of the monuments, as well as the plurality of intentions and interpretations of the participants. Transformations of City Space With and Without the Monument In early May 2011, I got a phone call from one of my informants, Natalja, a Russian woman in her forties, who asked me whether I wanted to join her in her pilgrimage to ‘Alyosha’. This was how some Russian speakers called the monument of the Unknown Soldier, which until 2007 used to stand in the city centre of Tallinn and was then removed to the military graveyard on the edge of the city. I was surprised because although I had known Natalja for several years, this was the first time that she invited me to join her in her pilgrimage. However, when she continued and explained that she wanted to invite me to join her on the journey to the monument’s former location, I was even more surprised and eager to join her. ‘A holy place is never empty’ – this Russian proverb was the only thing that Natalja said ironically as we were walking along one of the streets in the city centre of Tallinn. On our left-hand side was the Estonian National Library, which rather resembled a fortress made of polished limestone. Straight ahead, at the end of the street, we could see another limestone building, a nineteenth-century Protestant church in neo-Roman style. Although Natalja invited me to join her in this pilgrimage, we were not heading toward the church. We turned right to a small triangular square opposite the library. The square was full of flowerbeds with only one narrow gravel path running straight between the closely planted flowers. Some years ago, instead of this urban garden, there stood the monument of the Unknown Soldier commemorating those who had fought against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The monument was erected over a small anonymous grave on 21 September 1947, when Estonia had become a part of the Soviet Union. Since then every year on the 9th of May it became a place of commemorative pilgrimage and attracted many people who were mostly Russian speakers (see Illustration 7.1). It had been already five years since the monument has been removed from the city centre but some people still continued to perform their personal pilgrimages to the place where the monument used to stand, and which was by now covered

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Illustration 7.1

Map of Central Tallinn

with flowerbeds. Despite this abundance of flowers which surrounded us, Natalja was carrying three red pinks in her hands. As we approached the square, I could see a couple of other people arriving with red pinks. On the narrow path between the flowerbeds, Natalja stopped, kneeled down, took a pencil which was hidden beforehand in her pocket, and with its sharp end she made three deep holes in the soil. It was not easy to find an empty space but she acted quickly. She then stuck the three red pinks vertically into separate holes, stood up and, casting a glance at a couple of other people doing similar manipulations around the flowerbeds and at some vigilant policemen approaching the square, told me: ‘There may be no grave here anymore, but for me there is still something special about this place … We’d better move on now.’ After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the regaining of independence, over one-third of the population of Estonia were Russian speakers, most of whom had arrived during the Soviet period. Tallinn’s city centre was still inbued with the remnants of the Soviet epoch. Those remnants were present in the most representative areas of the town, forming the place, acting as silent transmitters of a different narrative – the documentations of the Soviet past in bronze and

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stone. For many Estonians, these landmarks, scattered randomly in Tallinn, were the reminders of the loss of independence and territory, mass deportations and suffering. The process of re-infusing public places with a new meaning and ideological markers emerged in most post-Soviet countries. Following Katherine Verdery’s comparison between post-socialism and post-colonialism (2002: 16), it can be regarded as an inevitable part of the transition into post-socialism. Yet for Gregory Feldman, this process constituted not so much a post-socialist recovery but rather a reflection of European convictions and idealistic beliefs about a preferably homogeneous nation state. To be eligible to become a member of the European Union, Estonia had to adapt swiftly to these homogenizing requirements (see Feldman 2005: 676). Nevertheless, some sacralized places of secular pilgrimage continued to silently negotiate a different set of personal truths and attitudes to history. The monument of the Unknown Soldier was often referred to as the ‘Bronze Soldier’, or sometimes it was called more sympathetically by the Russian name ‘Alyosha’. The monument represented a larger-than-life soldier, whose bare head bent slightly forward as if in grief. The bronze was dark and from afar the figure looked like a massive monolith. Behind the statue, a thick limestone wall formed the background. To mark the place of the burial and to commemorate the soldiers, the monument used to be illuminated from beneath by an eternal flame (see Illustration 7.2). Although the flame was extinguished in 1990, many Russian-speaking people continued to gather around the monument on the 9th of May – the Soviet Victory Day – which marked the day before the official end of the Second World War. They brought flowers and laid wreaths on the grave of the Unknown Soldier. Early in the morning on the 9th of May, regardless of the weather, crowds of people started their commemorative pilgrimage to the monument. There were war veterans with polished medals on their chests, groups of children from Russian schools, happy to miss a class or two, as well as many other Russian speakers of different ages. Some were coming there only for the lunch period, while some stayed for the whole day. Someone would always come with an accordion and then one could hear old Russian songs about war, liberty and fallen friends, while others would sing alone or in small choirs. There were also some people who would kneel down and pray, and some would cross themselves. The people were moving like a tide on that day, coming closer to the monument and then away from it, moving to and from, so the area immediately around the monument was always packed with people. The ones who stayed for the whole day engaged in talking and easily initiated conversations, as if they knew each other for a long time. As Marijana Belaj notes about to the visits to Josip Broz Tito’s statue in Kumrovec, she encountered a great degree of euphoric openness with which people addressed each other and herself, accepting her as ‘one of them’ simply on the basis of her presence (Belaj 2008: 83). Similarly, I found that many visitors – most of whom were elderly people – were particularly eager to welcome

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Illustration 7.2

Alyosha

me, especially regarding my comparatively young age. I could feel their sense of pride whenever a younger person approached the monument or another group of commemorators standing nearby. In the evening, when the crowd was gone and the motion in the square and the nearby streets returned to its normal flow, the sacralized place remained physically and symbolically transformed for several subsequent days. The reason was that people had brought red flowers, mostly red pinks, to lay around the pedestal in

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piles or had stuck them vertically into the lawn around the monument. The red colour of the flowers united the pilgrims on the 9th of May and made their flow more coherent, articulating silently an equivocal discourse. The red flowers, on the one hand, represented the most exploited colour of the Soviet epoch, which was associated with the loss of independence by Estonian speakers. The colour was echoed in the Soviet flag, the Soviet star, the ‘red propaganda’, and often was held to represent the whole ‘red epoch’. Yet on the other hand, for many Russian speakers who participated in the pilgrimage, this colour revived the nostalgic connection to the homeland of their childhood where many had spent their youth and which now was separated by the state border. For several days after the ceremony, the square stayed transformed, covered with a carpet of subversive red colour. Interestingly, this points to the particular capacity of colour to deceive. Tracing the etymology of the word ‘colour’ and drawing on the writings of Walter Benjamin, Michael Taussig contends that colour is associated with crime – it conceals and deceives (Taussig 2009: 18). Colour can amount to a fetish, loved by some, feared by others, but symbolic and even spiritual to all, with a powerful influence on world history (ibid.: 131). Such was the transformative power of the red flowers brought to the square. The next morning a passer-by could get the impression that the revolutionary red flowers had sprung up overnight! Generally, for Estonian speakers the flowers embodied the traumas of socialism, while for many Russian speakers, they conjured up nostalgia and separation from relatives. These associations and different ways of interpreting the meanings of the red flowers only accumulated contradiction in the most representative public space of the city centre. Similarly, the presence of the monument itself raised some uncomfortable questions about who had actually fought against Nazi Germany and in the name of which land these soldiers had lost their lives. If Estonia did not exist as an independent state, then it was assumed that the soldiers had fought for the Soviet Union, the ‘oppressor’ of Estonian freedom and the idea of an independent Estonian nation. These questions seemed particularly uncomfortable in the context of the country’s past. Here it is important to make a comment that the idea of fighting for a particular land is connected to the process – it is lasting and negotiable to a certain extent. However, the idea of dying for a particular land is related to very explicit and unequivocal result, which equates and binds a human life, through devotion, with a particular state. ‘Homeland is where my Parents Rest’: The Redemption of Proximity Through Commemoration When the events around war memorials in Estonia are discussed, they are mostly addressed as a conflict of ideologies, a clash of historical interpretations, an encouragement to take sides and, as a result, create an even greater rupture in Estonian society into ‘us’ and ‘them’. However, I want to suggest approaching the

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May commemoration ceremony in Tallinn city centre as a personal pilgrimage – a kind of symbolic, penitential journey. As I am going to exemplify in what follows below, this particular pilgrimage is an imaginative bridging of distance and proximity. It allows the participants to re-animate the relationship with families and deceased relatives separated now by state borders, visas and thousands of kilometres. When I was doing my research about integration strategies in Estonia, a part of my fieldwork took place at a youth initiative organization in Tallinn. I soon discovered that quite a few Russian-speaking members of the organization annually visited the monument on the 9th of May. After I asked Liza, a Russian girl in her last school year, who spoke very good Estonian and often invited me to her home, whether she ever visited the monument on the 9th of May, she looked at me with surprise: ‘Don’t you go there?’ Her emphasis on ‘you’ was pointed at my own origin. I was born in Estonia but come from a Russian background, and despite my fluency in both languages, during the fieldwork I experienced that a visit to ‘Alyosha’ on the 9th of May was something which many Russian speakers in Tallinn took for granted. Liza continued: ‘My parents say that every Russian person should remember those who fought against the Nazi regime.’ This point of conversation sparked my interest and made me wonder about intentions and why these people visited the grave of the Unknown Soldier each year. Liza and I had a very good relationship and soon I became a frequent guest at their home and spent time speaking with her and her parents. She had a habit of leaving the family conversation after a short time and going to study because at that time she was overburdened with preparations for her state exams. She hoped to get especially good results in order to compete with Estonian native speakers and to enter university. Consequently, I often found myself in the company of her parents with whom we always had tea and some biscuits in a low Soviet glass bowl which, as Liza told me, her parents brought with them from Russia. Liza’s mother, Natalya, was an amiable energetic woman who looked more like Liza’s sister than her mother. Liza’s father was often at work but sometimes he also joined our conversations. They had moved to the Estonian Soviet Republic from Tver in 1984 and were both journalists. Natalya mentioned that while living in Tver they always wanted to go to the most ‘western’ of the Soviet Republics, because of the sense of freedom and greater accessibility to goods imported from European capitalist countries, especially from Finland. Liza was born in Estonia during the 1980s when it was relatively easy for the family to travel to Tver and other towns to visit their relatives. However, after Estonia regained independence, access became more restricted and the family encountered financially difficult times. It was soon after the removal of the Bronze Soldier when Natalya told me that they actually had no grandparents or other relatives in Estonia. She emphasized that only she, her husband and her daughter were now living in this country. Her parents were dead and buried in Russia, as well as her grandparents. Natalya still had two siblings and some relatives, but their families were scattered around Russia. She admitted with undisguised sadness that their family could

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not visit the graves of their parents and grandparents very often – once in four or five years at best – because of the costs of the journey involved. Listening to her, I was surprised that being unable to visit the graves of her relatives was something that caused her more unhappiness than not being able to see her living relatives. Once, when we were in her kitchen drinking tea, Natalya told me that each time she went to bring flowers and candles to the monument of the Unknown Soldier on the 9th of May, she did it first and foremost to commemorate and to bow down in front of her dead family members. By undertaking her penitential pilgrimage to the monument, she hoped to expiate her guilt for not visiting their real graves and not taking care of them. This made me think that for Liza’s family the grave of the Unknown Soldier had acquired the role of a mediator and had become the physical embodiment of all their inaccessible relatives, who were either killed during the war, or buried in remote places in Russia. I later heard similar stories from those whom I met during my fieldwork and who had mostly arrived in Estonia during the 1980s, shortly before the regaining of independence. It was always intriguing to talk with Estonian Russian-speakers, who had migrated from different parts of the Soviet Union, about homeland and its location. These were stories of loneliness and disconnection from something which seemed particularly important for the Russian-speakers in Estonia – the graves of their relatives. As one man in his early sixties told me, ‘Homeland is where my parents rest, so for me it is Russia.’ When I asked him about his children, he said firmly, ‘For them it will be Estonia, because I live here and I will die here.’ In this statement, I see an interesting connotation which challenges the idea of homeland as a place where one was born or with which one associates oneself, and suggests a different relationship. In this very individualized interpretation, homeland is rather the place where one’s parents or grandparents are buried. From this perspective, a short pilgrimage to the monument of the Unknown Soldier can be compared with the labyrinth patterns preserved on some cathedral floors which were known as ‘the path to Jerusalem’. In 2008, I had the opportunity to visit one of these metaphorical places in Chartres Cathedral. Despite my eagerness to experience walking this labyrinth, the paved stone floor was covered with chairs. Nevertheless, I still tried to move along the lines on the floor, even if it meant circling around the rows of chairs or even climbing over them. This was, probably, the most hindered and barely passable path to Jerusalem that I have ever taken. Yet the idea of the metaphorical equation between the model of the journey and the journey itself stirred my imagination. Even though a person would only walk through the labyrinth, this journey was akin to the sacred pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Although the commemorative journey of the Russian-speaking pilgrims in Tallinn was bounded by the square where the monument of the Unknown Soldier stood, the journey was akin to visiting the graves of the ancestors far away in Russia. This ability to reconnect the living to their dead on different levels adds another facet to the discussion of the secular pilgrimage to war monuments and unknown

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soldier graves. As Katherine Verdery puts it, the anonymous dead represent not the concrete biographies of the individuals, but an entire new set of values and a categorization grid for imagining people as a group (1999: 20). Although for Liza’s family, the grave of the Unknown Soldier acted as the embodiment of all their relatives no matter where they were buried and uniting the living with the dead, it also tied them to their memories and stories connected with Russia. There is a wealth of anthropological literature which has examined the power of corpses and dead bodies. In her study of the politics of dead bodies, Verdery attributes their effective idiosyncrasy to one of their most essential qualities, which is ambiguity. Although they are absolutely tangible and concrete corpses, they do not dictate the one and only way they should be addressed. On the contrary, they offer a multiplicity of interpretations (1999: 28). By opening the gate for various interpretations and misinterpretations, monuments and dead bodies participate in the processes of constructing symbolic capital or power. Bourdieu emphasized that false recognition and the legitimization of capital constitutes practical knowledge which ‘in no way implies that the object known and recognised be posited as object’ (1990: 112). Thus, monuments and dead bodies represent a key which allows people to reanimate relationships with remote families or manipulate meanings, feelings and associations with those alive, as well as memories and emotions. Michael Taussig also considered the question of what makes dead bodies so powerful and suggests that both presence and political influence expand with disembodiment (1997: 3). It is the combination of their indisputable disembodiment and physical presence, which makes dead bodies the receptacles of new meanings and political symbolism. Both Verdery and Taussig approached the state’s politics of dead bodies from the perspective of magic and enchantment. Not only is it a way to animate the study of the ‘political’ or ‘secular’, but it is also a vehicle for describing the shapes which political actions are taking in the post-socialist world (Verdery 1999: 26). This introduction of the irrational and mystical element into the study of post-socialist politics and secular pilgrimage, combined with post-Soviet atheism and general distrust towards religion in Estonia, produces a captivating discourse concerning the recreation of the symbolic connection between the dead and the living. This particular umbilical cord, which connects the living and the dead, was recreated each time by the movement of secular pilgrims through the city space of Tallinn. Already, early in the morning, they got on the buses or trolleybuses in the suburbs, and there one could distinguish the people going to the monument. The veterans, with their polished medals on their chests, were more cheerful and were not discussing their low pensions and health troubles. The closer to the city centre, the more people were entering the bus carrying the red flowers. Considering that at least one-third of the population of Tallinn is Russian-speaking, and even though not all of them participate in the commemoration, it still got crowded. To me, the red flowers that they were carrying looked like the seashells worn by pilgrims on the camino to Santiago de Compostela. The flowers were negotiating their identity and their intentions, but only on some level. They were unifying the pilgrims, but

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they also brought controversy and distress to the most representative public space of a country, which had only recently regained its independence. As Natalya told me, she had a feeling that the independence of Estonia ‘happened’ in one night: ‘Can you imagine the feeling when you go to sleep as a normal person, but when you wake up you discover that you are an “alien”?’ She referred to August 1991 when independence was restored de facto. It was not until June 1993 that the Aliens Act was adopted and classified all Russianspeakers, who had migrated to Estonia after 1945, as ‘aliens’. They were required to apply for residency and work permits within two years (Budryte 2005: 69). Ever since, grey-coloured aliens’ passports have been issued. In contrast to the citizens’ passports which were coloured navy blue, the aliens’ passports laid the ground for the symbolic colour differentiation between citizens and non-citizens. The words ‘alien’s passport’ are printed on the cover of their passports along with the Estonian words, Välismaalase pass, which literally means ‘foreigner’s passport’, which is less ambiguous and therefore less provocative. During my fieldwork, I noticed that some Russian speakers often used the English word ‘alien’ to refer to themselves and translated it directly as ‘extraterrestrial beings’. I noticed that many young Russian-speaking non-citizens enjoyed playing with the double meaning of the English word ‘alien’, emphasizing that they were perceived as extraterrestrials – a perception which provided them with material for self-irony and self-pity. Similarly, there seems to be a strong tendency to associate migrants with something mystical and most often non-human. Jean and John Comaroff have explored the parallels between changes in the ecosystem of South Africa caused putatively by alien plants and the discourse of nationalism and nation-building fuelled by the presence of migrants challenging borders (Comaroff and Comaroff 2001: 649). In another paper, they compare immigrants and labourers in postcolonial discourse to half-dead zombies from South African magical practices (ibid.: 783). Heonik Kwon’s discussion of ghosts and war in Vietnam further demonstrates the connotations between the ideas underlying the essence of strangers and ghosts (Kwon 2008: 19–20). Some of the Russian-speakers also liked to accentuate the non-human status allocated to them by the state, for which they were the ‘ghosts of war’ and the ghosts of ‘occupiers’, a shadowy part of the Estonian population who did not originally belong there. Hence, their visits to the grave of the Unknown Soldier on the 9th of May were akin to the march of the unwanted spirits of the past. Whenever there is magic, counter-magic will be found. Wherever there are ghosts of the unwanted past looming around the most representative city space, the state will find ways to exorcise those ghosts. The Exorcism of Ghosts from the City Centre The location of the monument of the Unknown Soldier was a contradiction in itself. The monument was bordered on the one side by the massive building of the National Library, which was the symbol of national awakening, the regaining

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of independence and the repository of national language and knowledge. In front, there was a Protestant church. Both buildings were made of limestone, which is the national stone in Estonia, and reminded people of fortified castles. The existence of the monument and the grave of the Unknown Soldier in this area was seen by the state as the presence of people, who died for another homeland, as well as the embodied process of a sacralized apostate ideology. Although the place did not initially contain such sacralized value, each time the movement of commemorative pilgrims, driven by their personal mnemonic histories and imaginations, endowed the location with meaning and reanimated it. Thus, the place became a target for what Paul Connerton calls ‘imposed forgetting’. Yet, conversely, the more it is imposed, coercive forgetting actually reinforces memory (Connerton 2011: 41). So, in spring 2007, the square and the streets nearby the monument became a battlefield. The way the state exorcised the undesired ghosts of war was through what I would call the sterilization of a particular place’s sacred value or an imposed desacralization. The probability of the monument’s removal had long been discussed in the media, but the final decision was never communicated openly, until one day the monument and the area around it were covered with a huge white tent for performing archaeological research and excavation works. Perplexed by the aura of secrecy and uncertainty, and fuelled by the arrival of special police forces cordoning off the area, the opponents of the removal of the monuments started to gather around the square on the evening of 26 April 2007. That evening, I had planned to meet one of my Russian friends and informants, Andrei. Although it was quite late, the weather conditions were perfect for a long walk. Preoccupied with our conversation, we were meandering through Kaarli Park, near the Protestant church, aimlessly heading towards the National Library. Passing alongside the library, we were about to take a narrow passage to proceed behind its rampart into the next street, when suddenly we stumbled on a police cordon. At this point, our conversation was abruptly cut short by the nervous shout of a policeman: ‘That’s enough! Keep them at a distance!’ We discovered that something at first inconceivable was happening. All the passages, terraces, balconies and even the tops of the library’s towers were filled by people who were shouting, throwing stones and running back and forth. The impregnable limestone body of the library suddenly turned into an anthill, boiling over with people, phrases shouted in Estonian and Russian, and police uniforms cropping up here and there. Before we found ourselves in the middle of this mess, my friend Andrei, a pacifist by nature, tugged me by my sleeve into the opposite direction. No matter how far we went, the sound of window glass being smashed followed us at every step. At that time, it seemed that such turmoil could have happened elsewhere in the world but not in relatively peaceful Estonia. The turmoil of that ill-fated April night, followed by several acts of vandalism, echoed for a very long time afterwards. At first, it was the echo of helicopters combing the space above the library and the city centre on that night, scanning the territory with their floodlights, which added an unrealistic sense that what was

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going on was a staged performance. Then, it echoed in the short telephone messages from the Estonian government, which suddenly started to pour into private mobile phones urging people to remain calm, stay at home and not participate in the public disorders. Some days later, it echoed in emails and phone calls from some of my Russian-speaking friends and informants looking for any information about their missing relatives and acquaintances, who had disappeared during the main day of the turmoil. Since then, the term ‘April events’ became a very concrete narrative, which was exploited widely in the media and drastically divided the society into ‘Estonians’ and ‘Russians’. The reverberations of the April events still echo today in the new look of the re-designed space of the square where the monument used to stand. The authorities’ decision to remove the monument and the grave from the city centre and to relocate them to the military graveyard on the outskirts of Tallinn are similar, therefore, to the exorcism of the ghosts and memories of war through the de-sacralization of public place. The final sterilization of the meanings, values and narratives, often referred to as a ‘security policy issue’ (Lehti, Jutila and Jokisipilä 2008: 394), can be regarded as the culmination of what was called in public the ‘war of monuments’. On the whole, monuments have short lives during major social and political changes. Such was the lifespan of the monuments erected in 1918–20 during the short period of independence of Estonia, which disappeared with the arrival of the Soviet authorities. However, even the Soviet monuments shared the same fate. As Martin Ehala describes, a simple wooden memorial, which was erected in April 1945 and preceded the Bronze Soldier at the grave where several unknown soldiers had been buried, was demolished by two school girls, Ageeda and Aili, one year after its erection. A year later, in 1947, a bronze monument of the Unknown Soldier was established over the grave (Ehala 2009: 140). After the regaining of independence in 1991, the monument received scant attention from the public until a new monument was erected in Lihula in 2004 commemorating the soldiers, who had fought against the Soviet Union and for the restoration of Estonian independence. This was also a ‘monument on the move’, since it had been erected in 2002 near Pärnu, but had been taken away before its opening and re-positioned at Lihula. It only stayed there for a couple of weeks until it was removed by the government. The monument was controversial because some of the soldiers depicted on it were wearing Nazi uniform, which was strongly criticized by some Jewish organizations, the European Union and the Russian authorities (Lehti, Jutila and Jokisipilä 2008: 398). The removal of this monument provoked several attacks and acts of sacrilege towards the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn, who was wearing Soviet uniform. The statue was painted red and vandalized. Since then and until its final removal in 2007, it became the focus of growing tensions and rival goals and interpretations. To continue with the idea of secular pilgrimages, the relocation of the monument from the city centre changed the movement patterns of the commemorative pilgrims who kept visiting the relocated grave and the monument at the military graveyard, far from the city centre of Tallinn. The change in the location of the

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sacralized monuments did not substantially affect the flow of pilgrims. However, as Natalya told me, her daughter Liza and many other young Russian-speakers did not go to visit the relocated monument: ‘it is too far for them, and you know, they are always so busy.’ Once Natalya said that the new location was even better because ‘the environment was more like a real graveyard, and the feeling was more genuine … like going to the church.’ Every year since the removal of the monument, Natalya went to visit first the relocated monument in the suburbs and then the square where it used to stand. At first, she was afraid to bring flowers because the police were patrolling the area on that day and removing the red flowers left by some commemorative pilgrims. Yet, for some Russian-speakers, this turned into a new game – a sort of unorganised resistance. Now, when the monument was not there anymore, the place where it had stood had acquired an even greater meaning for some commemorators. Although the ghosts of war and of competing ideologies were not there anymore, their presence was still perceptible. It was even emphasized and enhanced by the presence of the police officers on the 9th of May, who kindly asked passers-by not to stop there. However, during the rest of the time the place remained greatly transformed and empty, only covered densely with a kind of urban garden. There is a saying in English and in Estonian, that nature abhors a vacuum, and in Russian there is a proverb, which states ‘the holy space never remains empty.’ After the removal of the monument of the Unknown Soldier from the square, a new and even more impressive monument was erected some two hundred metres away. The nearby adjoining square Vabaduseväljak (Freedom Square) was impregnated with a new monument in the form of a gigantic Glass Cross crowning a solid pillar, which was placed on the massive cement terraces. The heart of the cross depicts a hand holding a sword and a letter E. For some the cross resembled a German cross, for some the letter E resembled the symbol of the Euro currency, but space does not allow me to go into details delineating the controversies and frictions which surround the new monument. The construction of the Glass Cross was like the final touch following the sterilization of the space from an unwanted history, impregnating it with new symbols, and consolidating the glorification of the independent state. Moreover, the new monument commemorated unambiguously those who had fought during the war of independence and regarded Estonia as their only homeland. Conclusion This chapter was written with gratitude to all people who shared their personal stories and memories with me during the period of my fieldwork in Tallinn. The story of Natalya turned to be the focal story, but it was one of the many that I heard and it pivoted around the dislocation between family and homeland, as well as and reverence towards the distant graves of relatives, especially parents and grandparents. These stories often repeat themselves, zigzagging back and forth to

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the sources of their mnemonic imagination. Yet what point does this imagination start from? Was it at the point when the first monuments of independent Estonia were demolished in 1920, or when the two young Estonian girls put explosives under the wooden monument commemorating the Soviet soldiers? Or when the monument in Lihula was erected and the Bronze Soldier was removed to the graveyard? Or maybe when police officers diligently started to patrol the flowerbeds on the square sterilized from its sacralized meaning, but where red flowers still tended to appear? What is it that these stories of moving monuments, meanings and people tell us about pilgrimage and particularly ‘secular’ pilgrimage, commemoration and nation-making, and the connection between them? First, this commemorative pilgrimage in Tallinn not only unites to some extent those who participate in it but also connects them with their marginality, bordering on illegality, from the perspective of the Estonian nation-state. Consider, for example, the restrictions on bringing red flowers to the square after the removal of the monument. Secondly, addressing this complex co-presence of multiple truths and interpretations, traditionally seen as an entirely ethnic conflict of memory politics, through the lens of pilgrimage allows us to attain a deeper understanding of the intentions and personal experiences of the participants. Clearly, it is not only the unknown soldiers whom they go to commemorate and venerate, but also the remote graves of their own family members on their metaphorical ‘path to Jerusalem’. The controversies surrounding the Unknown Soldier in Tallinn can be explored through the movements of the commemorative pilgrims and as a means of placemaking. Thus, it allows us to see the other connections which are often overlooked in the analysis of the ‘war of monuments’ in Tallinn. Visits to the Unknown Soldier monument enable people to traverse distance and time, and reanimate metaphorical relations with their distant or deceased family members and a far-off homeland accordingly. After all, if the homeland is where the graves of the parents are, the nation’s sacred borders are continuously contested and renegotiated through these attempts to redeem the connection with the deceased relatives, which involve movement, commemoration and other pilgrim practices.

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Chapter 8

Secular Journeys, Sacred Places: Pilgrimage and Home-making in the Himarë/ Himara Area of Southern Albania Nataša Gregorič Bon

Movement and Pilgrimage One of the first anthropological studies of Christian pilgrimages (Turner and Turner 1978: xiii) conceptualized pilgrimage as a ‘kinetic ritual’ where the journey and movement bring a temporary social and psychological transformation. During the 1990s, when scholarly work on pilgrimage shifted its focus from pilgrim sites to journeys to these sites, studies of movement through space and time gathered pace (Stanley 1992, Morinis 1992, Coleman and Elsner 1995, Coleman and Eade 2004). Coleman and Eade (2004: 3) gave pilgrimage studies contemporary relevance by conceptualizing them as an ‘imitation’ of contemporary transnationalism and shifting identities. Pilgrimage is no longer seen, then, as merely an instrumental ‘object’ of social processes but also as a constitutive part of those processes. In line with Coleman and Eade (2004) and Sallnow (1991: 148), who view pilgrimage as a kinaesthetic mapping of space, I argue that the emigrants through their pilgrimage to Stavridi re-enact the routes of their ongoing return movements. Through these movements, they re-define their sense of home and belonging. This chapter also explores how the emigrants, who are ‘on the move’, negotiate, manage and contest their locality, through which they seek to ensure their home and belonging. I focus on the processes of home-making that generate new meanings through which emigrants seek to guarantee their attachment to ‘their’ place. Contemporary studies of place have shown that place can no longer be thought of as a fixed and stable category but as a lively process (Massey 2005, Ingold 2009, Kirby 2009). Drawing on Ingold (2009), I conceptualize place in terms of movement and not by the outer limits set on movements. Accordingly, the meaning of home is a relational process since people in particular historical, political, economic, social and cultural contexts are continually involved in shifting its meaning. In today’s fast-changing economic and political relations, the meanings of home and locality can be fruitfully related to a given group’s sense of rootedness in a particular locale, as well as to the perpetual movements and migrations.

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The Context Albania used to be one of the few European countries where religious atheism did not fall within the domain of communal or individual choice but was regulated top-down by national rule enforced by the Communist leader, Enver Hoxha. In order to suppress religious differences between Muslims, Christians and Catholics that were seen as dividing the Albanian population – and allegedly inspired by Pashko Vasa, an Albanian writer, poet and one of the promoters of the Albanian National Awakening – Hoxha declared Albanianism to be the only religion of the Albanians (Duijzings 2002: 61–2). Following the methods of China’s Cultural Revolution, he officially forbade any kind of religious practice in 1967, and as we have already seen, numerous churches as well as mosques were closed. As a proponent of Stalinism, Hoxha also sought to establish equality among the Albanians and promulgated nationalism as the backbone of the Albanian people (ibid.). Although religious differences revived after the collapse of the regime, they did so in a much more tolerant religious atmosphere (de Rapper 2012). This chapter will address precisely the continuum between the discursive differentiation between religions, on the one hand, and tolerance and sharing at the level of practice on the other. I will focus on relations between two different religious traditions (Christian Orthodox and Muslim), ethnic groups (locals (horianos/vëndasit1) and the majority of Albanians (Alvanos), as well as local groups (emigrants and locals) in the Himarë (the official, Albanian name) or Himara (the local, Greek name) area of southern Albania.2 I will examine, in particular, the Orthodox pilgrimage to Stavridi, which is undertaken every 14 August on the evening before the Feast of the Assumption (the Panayia or Mikri Pashka, Dormition of the Theodokos), one of the most important Orthodox festivals. This particular pilgrimage is interesting from an ethnographic point of view because it brings together the local population with emigrants, who are originally from the Himara area but mainly live in Athens in Greece and seasonally return to their native land to attend this pilgrimage to the mountain plateau of Stavridi. The chapter will also explore the role played by the relationship between the pilgrimage and micro-politics (locality constructions3) in the following processes: past and present movements, locality constructions, and sacred and secular placemaking in the Himara area. After the fall of the Communist regime, the monastery of Stavridi (its name means the ‘Cross’ in Greek) soon became one of the more important 1  As the people living in the villages of the Himara are bilingual, I will refer to the Albanian southern and the local Greek dialect. 2  I will use the local name in the rest of this chapter. 3  Because in modern Greek the term ‘ethnicity’ derives from the word ethnos, which linguistically incorporates the entire range of terminology for nationhood and nationalism (Herzfeld 2005: 113, see also Green 2005: 266 fn. 12), I will instead use the term ‘locality constructions’.

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pilgrimage sites in the Himara area. The emigrants’ seasonal returns home could be figuratively seen as sacred journeys, imbued with nostalgia and ‘romantic’ memories of the home-place (Delaney 1990). Numerous scholars (Morinis 1992, Coleman and Elsner 1995, Bauman 1996, Clifford 1997, Coleman and Eade 2004) see pilgrimage as a trope of modernity and a contemporary mode of dwelling that includes various movements, upon which the emigrants graft their feelings of home and belonging (Rapport and Dawson 1998). Unlike most of the year when most of the villages in the Himara area are depopulated, summertime sees the coastal plains crowded with tourists, the majority of whom are emigrants originating from this area but now living in Athens. Over the last ten years, they began reconstructing their old houses and building new ones, as well as creating tourist facilities along the village coast. Throughout the summer season (from May to September), they run these tourist facilities but then return to Greece to work as manual labourers. Return migration, repossession and re-management of the coastal plain have brought about social differentiation and arguments over land, all of which inform the emigrant’s sense of home and belonging. The pilgrimage to Stavridi and the consecration of, or dedication to, the holy icon of Saint Mary (Panayia) are two of the main events that the emigrants take part in when they return home. In his comparison between the pilgrimage (hajj) made by Turkish villagers in Anatolia to Mecca and the homecoming of Turkish immigrants in Europe, Delaney claims that ‘hajj seems to be precisely the journey home and the journeying home can be interpreted as pilgrimage’ (1990: 515). Inspired by Delaney, I view the pilgrimage to Stavridi as a process of homecoming and a material expression of homemaking. The notions of home (to spiti/shtëpi), homecoming (pao sto spiti/vij në shtëpi) and homemaking (kano to spiti/bej shtëpi), I suggest, have ontological meaning and they give the emigrants-pilgrims a feeling of emplacement in the locality of the village, a place that is itself shaped by movements and migrations. Through their pilgrimage to Stavridi, the local people and emigrants develop their social networks and reconstruct mutual relations. To paraphrase Eade and Sallnow (1991b: xii, 5), the pilgrimage is a social event and represents a basis for social interactions. It is the place of social cohesion and reaffirmation of existing social networks and reconstruction of social boundaries. Drawing on Coleman (2002), the pilgrimage to Stavridi could be seen as the arena where communitas as defined by Victor and Edith Turner (1978: 15) and the contestation paradigm (Eade and Sallnow 1991a) continuously overlap. The Himara Area – From Past to Present The latest INSTAT report (2011) estimated that Albania is populated by 56.7 per cent of Muslims, 2.1 per cent Bektashis, 10.0 per cent Catholics, 6.75 per cent Albanian Orthodox, 0.14 per cent Evangelicals, 0.07 per cent other Christians,

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5.5 per cent believers without denomination, 2.50 per cent Atheists, and 0.20 per cent others. Since 13.8 per cent of the respondents did not answer the questionnaire and 2.4 per cent gave irrelevant answers, the questionnaire was not very reliable. Yet, what is striking here is not only the percentages of non-respondents and irrelevant answers, but also the numbers themselves given for particular religious groups. For example, the Orthodox proportion had fallen by almost 14 per cent since the last census conducted at the end of Communist rule in 1989.4 This has triggered several political and media disputes and exposes not only the unreliability of the latest census, but also draws on the contestations between two religious traditions or ethnic groups (Muslims and Orthodox), which need to be understood in their historical context. Although Fan Noli founded the Albanian Autonomous Church in 1922, most people from Himara declare themselves as hristiani and members of the Greek Orthodox Church. Similar declarations can be found among the officially recognized national Greek minority in Saranda, Gjirokastra and Delvina (Berxholi 2005). In contrast to the people living in these areas, the bilingual residents (who speak Greek and Albanian) are not considered members of the official minority. According to Greek national politics and mainstream public opinion, they are omogheneis or co-ethnic Greeks living in Albania. The status of ‘co-ethnicity’ gives them the right to apply for the Special Cards for Aliens of Greek Descent, which allows them unrestricted passage across the Albanian-Greek and other European Schengen borders. In spite of the fact that, in practice, most of the villagers do not travel beyond Greece, they frequently emphasize their ability to travel ‘freely’ to the countries of ‘western’ Europe. They often use this privilege to differentiate themselves from other citizens of Albania, whose border-crossings, notwithstanding the liberalization of the visa regime in December 2010, are still controlled but not fully restricted.5 Along with the political (the fall of Communism), economic (privatization) and social (migration) changes, the tensions for minority rights in the Himara are reflected in people’s claims to ‘locality’ which, in turn, gives them a sense of autonomy and a belief in the distinctiveness of their area. Despite the fact that the European Union is now undergoing a substantial economic and fiscal crisis, many people in the Himara region continue to want to find their place within Europe 4  This census estimates that in 1989, Albania was populated by 70 per cent Muslims, 20 per cent members of the Albanian Orthodox Church and 10 per cent Roman Catholics. It is noted that percentages are only approximate because they were compiled after the research done in 1989 . One of the main reasons for the uncertainty in the estimate of the various percentages is related to the atheism promulgated by Enver Hoxha since 1967. 5  Despite the liberalization of the visa regime, the Albanian citizens must present a reference letter of a physical person or a legal institution when they cross the Schengen border. Besides this, they must prove onsite that they carry enough money with them (at least 50 euros per day for the duration of their stay).

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and benefit from its support for the regionalization of Europe and the gradual accession policy for the countries of the so-called ‘western Balkans’. Many local intellectuals and members of the local community in general see the virtual space of their region as being in the EU – as in ‘www.himara.eu’. They see this as an opportunity for them to consolidate and enforce their locality as well as preserve their ‘authentic’ Himara tradition (Gregorič Bon 2008). Many people living in the villages of Himara area declare themselves to be locals (horiani/vëndasit) or ‘of the place’ (apo ton topos/nga vëndi). This indicates several specific claims about being ‘rooted’ to the place of their native origin, their language (the local Greek dialect), and their Christian Orthodox religion. Their self-declarations are formed in contrast to the newcomers of ksenos/huaj, meaning newcomers, foreigners and outsiders. Sometimes, they also use pejorative names for them, such as Turkos or Alvanos.6 They either moved to the village during the Communist period or, more typically, arrived after its demise for economic reasons. They are either Muslims or atheists, and they often introduce themselves according to the name of the place from which they have come. The struggles for distinctiveness and locality in the area should be understood in their proper historical context. For centuries, people living in today’s southern Albania and Epirus in Greece have travelled to and from the area mainly because of trade, seasonal work, shepherding, or due to their service in different armies (Winnifrith 2002, Vullnetari 2007). In the early nineteenth century, this area was part of the vilayet with a centre in Ioannina. For purposes of tax collection, the Ottoman administration divided all non-Muslim people into special administrative and organizational units (millets), which incorporated people according to their religious affiliation, regardless of where they lived, what language(s) they spoke, or what was the colour of their skin (Glenny 1999: 71, 91–3, 112, 115, Mazower 2000: 59–60, Duijzings 2002: 60, Green, 2005: 147). Religious differences were thus politically defined. Moreover, religion became a major source of identification (Duijzings 2002: 60). After 1913, the Ottoman principle of organizing people and places was replaced by the nationalist principle, which categorized people and places according to their language and territory. Disjunctures between the two systems of dividing people and places have since led to tensions and territorial disputes, which sporadically break out, and blur the boundaries between the two (de Rapper and Sintès 2006, Green 2005: 148–9). According to my discussions with the people of the Himara, the border between Albania and Greece was quite irrelevant to the people living in southern Albania and Epirus in Greece, since they continued to travel back and forth until the end of the Second World War. Those from Pogoni in Epirus took the same view (Green 2005: 57). Green notes that for many inhabitants in that area, the Albanian town of Gjirokastra was considered to be far better off than Pogoni at that time (ibid.). 6  According to the local people (horiani), these pejorative terms of address point to the differences in place of origin, language skill, religion, financial position, social status and the possibility of unrestricted crossing of the Albanian–Greek border.

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During the Communist dictatorship (1945–90), the road (to dromo) which led to the state border and was used by the people living in southern Albania for travel and trade, was closed following Hoxha’s policy of suppressing free movement across state borders. During his rule, the minority status, which had been granted to those living in two villages (Palasa and Dhërmi/Drimades) in the Himara area and the municipal town itself in 1922, was revoked with the explanation that there were not enough Greek-speakers living in the area (Kondis and Manda 1994: 21). Despite the restrictions and control of internal movement, Hoxha’s policy of unification and homogenization of Albanian society forced many Greek-speaking people to move to the northern or central part of Albania (ibid., see also Green 2005: 227). During this period, the minority issues and irredentist claims raised by the southern Albanian pro-Greek party almost disappeared. However, they resurfaced in 1990 after the declaration of democracy, the opening of borders and the massive migrations that ensued (Hatziprokopiou 2003: 1033–59, Mai and SchwandnerSievers 2003: 939–49, Papailias 2003: 1059–79). Nowadays, these issues are reflected upon in a somewhat different way. In the Himara area, the main differentiation is advanced by those who claim to be from the village or the area identifying themselves with the term ‘locals’ (horiani/vëndasit), or ‘of the place’ (apo ton topo/nga vëndi). Religion in the Himara Area In spite of the formation of the Albanian Autocephalous (autonomous) Church in 1922 and its recognition by the Patriarchate in 1937, there have been very few subsequent translations of religious literature7 (see Winnifrith 2002: 135). There is an Albanian translation of the New Testament, used in Greek minority areas and all other areas that managed to hold onto Christianity under Ottoman rule and the threat of Islamization. Except for the officially recognized Greek minority areas and the Himara area, where the liturgy is celebrated only in Greek, Christian communities hold services partly in Albanian and partly in Greek. During the totalitarian regime when many religious buildings were destroyed, the churches in the Himara area were preserved, especially those dating back to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. The church doors, however, were sealed at that time and no one dared to enter. Many local priests were put under special surveillance and were not allowed to perform any religious practices. Important festivals such as Easter (Pasha/Pashk), Christmas (Hristughenia/Krishtlindje), or the Dormition of Theodokos (Mikri Pasha/Pashk e Vogel) were nevertheless secretly celebrated, according to the local people.

7  The only translations of the religious literature were done between 1910 and 1940 (Jacques 1995: 313–15).

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In the Himara area, religion is not only rooted in people’s lives (the Christian names, religious feasts) but is also grounded in its topoi. In every neighbourhood of the village’s central hamlet, there is a small chapel that was built by its inhabitants. People in the neighbourhoods belong to a cluster of patrilines or patrigroups (soi/ fis).8 They hold Mass in these chapels, usually on the name-days of saints after whom the specific church or one of the members of the soi/fis is named. Massive emigration has caused many neighbourhoods to be left to the ravages of time. Despite this, the small chapels are at least partly preserved in contrast to the surrounding buildings. A few village women take care of the chapels, churches and monasteries and clean them for their patron saint’s name-day feast and other religious feasts some days before. This is also the case for the Stavridi monastery, which is annually visited on the eve before the Feast of the Assumption (Mikri Pasha/Pashk e Vogel). Pilgrimage to Stavridi Departure from the Village In this section, I will describe the pilgrimage which I joined with the teenage girl, Eleni, and her aunt, Zaharula, on 14 August 2005. It was four o’clock in the afternoon when we set out on the journey towards the monastery. We were walking along the pebble-stone path winding through the valley and slowly ascending towards Stavridi. During the journey, Zaharula was telling me about her relations and ties to Dhërmi/Drimades, her home-place. Although she has been living in Athens for several years now, she will never forget her village which she loves and where her home (spiti/shtëpi) and roots (rizes/rrënjët) are. Here they have a house and a piece of land and people know where they belong. Zaharula and her husband, Dimitris, are emigrants who migrated with their children to Athens after the collapse of Communism in 1990. They were both born in Dhërmi/Drimades. Almost every summer, they return to their native village. In the meantime, their children have grown up and are now married with their own apartments in Athens. According to Zaharula, they cannot wait until August, when they can return to the village and meet their relatives and friends whom they have not seen for a year or more. ‘Every time I walk up the hill from where my house is, with a view on the entire village, the mountains, and the sea, I remember that my roots are here in Drimades’, noted Zaharula in one of our conversations. She continued:

8  According to my conversations with the local people of Himara, soi/fis consist of patrilineal descendants who share the common ancestor, surname, the ‘same blood’ or ena ema, and some plots of land such as forests and pastures.

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Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe I can feel my heart beating very fast, like in those days when I was young and in love. Though nobody, except loads of work, is waiting for me in this house, I still crave to see and smell it. This is my spiti/shtëpi [home/house]. Though I have a home in Athens too, this home is different as here are my roots.

Zaharula continued describing the work she must do in the house every time she returns. In a sad voice, she noted that this year she has not even had time to visit her mother, who lives together with her brother, as she normally does, since she had so much work. She continued complaining that she is working very hard in Athens and because of that she did not have the time to buy presents for her mother and her brothers’ family. Consequently, she decided to give some money to her nephews instead and she also has some Greek coffee and fruit juice to take with her. She could hardly find time to buy food and other provisions to take with her to Albania. Since this made me give her a slightly questioning look, she paused to explain that she buys everything in Athens – from milk, spaghetti, to vegetables, and so on. ‘This is what we learnt,’ she added smiling, and explained that since the 1990s she does not trust Albanian products anymore, although today you can find similar imported stuff from Greece or Italy in the village shops. Zaharula’s homecoming, like those of other emigrants, could be interpreted as a pilgrimage involving repetitive and emotional performances and ritual acts in their native villages. These performances engaged Zaharula’s feelings towards her spiti/shtëpi, her preparations for the journey home (buying presents and other things to take with her), driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, cleaning houses, visiting relatives, and so on, through which they constitute their presence in their social absence from the village community and reconstruct, time and again, their sense of rootedness and belonging. Although many emigrants return to the village after retirement, Zaharula thinks that she herself (or she and her husband) might not return, despite the fact that everything depends on her husband who differs in his opinion about this. Zaharula continued that living in the village does not offer as many possibilities as living in Athens. Due to continuous electricity and water reductions throughout Albania, along with bad infrastructure, and inadequate social and health support, village life is not as comfortable as life in Greece. Furthermore, life in the village has changed a lot. There are many ksenoi/të huajt (newcomers or those who moved from other places throughout Albania), whom you cannot trust: People used to be friendlier than they are now; they were not fighting over the land as often as they do today. Many locals gossip about their neighbours and relatives and do not take care about the village surroundings. This is partly the reason why the old houses are desolate and slowly falling apart and the village surroundings are full of rubbish.

Later on, when we were alone, Eleni complained that Zaharula exaggerated in many ways. She did not live in the village and was no longer one of the locals.

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When comparing the past of her native village with the present-day situation, Zaharula draws on social distinctions between ‘locals’ and ‘foreigners’ or ‘newcomers’. In her idealized description of the village’s past and allegedly existing friendships between the members of the village community, she generates an idea of a place through which she then defines her sense of home and belonging. As an emigrant, who had already moved to Vlora during the Communist period, from where she then migrated to Athens, she compares the past and the present imaginary of her village, while reconstructing existing social relations. In her nostalgic journey to the past home-place (cf. Seremetakis 1991), Zaharula seems to be compensating for her feelings of estrangement and displacement. While Zaharula, Eleni and I were talking, the path began to ascend gradually, and the twisting curves multiplied and narrowed. The landscape was slowly changing from the Mediterranean bushes to green deciduous trees. On the way, we were meeting other pilgrims who were walking in groups; they went to Stavridi either on foot or by car. As the narrow path became rougher and steeper, the cars had to speed up in order to reach the top of the hill. The honking and the speeding of cars left the pilgrim’s path in clouds of smoke and dust as well as noise. Arrival at Stavridi After an hour of walking, we reached the monastery, which was hidden behind a high stone fence. Some pilgrims had already gathered in the courtyard. Many of them were waiting to enter a small church in order to light a candle and dedicate (proskinima) it to the icon of Saint Mary. Others were setting out mattresses in the courtyard, greeting each other and chatting. With dusk arriving, the place was crowded with pilgrims, most of whom were elderly village women, emigrant families and young people. The courtyard, desolate for most of the year, suddenly became alive with the pilgrims’ chatter. While the elderly pilgrims and young families were setting out the mattresses where they later slept, youngsters greeted each other and chatted loudly. At nine o’clock, it got dark and the evening Mass started with only a few pilgrims, mainly older women, attending. After that, dinner followed. Despite the fact that religious orthodoxy dictates a strict fast, forbidding all meat and dairy products, oil and wine, only very few pilgrims – the majority of whom were elderly women – were fasting. Numerous other pilgrims ate food they had brought with them, such as spinach pie, roasted paprika, tomatoes, olives and bread and drank water or brandy (raki). Some of the youths had brought their own alcohol with them and drank beer or other liquor. While eating, I chatted with two young families who had also walked to Stavridi. I was told that they attended this pilgrimage almost every year and enjoyed the landscape and the company. Marko, a man in his thirties, who migrated to Athens when he was a teenager, commented that Stavridi is a place where they can meet other locals who also hailed from the area but now lived in Greece. He added that his colleague sitting next to him was a friend from his youth; they used to

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live in the nearby coastal city of Vlora, where their parents had moved during Communism. Every summer they spent their holidays at one of the villages in the Himara area, enjoying the sun and the beach. Marko said that he misses the village a lot. To my question about whether he would return, he responded negatively; like Zaharula, he thought that life in the village did not offer much for a young family like his. However, he continued that although he has a house (spiti) in Greece, he will not forget his origins and roots. ‘The locals know me here’, he said, and went on to explain: I will never forget an old woman who stopped me when I was walking down to the village one day. Though I never saw her in my life she joyfully greeted me and said that I must definitely belong to the Duni family. She was talking very highly about our family. She knew that the Duni used to be very prosperous and that they owned a ship which was used by my ancestors to trade with people in Greece and Italy. I live in Athens for many years now and I have lots of friends there but nobody knows my family and its history like this local woman does. Therefore, I know that my roots are here in this village, neither in Vlora where I grew up nor in Athens where I live now.

In the ensuing debate, Marko talked about the trading relations that some of the prosperous families, which were ‘autochthonous’ to this area, used to have with Greece and Italy. ‘But this was in times when the road was open (otan to dromos itane aniktos) [referring to the Albanian–Greek state border]’, noted Marko. To my question what ‘autochthony’ means in this context, Marko responded that it means to be a local (horianos/vendorët) or to be ‘of the place’. He continued: It is a pity that more and more newcomers are moving into this area nowadays. They are foreigners, coming from different parts of Albania and have different habits and customs. Some of them speak northern Albanian dialect which is hard to understand for the locals. They are not ‘of the place – and they do not take care about our village and its surroundings.

The emigrants, in a range of settings, seek to create social boundaries in order to protect or build their home and sense of belonging to their native place. It demonstrates how social boundaries between the ‘locals’ (those ‘of the place’) and ‘foreigners’ (those ‘out of place’) are continuously shifting according to the context. When Zaharula and Marko, for example, complain about newcomers and their irresponsibility towards the village surroundings, they construct the social boundaries between themselves or locals, and newcomers or foreigners. These social boundaries are differently conceptualized by Eleni, who does not see her aunt, Zaharula, as one of the locals either. Since Zaharula does not live in the village but in Athens, Eleni thinks that she does not have ‘roots’ in the Himara area. Thus the meaning of such labels as ‘local’, ‘foreigner’, Albanian, Muslim,

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Christian and emigrant are complex and shift according to the interlocutor’s position in the network of social relations. While the differentiations are constituted and contested at the rhetorical level, they become irrelevant in terms of practice. Although most of the pilgrims were predominantly Christians, one could find also some Muslims among them. One of them was the village teacher, her daughters and cousin who come from a village in north-eastern Albania but moved to Himara during the Communist period. The teacher explained that she came to Stavridi because her daughters wanted to take part in an overnight party that lasted until dawn. Even though social distinctions between the horiani or hristiani and ksenoi or Turki are rhetorically constructed by the villagers as well as newcomers, the village teacher’s presence can none the less be said to illustrate a continuum between various exclusionary competitive discourses, on the one hand, and the pilgrims’ practical experience of social cohesion, on the other. Gupta and Ferguson suggest that ‘identity is a “meeting point” – a point of suture or temporary identification – that constitutes and re-forms the subject so to enable that subject to act’ (2001: 13). In their pilgrimage to Stavridi, pilgrims redefine their identity through their links or ‘meetings’ with other people. Local people and emigrants reconfigure distinctions between ‘us’ as being ‘of the place’ (apo ton topos/nga vëndi) and ‘others’ as being ‘out of place’. Their distinctions are points of temporary identification, which allow the emigrants to compensate for their feelings of displacement. Identification is thus spatially constituted and related to the processes of homemaking and vice versa. During our conversation, what started out as pilgrims’ chatting away with each other developed into a party; this was especially true for the side of the courtyard where young emigrants were gathered. Some of them were dancing to the beat of modern Greek music played on the radio, some were drinking alcohol and talking loudly, while others were playing different games, like cards and so on. While the youngsters partied into the early morning hours, most of the elderly women and some families with young children went to sleep in the open air. At around five o’clock in the morning, when the first rays of the sun touched the monastery, the preparations for the morning Mass started. Everybody was awake, packing up the mattresses and cleaning up the place. At six o’clock, the church ceremony began. All the pilgrims gathered around the small patio by the church, where the Mass was held. There were around 200 pilgrims present, many of whom had arrived during the morning. Some of them were too tired from all-night partying to listen to the Mass; they stood in the background and quietly carried on chatting. Secular Journeys Except for the holy moment of consecration (proskinima) to the icon of Saint Mary (Panayia), the pilgrimage to Stavridi is a secular event that should be understood in the context of everyday life. As such, it reflects current social relations that are

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continuously being reconstructed. It acts as one of the nodal points of social and spatial differentiation around which the local people and emigrants of Himara are able to define their locality. In line with Coleman and Eade (2004), who define pilgrimage as the kinaesthetic mapping of place, the emigrants and locals through their journeys to Stavridi (whether by car or on foot), their socializing with friends and relatives, partying and their participation in the morning service, generate a sense of place which they define as part of a distinct region. Due to the minority issues present for the last twenty years, as well as the increasing migration to and from Greece, many emigrants locate the Himara region within the geopolitical map of the European Union. The pilgrimage to Stavridi is an imitation of sorts of the contemporary world of movement and migration – in this case of the local people and their seasonal homecoming. It should be understood in terms of a continuum between the communitas and contestation paradigm. While at the level of rhetoric, the pilgrims continually constitute social differences, it is precisely these differences that are then transgressed at the level of practice. The pilgrimage place is thus a crossroads where people from different religious traditions meet and a place of religious tolerance. Despite Stavridi’s religious architecture (the church and the monastery) the pilgrimage site is, in fact, experienced (with the exception of proskinima) more as a secular than a sacred place. Hence, in 2012 when the priest (who had conducted the church ceremonies in Stavridi) left the village, the pilgrimage site was relocated to the monastery of Ag. Theodorou, where the church service was taken over by another priest. This pilgrimage was also attended by many emigrants from the Himara area. Homecoming and Homemaking It is hard to say where the boundary between the sacred and profane exactly lies. Instead of conceptualizing them as distinct though interrelated ‘fields’ or ‘dimensions’ (Cami-Rayer and Frégosi 2012: 282–3), it is perhaps better to understand them as a continuum. Thus, when Zaharula in her nostalgic memories travels back to her village’s past, she is sacralizing her home-place. However, when she complains about its present-day relations with its surroundings, she is making her home-place profane. Something similar could be said for the pilgrimage. When the pilgrims are partying on Stavridi, they constitute it as a secular place but in their devotional activities performed in the church, they are sacralizing it. The boundary between the sacred and profane is, therefore, permeable. The sacred–profane continuum is constituted by the act of ‘sharing’ which precedes it. In contrast to Couroucli (2012a: 6), who ascribes the act of sharing only to the sacred nature of the pilgrimage, the pilgrimage to Stavridi with its profane journeying to the mountain valley illustrates that sharing is also experienced at the level of everyday, profane practice. While walking or driving to Stavridi,

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the pilgrims, who are mostly emigrants, reconstruct their relations with fellow villagers and constitute feelings of home and belonging. The notion of home is of special significance here – not only because of its broad semantic meaning, but because the spiti/shtëpi has ontological meaning for emigrants from the Himara area and for Albanians in general. In Albanian as well as in Greek, there is no distinction between ‘home’ and ‘house’ (Dalakoglou 2009: 63 fn.). They use the word spiti (Greek) and shtëpi (Albanian) for both. Shtëpi, alongside the term fis (patrilineage), refers to one of the core units of Albanian kinship (de Rapper 2012: 81). In the Himara area, the spiti/shtëpi is the basis of the individuals’ mode of ‘dwelling’ (Ingold 2000). Jackson (1995: 148) in his study of Warlpiri in Australia writes that ‘sense of home is grounded less in a place per se than in activity that goes on in a place.’ Thus, for example Zaharula and Marko in their return journeys to their home-place and with their pilgrimage to Stavridi generate their spiti/shtëpi, which is grounded in the set of activities such as nostalgia9 and longing (see also Rapport and Dawson 1998: 8), individual activities (cleaning and rebuilding the house) as well as communal practices (visiting relatives, gift-giving, pilgrimage). Although none of them plan to return on a permanent basis, they define their home-place of the Himara as the topos of their roots (rizes/rrënjët). Homemaking is thus ‘a dynamic social process in which relationship to places and persons are produced’ (Jansen 2007: 16). Homemaking is also a material manifestation of the migrant’s perpetual state of homecoming and their claims to a definite locality (see also Dalakoglou 2010: 733). The expression kano or ftiahno to spiti/bej shtëpi (to make a house) instead of htizo to spiti/ndërtoj shtëpi (to build a house) is more commonly used by the Himara people when they refer to house-making in their everyday conversations.10 In the Himara, as well as elsewhere in Albania, the building process is often performed by the owners themselves and it tends to go on for a number of years, even decades, and in numerous cases, it is never completed. Unfinished two- or three-storey skeletal houses, where the lower floor is completed while the upper floors and the roof are missing, are quite common sights throughout Albania. As Dalakoglou notes, ‘“house-making” by Albanian migrants is not only a simple house-building process; it also ensures a constant dwelling and dynamic “proxy” presence for migrants in their community of origin’ (2010: 761). ‘House-making’ is also the major manifestation of the materiality of migration in post-Communist Albania (Dalakoglou 2010: 772, see also Gregorič Bon 2014). Spitai/shtëpisë (houses) stand in as the material presence of absent migrants because they materialize the relationships between the migrants and the spiti/ 9  According to Seremetakis (1991), the etymological meaning of ‘nostalgia’ derives from the Greek word nostalgos, where nostó means to return or travel back to one’s homeland, and algó means desire or longing for something with a burning pain to undertake the journey back. 10  Something similar is observed also in Gjirokastra in southern Albania, where Dalakoglou (2010) has studied extensively the material expression of houses.

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shtëpi they have left behind. They also bring the ‘migrant worlds’ (Basu and Coleman 2008) closer. The spiti/shtëpi not only eradicate the spatial distance between Athens and the Himara area, but also temporally merge the past with the present and the future. This temporal merging is also present in the emigrants’ processes of homecoming, which seem to culminate in their pilgrimage. In their nostalgic memories of their past home-place, they idealize social relations while at the same time transgress both their mundane, harsh realities of their migrant lives in Greece as their host country, and Albania as their home country. In this manner, they reconstruct their home, experienced and described as sacred. Like the Muslim pilgrims for whom ‘Mecca is not only a religious centre but also an image of home’ (Delaney 1990: 515), those visiting the pilgrimage sites of Stavridi or Ag. Theodorou see them also as images of their home-place. While the latter is often sacralized through nostalgia and idealization of the past, the former is desacralized through activities such as partying. In the local Greek dialect of the Himara, no words exist that would directly correspond to the meaning of the English word ‘pilgrimage’. Whenever pilgrimage is discussed, local people and emigrants use descriptive terms such as ‘going to Stavridi’ (pame yia Stavridi/shkojmë në Stavridh). Only a few of the emigrants referred to the word proskinima, which, in a literal translation, stands for a set of devotions performed when entering the church (Winkelman and Dubisch 2005: xiv). Dubisch, (1995: 95) in her study of pilgrimage in the Greek island of Tinos, writes that the pilgrims do not, even temporarily, break off from their locality – it remains part of their everyday life. Likewise, the pilgrimage to Stavridi does not relate so much to the set of devotional practices, such as consecration of the holy icon of Panayia – it refers more to the pilgrims’ journey and the processes of construction of social networks between the emigrants and the local population. In other words, their journeys to Stavridi are not so much spiritually religious as they are imbued with a sense of home-place and nostalgia through which past and present belonging are re-created. Homecoming can be interpreted as a pilgrimage in that it embodies a journey imbued with sacredness (cf. Liebelt 2010: 263). Conclusion Coleman (2002: 362) contends that a pilgrimage should be analysed in a broader context. In the Himara area, this context pertains to movements and migrations that occurred throughout different historical periods and generated shifting meanings of people and places and their feelings of home. The social and spatial boundaries that are constituted through the pilgrimage to Stavridi have a history. Religious affiliation was an important source of the divisions between Muslims and Christians during Ottoman rule in the late eighteen and nineteenth centuries. Relative autonomy, autonomous government and the preservation of Christianity in the Himara region shaped the construction

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of social boundaries throughout the centuries. With the foundation of the nation state, the religious differences and categorizations took on territorial connotations. Discordances between Ottoman and national ways of dividing people and places led to numerous tensions that in the Himara area can be seen in constructions of locality and struggles for local distinctiveness. Thus, the pilgrimage to Stavridi is a reflection of a much wider social, political and historical context. Emigrants’ homecomings can be understood as a pilgrimage and vice versa. This pilgrimage provides a link to past movements of their ancestors, as well as the prosperity and autonomy of their area throughout history. Pilgrimage to Stavridi is one of the processes through which emigrants establish their relations to their native village to which they keep seasonally returning, even though they have no intention to ever return for good. The ethnographic material illustrates how emigrants reconstruct their sense of rootedness, constitute their identity and reinforce their attachment to the place. The pilgrimage can be interpreted as the trope of a route, with its temporal and spatial dimensions related to the process of place-making. It exemplifies how the emigrants, through their routes and roots, construct the village’s place as a set of encounters and translations. The meaning of locality is influenced not only by the emigrants’ sense of roots to their native village, but also by their routes to and from their village. When managing and negotiating their feelings of belonging, they expose their past and present movements, and in the process constitute their locality as a form of ‘dwelling-in-travel’ (Clifford 1997; see also Gregorič Bon 2010: 19–20). The meaning of pilgrimage is not only grounded in the sacred and the secular – the communitas and the contestation continuum – but is also built on the continuous interplay between mobility and rootedness.

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Part IV

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Chapter 9

Concluding Thoughts Glenn Bowman

An integral part of the modernist project of twentieth-century Communist regimes was the dismantling of organized religion and the substitution of state and society for religion’s transcendent object of worship. Ironically, while the collapse of existing Communism in eastern and south-eastern Europe has generated a radical resurgence in overt religious activity on the ground of former socialist states, it seems on the evidence produced in this volume to have simultaneously broken the link forged by Victor Turner and his associates in the anthropology of pilgrimage between religion in the classical sense of the term and pilgrimages to revered sites. In most of the cases described here, we see sacred sites and sacred times (particularly the dates associated with the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that is, the 14th and 15th of August) serving as contexts for celebrating, or connecting with, entities which are in effect extra-religious. It has, of course, been clear in ethnographic studies of Christian pilgrimage sites since the work of Eric Wolf (Wolf 1959) and Michael Sallnow (Sallnow 1981, 1987) that reverencing of religious sites and symbols often serves to articulate extrareligious commitments (for instance, to nation or to local kinship groups). Recognition of this gave rise to arguments about the polysemy of sites and thus about processes of ‘contesting the sacred’ (Eade and Sallnow 1991a, 1991b) which, since 1991, have influenced a post-Turnerian anthropology of pilgrimage. None the less, ‘the sacred’ has for the most part remained the locus of pilgrimage studies. This volume, however, picks up on the call of Coleman and Eade to substitute ‘the verb “sacralize” [for] … the noun “sacred” … to emphasize the often partial, performative, contested character of appropriating something or someone as “holy”’ (Coleman and Eade 2004: 18) and goes one step further in effectively replacing the concept of ‘holy’ with that of ‘reverenced’. Although in several of the cases described here the sites or times which occasion pilgrimages stand out from the everyday landscape and calendar because of associations with institutionalised sacrality (whether that of church – the occasions of feast days or sites of previous or contemporary churches or monasteries – or the state, as in the case of Tšerkassova’s Monument of the Unknown Soldier in Tallinn), what is salient is the ‘break’ with previous meanings brought about by the ruptures of history. These include, as well as the collapse of Communist states since 1989, the earlier displacement of ethnic Greeks from islands claimed by Turkey in the wake of the population transfers of 1923 (cf. Clark 2006). This ‘break’ focuses concern on the motives of groups attending the sites – motives previously overshadowed

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by the self-evident attraction of holy places – and on how those motives constitute the sometimes surprising character of the sites’ ‘sacrality’. To aver, as the editors do, that such ‘breaks’ can be effected thanks to the ‘polysemy’ of sites and occasions is to understate the radical transitions that have taken place in some of these cases. There are, of course, traces of continuity. A genealogy of sorts can be traced in the refiguring of the site and its meaning in the Tallinn case cited above of the celebration of the Unknown Soldier, a figure which in the wake of the retreat of Soviet rule became – for most – that of the despised Russian oppressor while becoming – for stranded ethnic Russians – an absent emblem of the fellow countryfolk and relatives from whom they were cut off. That said, the sealing of the borders to ethnic Russians, enclaving them in Estonia, radically transformed the site’s meaning to them; it is unlikely that they, previously, used the ‘Bronze Soldier’ as a means of communicating with the graves of family members in Russia if, in fact, they attended it at all. Analogously, as Katić’s study of Kondžilo shows, the Catholic shrine commemorating a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary ‘was just another pilgrimage place in Bosnia and Herzegovina’ before the civil war of the 1990s; it could not have become a nationalist site for Bosnian Croats focused on a Kalvarija (Calvary) of war dead without either the war to provide the dead or the Franciscan Order to create ‘a national shrine … based on the historical roots of Croatians in this region’. These meanings, like those of most if not all of the other pilgrimages described in this text, are new meanings developing out of the experiences of the celebrants in recent years. All pilgrimage sites are, as Contesting the Sacred showed, more or less polysemous, which is why they have the power to attract the multivarious people they do and why debates, and conflicts, arise over their worship. However, to understand the emergence of novel semantic fields, we must study the social and historical context out of which these emerge; the sites themselves do not generate these meanings but have them inscribed upon them (often over their previous meanings). This is where politics must come in to the anthropology of pilgrimage. There are a number of distinct agents working to impose a meaning on the pilgrimage, its site and its occasion in each of the cases described. In some instances, agency is clear and relatively uncontested: in Katić’s Kondžilo, where the Bosnian Catholic Church with the collusion of the extra-territorial Croatian state is building up a nationalist shrine; in Giakoumis’s Albania where, sequentially, Hoxha’s state and both the Orthodox and Catholic churches (the latter again with extra-territorial funding) have stamped their sites with Communist or Christian meaning; in Niedźwiedź’s Poland where the monumentalization of Catholic shrines is competitively funded by the Pauline Order, the Family of Radio Maryja and other religio-nationalist sources; and in Gregorič Bon’s Stavridi where locals and returning emigrants concur in marking the site as ‘home’. In the others, there are struggles – more or less overt – that focus on the meaning of pilgrim practices; in Tsimouris’s Gökceada/Imvros, ethnic Greek returnees and Turkish authorities compete to define the place and its practices and to silence or discredit the others’ interpretations, while in Tšerkassova’s Tallin, the Estonian state is attempting to

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silence the vociferous and enduring identity assertions of the ethnic Russians. Intriguingly in Belaj and Martić’s Olovo, the struggle is not so overt but is over how inter-communal relations, and thus the future of Bosnia Herzegovina, are to be perceived; it is the self-definition of local people as neighbours that is, with the backing of an international audience, being denied by religious authorities that want to essentialize differential religious identity. When I talk of a politics of the anthropology of pilgrimage, I do not refer to institutional practices and mobilizations of resistance to them, although those certainly are manifestations of the wider sense of what I term ‘politics’. What I refer to instead is the politics of definition, the struggle for the power to give and enact the meaning of what a pilgrimage is. Friedrich Nietzsche, in his On the Genealogy of Morality of 1887, expressed the will to order that lies behind every ‘fixing’ of a thing’s meaning: … every purpose and use is just a sign that the will to power has achieved mastery over something less powerful, and has impressed upon it its own idea [Sinn] of a use function; and the whole history of a ‘thing’, an organ, a tradition can to this extent be a continuous chain of signs, continually revealing new interpretations and adaptations … a succession of more or less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of subjugation enacted upon the thing, added to this the resistances encountered every time, the attempted transformations for the purpose of defence and reaction, and the results, too, of successful countermeasures. (Nietzsche 1994: 55)

What we see when we look at these ethnographies of pilgrimage practices in the ruptured histories of eastern and south-eastern Europe are the traces of these processes of erasing the interpretations of previous powers and the writings over of them of new interpretations (cf., for an earlier history, see Hasluck 1929). We observe this most saliently perhaps in Giakoumis’s study of the oscillation between Christian and Communist definitions of revered sites, but in all of these studies we witness histories of definition and redefinition which demonstrate not only that pilgrimage does not have to be an encounter with the sacred but also that pilgrimage, as Coleman and Eade have suggested, is constituted by ‘cultures in motion’ (Coleman and Eade 2004) which, in changing or becoming hegemonic, transform the sites and the meanings they approach. Studying pilgrimages which traverse the broken ground of late twentieth and early twenty-first-century south-eastern and eastern Europe thus not only makes evident the plurality of ‘interpretative communities’ engaged in synchronic contestation over revered sites’ significance, but also illuminates the way that those communities, in changing over time, alter the meanings they seek in the sites they approach. In other words, as people’s cultures are re-formed by events and encounters, so too are the objects of desire they seek to find in the sites to which they go on pilgrimage. In this way, the character and meaning of the pilgrimage events are themselves reworked.

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Diachronic analysis gives another meaning to ‘cultures in motion’. It shows not only that communities, in moving, bring their meanings to the sites they move towards, but also that those communities themselves are reshaped by historical circumstance and, thus reshaped, shape anew what they look for in ‘holy places’. Such reshapings are not random but very much the consequences of the violence of displacement, the antagonisms of warfare, and the brutalities of nation-making and remaking. The authors of this collection ethnographically set out the ways these traumas are sublated into the images of home, imagined community and nation which pilgrims seek in their ‘pilgrimages’. In the double movement of analysing the historical forces that reshape ‘moving cultures’ and showing how that reshaping reworks what pilgrims seek in the places and times they revere, the authors – perhaps not always consciously – offer a critique of identitarian arguments and an affirmation of the insights of Durkheim, Halbwachs and others of the Année Sociologique into how the sacred is a projection of the social. My own research into ‘shared’ or ‘mixed’ shrines was initiated by my study of two local sites in the Palestinian West Bank – Mar Elyas and Bir esSayeeda – that I encountered in the period leading up to the first Palestinian intifada (Bowman 1993). At that time I examined the roles these two holy places played as settings for the celebration of the identities of local communities (Muslim and Christian) as they began to become conscious of themselves as a single entity unified in its opposition to the Israeli occupation. The ‘shared’ character of the Mar Elyas monastery, very much like that of the Catholic shrine in Olovo that Belaj and Martić study, reified at a single time and place the mixed local community of the Bethlehem region in which Catholic, Orthodox Christian and Sunni Muslims were in close daily interaction. The far more politicized sharing of the Bir es-Sayeeda shrine – a site formally appropriated by the council of the mixed Muslim-Christian town of Beit Sahour to forestall its expropriation by any religious community and thus ensure its possession by the town’s entire population – was a more developed expression of a sense of local solidarity in opposition to occupation. I continued to observe these communities and these shrines over the subsequent three decades during which time developments in the wider political scene (such as the Oslo Accords, the erection of the ‘Security Fence’, a.k.a. ‘The Apartheid Wall’, and the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority, which took over from the Israeli military the role of ‘pacifying’ the Palestinian population), as well as demographic and communalistic changes in the local setting, undermined and eventually dissolved the earlier non-sectarian solidarity (Bowman 2012). One consequence of this was burgeoning distrust in Beit Sahour between Muslims and Christians, giving rise to the expropriation of the Bir es-Sayeeda shrine by the powerful Greek Orthodox community with backing by the powerful Orthodox church. That community is currently developing plans to dismantle the old shrine and build over it a massive Orthodox church. In the meantime, the Mar Elyas monastery, cut off from its pilgrimage catchment area by the Wall, has been transformed from a setting for multi-communal festivity to an expensively restored Greek Orthodox site for welcoming Orthodox pilgrims and foreign tourists. In both

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cases, the newly constituted communities of users have overwritten the character and the meaning of the sites with new interpretations and practices, while earlier interpretations have progressively disappeared from the memories of the majority of people who in turn see themselves differently than they had not long before (Bowman 2012: 215–16). The research I’ve carried out in south-eastern Europe, specifically in Macedonia (a.k.a. FYROM), has to date been largely synchronic (Bowman 2010, 2012), focusing on a number of shrines at which ‘sharing’1 continues to take place. Macedonia has managed for the most part to avoid the open ethnic warfare which has afflicted the rest of (now Former) Yugoslavia, and the interactions I and research colleagues have observed at the sites we have examined make evident the ways pluralities of interpretations can be interwoven at holy places with only occasional eruptions of hermeneutic conflict. Research currently being planned, however, proposes to study formerly ‘shared’ locales and shrines in Kosovo/a (Zočište and Gračanica) and in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Gerzovo, Baljvine, Karići, Stolac and Vareš). In Kosova/o and Bosnia-Herzegovina, open warfare, characterized by ethnic cleansing, resulted in the displacement of parties to site sharing and often the destruction of the shared sites themselves. None the less, long histories of inter-communal interaction and the mixing of religious traditions has meant that both landscapes and calendars are marked with the presence of others now absent.2 In both regions, research colleagues and I will examine amongst various users of the sites (clerical, lay and secular) not only how violence against others is remembered and justified, but also how the continued presence of traces of others in current practices is articulated. Attempts to re-establish presence, and the parties which support and resist such attempts, will be examined along with the logics informing those actions and reactions. This attempt at carrying out a diachronic analysis, using both contemporary informants and practices and archival materials, will not only detail a genealogy of breaks and impositions but also, in looking into the reactions of both sides to traces of previous sharing as well as attempts at reestablishing co-presence, give some indicators of what futures this formerly multicultural region might generate. In closing, I would note that to attend only to popular understandings of places and their meanings is, as several of the contributions to this collection have indicated, to ignore the major role played by religious institutions, often in

1  Which I actually prefer to refer to as ‘mixing’ in so far as there are very different forms of contiguous presence ranging from syncretism through mimicry and choreographed non-interference to overt antagonism. 2  Hence both the organization of Muslim seasonal practices around Alidjun (St Elia’s day) and Jurjevdan (St George’s day) and the celebration of those days, the practice of prayers for rain (du’a or dova), and approaches to saints at sites associated with either previous Christian shrines or Sufi turbes.

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collaboration with the state, in processes of fixing interpretations.3 In a number of the papers – specifically those of Katić, Giakoumis, Tšerkassova and Niedźwiedź – we see attempts by authorities to impose meanings on sites. These attempts are sometimes successful in entangling ‘small stories and personal, often embodied, experiences … with national stories, communal identity and [a] mythical vision of the national history’ (Niedźwiedź) while, at other times, sometimes immediately and sometimes over time, they fail to ‘interpellate’ their audiences into the subject positions they seek to promote (see Althusser 1971). A space for anthropologists of pilgrimage to make a significant intervention into wider debates on identity, politics and religion is opened by the opposition Belaj and Martić map out between ‘bottom-up’ popular perceptions of identity and the shared sites at which it is performed and ‘top-down’ interpretations of religious identity that Christian and Muslim clergy and theologians use to ontologically divide communities before claiming to try to find ways of bridging the incommensurabilities they have produced. If the imposition of meaning on places pilgrims of all sorts revere is a political act, as I have argued, then we must uncover the struggles such impositions engage in, revealing – to return again to Nietzsche’s quote –‘processes of subjugation enacted upon the thing, added to this the resistances encountered every time, the attempted transformations for the purpose of defence and reaction, and the results, too, of successful countermeasures’. Such an exhumation – an archaeology enacted on sites, practices and interpretations – will reveal traces of the agencies (some victorious, others muted) involved in every sacralization of revered sites or occasions. In ethnographies such as those presented in this volume, we encounter the people and the powers which engage each other in rendering the contemporary landscape and calendar significant. That rendering not only refigures the past – bringing certain moments of history into sharp focus and effacing others – but also images possible futures and the communities which might inhabit them. In regions as torn by history as those examined here, this version of an anthropology of pilgrimage is able to play a role which can only be defined as prophetic.

3  For examples from Jerusalem and the West Bank, see Bowman 2011, 2013a and 2013b.

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Zapisnik o dobročinstvima koja su primljena po zagovoru Gospe Olovske – Gesta Dei per Mariam [Minutes on good deeds received by the blessing of the Lady of Olovo – Gesta Dei per Mariam]. 1960. Olovo. Zirdum, Andrija. 2008. ‘Olovski (crni) kamen – čuvar tradicija’, in Tristota obljetnica stradanja samostana i crkve u Olovu (1704–2004), ed. M. Karamatić. Sarajevo: Franjevačka teologija. Zloušić, Ljudevit. 1931. ‘Obnova zavjetnog Marijinog svetišta u Olovu’, Kalendar sv. Ante 1932: 162–3. Zloušić, Lujo. 1932. ‘Nekoliko čudesnih događaja po zagovoru bl. Gospe u Olovu’, Glasnik sv. Ante Padovanskog 10: 254–7. ——. 1933. ‘Bitka oko slike Gospe Olovske (1609) i hajdučki napadaj na procesiju (1610 g.)’, Glasnik sv. Ante Padovanskoga 9: 274–7. Zovkić, Mato. 1998. Međureligijski dijalog iz katoličke perspektive u Bosni i Hercegovini. Sarajevo: Vrhbosanska katolička bogoslovija. ——. 2001. ‘Mogućnosti ekumenizma i religijskoga dijaloga u Hrvatskoj te Bosni i Hercegovini’, Bogoslovska smotra 70 (3–4): 635–55. ——. 2007. ‘Religijska scena Bosne i Hercegovine 2007. godine’, Vrhbosniensia XI (2): 237–46.

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Index

action 5, 75, 76 embodied 120 ideological 119 performative 120 political 119 religious 5, 7, 75, 76 aesthetics 103, 110 Communist 106 socialist 107 Akgun, Halil 41 Albania 5–8, 65, 103 passim, 135 passim socialist 110 Albanian Autonomous Church 138, 140 border 138, 139, 144 Catholic Church 118 Communist party 106 Communist rule 107, 108, 138, 139 elites 105 migrant workers 8, 147 National Awakening 136 nationalism 136 Orthodox Church 117, 118, 138 Renaissance 108. 109, 115 Albanians Atheists 138, 139 Bektashis 137 bilingual 138 Catholic 116, 135, 137 Christians 135 Evangelicals 137 Greek minority 138 Muslim 116, 135, 137, 138, 139 Orthodox 116, 137, 139 aliens 129, 138 Alyosha 119 passim ancestors 31, 35, 91, 127, 144, 149 Annovero, Bishop 50 anthropology 2, 60, 80, 98, 121, 128, 135, 153, 154, 155, 158

apparitions 89–90, 93 architecture 6, 25, 27, 29, 34, 41, 81, 91–2, 107, 110 national 89 religious 146 art 29, 81, 94–5, 106–7 megalomaniac 95 Athens 6, 38, 45, 48 passim, 136–7, 141–4, 148 authorities 131, 158 ecclesiastical 105 Muslim 72 princely 105 religious 155 royal 105 Russian 131 Turkish 4, 20, 38 passim, 154 authority 46, 104–5, 118–19 Turkish 33 Babul, Elif 41, 43, 46, 47 Baličević, Bishop Franjo 66 Balkans 1, 59, 61, 139 Bartholomew, Patriarch 51 Battaille, Georges 49 Bax, Mart 3, 60 passim Belaj, Marijana 123 Belaj, Marijana and Zvonko Martić 4, 7, 11, 155, 156, 158 beliefs 65, 69 atheist 106 idealistic 123 popular 103 religious 81, 106 belonging 4, 7, 43, 62, 82, 88, 135, 137, 142, 143, 148 feelings of 147, 149 rituals of 53 sense of 144 Benjamin, Walter 125

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Bible 9, 92, 93 body 50, 119 borders 59, 129, 138, 139 crossing 11, 98 ethnic 59 European 2 fixity 59 intellectual 2 national 1, 6, 48, 129, 133, 154 opening 140 religious 59 shifting 1 state 126, 140 Bosniaks 15, 61 boundaries 1, 3, 8, 11, 54, 139 bodily 11 conceptual 11 ethnic 7, 11 intellectual 2 linguistic 2 national 4, 8, 54 political 62 religious 5, 7, 75, 77 social 53, 137, 144, 148, 149 spatial 148 territorial 1, 11 Bourdieu, Pierre 128 Bowman, Glenn 43, 53, 156, 157 Bozbeyouglu, Cavlin and Isil Onan 38 Byzantine 98, 104 Catholic 4 Bosnian Church 15 passim, 59 passim ceremonies/celebrations 8, 68, 72, 74 Church 3, 15 passim, 60, 63 clergy 8, 15 Croatian 33, 60 identity 32 leaders 64 organizations 84 pilgrims 66 passim Polish 5, 79 passim saint 73 shrine 59 passim theologians 73 Catholicism 2 Albania 103 passim cultural 79

liberal 98 lived 80 Polish 5, 79 passim popular 99 Catholics 4, 7, 8, 32, 59 passim ceremony 107 125 commemorative 121 126 change 2, 6, 8, 16, 21 passim, 37 passim, 89, 94, 98, 117, 119, 129, 142, 156 architectural 10 cultural 80 economic 1 political 1, 99, 131 social 1, 80, 99, 131, 138 Chrisostomos, Bishop Miron 51 Christianity 66, 86 passim, 104, 116, 117, 120, 140, 148 Catholic 103 Greek 105 Latin 98 Orthodox 2, 98 103 city space121, 128, 129 clergy 15, 27, 82, 98, 158 Coleman, Simon 24, 25, 54, 137, 148 Coleman, Simon and John Eade 9, 18, 25, 34, 50, 54, 103, 119, 135, 146, 153, 155 Comaroff, Jean and John 129 commemoration 5, 6, 85, 119 passim Communism 5, 98, 99, 117 collapse 6, 8, 61, 95, 98, 114, 118, 138, 141, 153 in Albania 103 passim, 136, 144 in Poland 80, 87, 88, 94, 95, 98 post– 5, 7, 79, 94–6, 99, 117, 147 pre- 95 communitas 49, 53, 60, 119, 137, 146, 149 community 7, 8, 16, 18 passim, 40 passim, 60, 63, 64, 142, 143, 147 Bosnian Croat 19, 33 passim ethnic 4, 5, 8 Greek 40 passim, 156 Imaginary/imagined 12, 82, 87, 156 Jewish 63 local 72, 139, 156 Muslim 60, 63 peasant 103 religio-national 15, 33, 88 religious 8, 73, 156

Index Connerton, Paul 48, 120, 130 consciousness 83 social 80 contestation 7, 22, 60, 71, 104, 108, 117, 120, 137, 138, 146, 149, 155 locality 135 national borders 133 space 4 continuum 136, 145, 146 German 132 sacred–profane 146 Couroucli, Maria 146 crowds 96, 108, 119, 121, 123 of pilgrims 120 cult 83, 87, 89, 90, 104, 105, 109, 112, 113, 115 Dalakoglou, Dimitris 147 Dayton Agreement 61, 62 de Certeau, Michel 23 de Rapper, Gilles 108 Delaney, Carol 137 design 9, 10, 27, 35, 80–82, 107, 131 aesthetic 93 spatial 81 visual 85 discourse 62, 94, 125, 128 competing 60, 103 exclusionary 145 nationalism and nation–building 129 political 4, 59, 60, 76, 77, 94 post-colonial 129 state 120 displacement 7, 11, 17, 20, 38, 42, 43, 143, 145, 153 passim distance 126, 130, 133 spatial 148 dovište 73 Dubisch, Jill 82, 148 Durkheim, Emile 156 Durres 111, 115 dwelling 137, 147, 149 Eade, John and Michael Sallnow 60, 83, 103, 137 economic 4, 35, 41, 84, 98, 104, 118, 135, 138, 139 change 1, 138

179

forces 3 migration 40 processes 4, 10 passim relations 135 structures 1 education 96 religious 79, 83 Ehala, Martin 131 elderly 16, 124, 143 Greeks 47 passim women 143, 145 elites 9, 37, 104, 105 Albanian 105 Bulgarian 105 Serbian 105 embodiment 82 ,128, 130 emigrants 6, 135 passim emotions 9, 83, 128 religious 25, 42 empire 1, 17, Ottoman 32, 41, 65, 109 Epirus 139 Estonia 5, 7 passim, 119 passim, 154 Estonian 132 girls 133 government 131 society 126 Soviet Republic 126 speakers 125, 130 Estonian National Library 121 129 130 Estonian–Russians 120 Estonians 120, 123, 131 ethnic boundaries 7, 11, 59 community 4, 5, 11, 62 conflict 8, 11, 54, 59, 60, 76, 120, 133, 155, 157 division 7 groups 4, 7, 10, 59 passim, 76, 136, 138, 153–5 identity 4, 6, 8, 54, 63 minority 8 space 53 traditions 5 ethnicity 11, 38, 43, 59 passim, 116, 120, 136, 138 Europe 1, 2, 9, 10, 48, 55, 91, 94, 97–8, 120, 123, 126, 136, 137, 139

180

Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe

Central 1, 12 East 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 80, 98, 153, 155 East-Central 80 Identity 9 Schengen borders 138 South–East 2, 11, 12, 15, 153, 155, 157 West 2, 3, 98, 138 European Union 1, 2, 9, 10, 16–17, 41, 123, 131, 138, 139, 146 everyday life 5, 52, 54, 59, 76, 77, 93, 145, 148 experience 4, 18, 22, 23, 25, 32, 34, 46 passim, 79 passim, 115, 146 passim bodily 83 emotional 93 lived 53, 82, 83, 88, 120 loss 54 multi-sensorial 83 national 93 personal 19, 20, 34, 126, 127, 133 pilgrimage 4, 18, 145, 146 religious 5, 18, 51, 53, 63, 65, 73 passim, 74 passim, 77, 88, 93 sacred 4, 8, 54, 61 sacred space 82 passim family 6, 11, 25, 33, 50, 52, 66, 82, 84, 91, 98, 111, 115, 120, 126–8, 132, 133, 142, 144, 154 Feast of the Assumption 4, 6, 7, 16 passim, 41 passim, 66 passim, 84, 108, 136, 141, 153 Feldman, Gregory 123 Finland 126 folk memories 9 religiosity 94 songs 21 folklore tradition 2 folkloric 37, 40, 44, 45, 47 Frey, Nancy 3 Garbin, David 103 Geertz, Clifford 82 Germany 24, 41, 62 Nazi 1, 108, 121, 125 ghosts 103, 129 passim

Giakoumis, Konstantinos 5, 6, 8, 11, 154, 155, 158 Golgotha 82, 93, 95, 96 grave 6, 68, 93, 109, 119 passim Muslim 59 Greece 6, 8, 37, 44 passim, 115–16, 136 passim Greek Orthodox Church 138, 156 Green, Sarah 139 Gregorič Bon, Nataša 6, 8, 11, 154 group (see ethnic, national, religious) 15, 24, 33, 43, 45, 52, 54, 63 passim, 80 passim, 111, 123 passim, 143 antagonistic 53 local 6, 153 patrigroups 141 social 54 guidebooks 9, 38, 40, 92 pilgrimage 85 sanctuary 89 tourist 85 Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson 145 Hann, Chris 2 Hayden, Robert 15, 43, 53, 60 passim, 72 healing 82, 83, 116, 117 Hermkens, Anna–Karina, Willy Jansen and Catrien Notermans 54 heroes 67, 93 Albanian Renaissance 110, 115 national 5, 109 religio-national 85 hierarchy 81, 88, 89, 106 history 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 15, 27, 34 passim, 59, 61, 63, 67, 80 passim, 123 passim, 144, 148, 149, 153, 155, 158 Church 91 Communist Party 113 mnemonic 130 mythical history of nation 82 national 87 passim, 158 Polish 91 96 Polish Catholicism 94 Hobsbawm, Eric and Terence Ranger 52 home 3, 20, 24 passim, 49 passim, 70, 74, 84, 90, 96, 104, 112, 121, 126, 131, 135, 137, 141 passim, 154, 156

Index coming 6, 17, 25, 43, 137, 142, 146 passim home-place 137, 141, 143, 146 passim making 135, 137, 145 homeland 4, 7 passim, 20, 25, 29, 43 passim, 106, 109, 125, 127, 130, 132–3, 147 Hoxha, Enver 106 passim, 136, 138 icon 9, 44, 50, 85, 98, 104, 105, 117, 137, 143, 145, 148, 154 iconography 106, 107 identity 4 passim, 20, 43, 77 passim, 128, 135, 145, 149, 155, 158 Bosnian Croat 3, 16 building 82 Catholic 32, 75, 77 communal 82, 158 formation 80 Muslims 77 national 8, 12, 33, 34, 54, 63, 80, 85, 120 politics 120 Polish 96 religious 6, 16, 75, 85, 117, 155, 158 ideology 76, 99, 103, 106, 119, 125, 130, 132 Communist 5 state 120 state-imposed Communist 115 images 2, 36, 38, 54, 82, 84 passim, 148, 156, 158 coronation of 90 cult of 83, 89 Marian 89 Imagination 9, 80, 119, 127, 128 collective 87 mnemonic 130, 133 personal 120 immigrants 41, 50, 52, 120, 129, 137 Turkish 137 individual 22, 23, 35, 53, 75 passim, 119 passim, 136, 147 Ingold, Tim 135 Inter-religious Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina 63 interpretations 2, 4, 5, 19, 60, 61, 76, 87, 94, 103, 115 passim, 154 passim essentialized 40 historical 125

181

individualized 127 new 155, 157 religio-national 88 Italy 142, 144 Fascist 108 Jackson, Michael 147 Jasna Góra see Częstochowa 5, 80 passim Częstochowa (Jasna Góra) 80 passim Our Lady of Częstochowa (Jasna Góra) 80 passim Jerusalem 96, 127, 133, 158 Jesus Christ 10, 61, 69, 93, 105 passim, 117 Jewish 63, 67 organizations 131 population 61 John Paul II see pope 88, 95 passim Jones, Lindsay 25, 29 Kalfić, Fra Berislav 67, 68 Kašić, Bartol 66 Katic, Mario 3, 7, 9, 11, 54, 81, 154, 158 Kaufman, Suzanne 10 Kazaz, Enver 61 Knott, Kim 18 Komšiluk 74, 77 Kondžilo 16, 19, 22, 24, 26–8, 32, 34–5 Krakow 95, 98 Kubajak, Anna 91 Kwon, Heonik 129 Kyrilos, Bishop 51 landscape 3, 25 passim, 55, 79, 99, 143, 153, 157, 158 cultural 79 national 99 Polish 79,92 rural 9, 92 sacred 4, 16 passim, 73 urban 9 language 51, 63, 94, 126, 139 artistic 95 Greek 105 metaphorical 63 national 130 Lefebvre, Henri 80 legends 20, 93, 111 Lenin 112

182

Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe

Licheń (shrine and image of Our Lady of Licheń, Poland) 5, 9, 80, 89 passim locality 7, 20, 90–91, 135 passim, 146 passim locals 6, 104, 136 passim, 154 Lovrenović, Ivan 33, 34 Macedonians 116, 157 magic 24, 128, 129 Makulski, Eugeniusz fra 89, 91 Mardešić, Željko 64 Marian 70, 73 Chapel 95 Image 80, 89 sanctuaries 5, 80 shrine 7, 20, 32, 65, 73, 82 passim, statues 84 visions 60, 93 meaning 6, 11, 12, 22, 24, 29 passim, 53, 82, 115, 119 passim, 135 passim, 153 passim architectural 29 making 114 of locality 149 ontological 147 pilgrimage 149 sacralized 133 shifting 148 Mecca 137, 148 media 9, 38, 130–31 disputes 138 Meliton, Bishop 50 memorial 82, 95, 111, 115, 131 park 27 plaques 85 stage 54 war 125 memory 8, 9, 20, 26, 48, 55, 84–5, 105 passim, 128, 131, 137 communal/collective 48, 49, 76 personal 120, 132 reconstruction of 120 metaphor 29, 52, 88, 103, 120, 127, 133 migration 6, 22, 38, 41, 67, 135 passim diasporic 54 economic 40 forced 7, 37 global 10

miracles 20, 66, 83, 84, 104, 116 spiritual 83 miraculous consciousness 83 miraculous defence 87 modernity 2, 54, 137 monastery 67, 69, 80, 86–8, 104 passim, 136, 141 passim, 156 Montenegrins 116 Montenegro 117 monumental 93 passim, 154 building 92 memorial 95 monuments 9, 82 passim, 106, 115, 119 passim religious 106 sacralized 132 war of 131 Moscow 106 movement 5 passim, 18, 23, 25, 32, 103 passim, 130 passim, 156 boundary 1 of pilgrims 34, 54 populations 38 return 135 museum 10, 85, 93, 106, 107, 112 passim national 82 Muslims 61 passim, 116–17, 136 passim, 145, 148, 156 myth 20, 25, 34, 80 passim, 104, 158 narratives 5, 34 passim, 73, 80 passim, 123, 131 family 52 mythical 25 national 52 nation-making 121, 156 official 37 nation 1, 7, 11, 63, 66, 85 passim, 119 passim, 125, 153, 156 building/making 37, 119, 129, 133 European 98 making 119, 121, 133, 156 state 37, 40, 61, 123, 133, 149 national 4, 8 passim, 32 passim, 61, 82 passim, 97, 136 passim, 149, 158 awakening 129 boundaries 4, 6, 8, 54 commemoration 82

Index community 15, 34, 62, 82, 87, 88 conflicts 54 dimension 5, 90, 95, 99 heroes 5, 85, 109 history 80, 82, 87 passim, 96, 158 idea 110 identity 4, 8, 10, 12, 33, 34, 54, 63, 85, 120 megalomania 94 passim pilgrimage 9, 31, 35, 109, 111 shrine 5, 16, 20, 24, 34, 80 passim, 154 symbol 85 unity 3, 17, 32 vows 88 nationalism 11, 41, 60, 87, 93, 95 passim, 105, 115, 129, 136, 139, 154 nationalists 62 Greek 105 nationality 15, 61 Nazi 85, 93, 114 Germany 1, 108, 121, 125 regime 126 uniform 131 networks 2, 9, 10, 65, 137, 148 newcomers 139 passim Niedźwiedź, Anna 5, 9, 154, 155, 158 Nietzsche, Friedrich 155, 158 nostalgia 49, 52, 125, 137, 147, 148 post-socialist 94, 99 Ogramić Olovčić, Fra Nikola 66 Olovo 61, 65, 66 Ottoman administration 139 empire 32, 41, 65, 109 outsiders 7, 11, 62, 139 Pauline Order 80, 86, 88, 154 Pavao, Fra 66 Pepić, Esad imam 69 performance 21, 25, 32, 37, 49 emotional 142 ritual 54 staged 131 persecution 52 Communist 85 Nazi 85 person 5, 9, 18, 34, 103, 108, 109, 118, 147

183

pilgrimage anthropology of 60, 153–5, 158 Bosnian 7, 31 Catholic 69 passim celebration 17 Christian 10, 34, 103 passim, 116, 117, 135 commemorative 119, 121, 123, 133 Communist 5, 103, 106, 109 passim, 114 passim communitas 53, 60, 119 contestation 22, 48 passim, 60, 103, 119, 153 customs 106 destinations 60, 84, 115, 116 discursive construction 53 experience 18 forced 113 guidebooks 85 hajj 137 holy objects Japan 10 journey 8, 12, 126 mapping of space 135, 146 memory-centred 114 modernity 137 national 109, 111 new 108, 109, 112, 113, 118 organized groups 83 passim, 113 Orthodox 6, 136 penitential 111, 127 person-centred 5, 109–10, 112–13 personal 121, 126 place-centred 110 places 6, 7, 8, 15 passim, 115, 146, 154 practices 155 religious 8, 12, 120 ritual 113, 135 route 59, 149 secular 5, 6, 9, 12, 109, 113, 118 passim sacred 127, 146 site 4, 7, 12, 25, 34, 59 passim,98, 105, 114 passim, 135 passim, 146 passim studies 10, 135, 153 text-and-memory-centred 114 pilgrims Catholic 65, 70 passim

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Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe

commemorative 119–20, 130–33 Communist 116 declining numbers 94 dialogue 59 elderly 143 embodiment 82 emigrants 137, 147 Europe 98 identity 145 journey 148 local /locality 90, 148 movement 25, 32, 34, 54 Muslim 65, 148 narratives 82, 117 needs 84 Orthodox 65, 156 participation 33, 35 practices 6, 19, 82, 133 ritual 82 Russian–speaking 127 sacred places 82 secular 128 social cohesion 145 social difference 146 suffering 54 vows 23, 28, 35 pioneers 107, 112 place 80, 82, 103, 108–9, 118–19, 123, 135 attachment 6, 149 commemoration 5, 121 contested 7, 40 passim, 53 desacralized 130, 131 dialogue 61 domestication 103 holy 121 homage 111 kinaesthetic mapping 146 local 69, 77 material 9 meaningful 93 metaphorical 127 Muslim 73 national 88 new 4, 18, 31 public 123 131 resacralized 119 121 sacralized 120 passim, 130

sacred 6, 8, 9, 15 passim, 34, 52, 59, 76, 77, 80 passim, 130, 135, 146, 154 passim secular 7, 9, 146 social cohesion 137 sterilized 119 130 symbolic 93 tolerance 146 place-making Communist 108 contested 5 negotiability 120 performativity 120 religious 5, 103 sacred 11, 136 secular 5, 11, 136 spatial 6, 149 symbols 3, 17 temporal 6, 149 Western Europe 3 Podmilačje 59 Poland 1, 6, 8, 9, 79 passim police 21, 68, 122, 130 passim political change 1, 94, 99, 131 Communism 6, 138 conflict 7, 8, 40, 43, 60, 77 discourses 4, 59, 60, 77 division 16, 87 ethnic groups 7, 61 Europe 98 institutions 3, 10 Muslims 73 process 3, 10, 62, 87 religions 108 socialization 107 politics 1, 3, 31, 87–8, 103, 105, 117–19, 128, 136, 139, 154 Bosnia and Herzegovina 62 Communism 108 Greek national 138 identity 120–25, 155 local 7, 136 memory 133 multicultural 76 pilgrimage 11, 12, 103, 119 post-socialist 128 state 5, 6, 119, 128

Index post-colonialism 123, 129 post-socialism 120, 123, 128 power 2, 3, 6, 22 passim, 48, 54 passim, 80 passim, 94, 105–6, 116, 120, 125, 128, 154 passim Church 23, 35, 94 demonic 103 mnemonic 120 pilgrims 54 relations 22 space 82, 94 state 61, 94, 119 symbols 26, 128 transformative 125 practices 45, 61, 70, 73, 76, 82, 108, 129, 147, 154 passim group 15 lived 84 new 31 passim, 157 pilgrims 5, 19 passim, 82, 133, 154–5 religious 4, 18, 65, 73 passim, 79, 140 priests 11, 19 passim, 32, 50, 60, 65 passim, 75, 90, 116, 117, 140, 146 Protestant 2 church 121, 130 proximity 5, 74, 105, 120, 125, 126 Puljić, Cardinal Vinko 29 Rabinow, Paul 22 Radio Maryja 98, 154 Rapport, Nigel 121 region 1–3, 7 passim, 19 passim, 27, 34, 61 passim, 105 passim, 138–9, 146, 148, 154 passim relatives 6, 21, 49, 51, 115, 120, 125 passim, 141 passim, 154 relics 104, 109, 116–17 representations 37 passim, 85, 94 collective 80 conflicting 103 textual 9 visual 93, 98 resistance 3, 23, 77, 87, 132, 155, 158 ritual 4, 8 passim, 22–3, 29, 49, 53–4, 79, 82, 88, 104, 106, 113, 142 kinetic 135 pagan 104 Rodman, Margaret 34

185

Roma 21, 116 Russia 3, 6, 8, 120 passim, 131, 154 Russian speakers 8, 11, 95, 106, 154, 155 in Estonia 120 passim saints 37, 44 passim, 60, 68, 73, 77, 87, 104–5, 116–17, 137, 141, 143, 145, 157 Sallnow, Michael 60, 83, 103, 135, 137, 153 Santiago de Compostela 3, 128 Saygi, Erol 40 school 9, 38, 63, 83–4, 107 passim, 123, 126, 131 Second Vatican Council 63 Second World War 5, 10, 121, 123, 139 Sekerdej, Kinga, Agnieszka Pasieka and Marta Warat 94 Serbs 7, 15 passim, 61 passim, 105, 116 Shenk, Gerald 59 shrine 3 passim, 27, 59 passim, 77, 79 passim, 104 passim, 117, 156 Catholic (see Catholic, Catholics, Catholicism) construction 17 passim, 69 Croatian 82 ecumenical dimension 98 Europe 98 global 98 guardian 68 passim, 74 Islamization 73 local 89 Marian shrine 7, 20, 32, 65, 73, 82 passim Muslims 73, 75, 76, 116 national 5, 16 passim, 34, 80 passim, 94–5, 154 new 89 passim Orthodox 54, 116 Polish 9, 84, 95, 99 religious 6, 8, 85 sacredness 80, 83 ,88, 91, 103 secular 109, 120 shared 8, 73 passim, 77, 156–7 small 93, 95 symbolic 87 symbolic dimension 98 transnational dimension 98 trans-religious dimension 98

186

Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe

Silajdžić, Adnan 62, 65 sites 15, 98, 103, 153 passim Christian pilgrimage 117 commemorative 93 Communist 116 Communist pilgrimage 114 pilgrimage 1, 4, 7, 25, 34, 59, 60, 71, 76, 80, 98, 105, 114 passim, 135, 137, 148, 153, 154 religious 2, 7, 153 sacred 3, 153, 154, 158 secular pilgrimage 118 shared 157, 158 tourist 48 socialism 1, 2, 94, 104 passim, 153 sociology 2, 89 South Africa 129 souvenirs 21, 84 Soviet 126, 131, 154 epoch 125 flag 125 monuments 119, 131 soldiers 133 Union 121 passsim Victory Day 119, 123 space 4, 8 passim, 22–3, 31, 35, 49, 52, 59, 61, 74, 80, 82, 93, 103, 113, 119, 122, 130 passim, 158 commemorative 82 construction of contested 4, 8, 60, 104, 108 cultic 118 dialogue 73 domestication of 103 dynamic 99 ethnic 53, 59 holy 132 inter-religious exchange 5, 77 kinaesthetic mapping of 135 lived space 5, 73, 75, 80, 94, 98 pagan 103, 104 passports 129 pilgrimage 73, 108, 109, 117, 118 public 43, 118, 121, 125, 129 religious 43, 53, 59, 74, 75, 85, 108, 109 sacred 4, 8, 10, 61, 80 passim, 94, 95, 99, 104 sterilization 121, 132

symbolic 79, 87, 88 thick 88 transformation of urban/city 80, 122, 128, 129 virtual 139 springs 103 holy 84 state 1, 5, 46, 61, 87, 94, 112 passim, 119 passim, 129 passim, 153, 158 Albanian 154 atheist 106 borders 125, 126, 140, 144 Croatian 154 discourses 120 Estonian 154 exams 126 Greek 48 ideology 59, 120 institutions 6, 38 nation (see nation) Polish 91 politics 5, 6, 119, 128 secular 87 socialist 94, 110, 153 transformation 94 Turkish 37 passim violence 37, 54 Yugoslav 61 statues 9, 10, 84, 89, 93, 95, 110, 111, 131 Stations of the Cross 27–8, 33, 35, 93, 95, 96 Stavridi 135 passim stories 20, 48, 53, 69, 82, 83, 89, 90, 113, 117, 121, 127, 128, 132, 133, 158 strangers 45, 129 strategies 37, 79, 126 Sudar, Bishop Pero 30 Sweden 87 symbolic 5, 20, 25 passim, 46, 54, 61, 75 passim, 91 passim, 110, 124 passim capital 128 penitential journey 127 places 80 space 79, 82, 88 symbolism 22, 33, 35, 79. 85, 87, 110, 111, 125, 128, 129 Tallinn 5, 8, 119 passim, 153, 154 Taussig, Michael 125, 128

Index Taylor, Charles 2 text 5, 9, 18, 34, 47, 60, 68, 75, 103, 108–9, 114, 118, 154 time 7, 8, 11, 40, 73 passim, 133, 135, 141, 153, 156, 158 Tirana 111 passim Tito 113, 123 tombs 110, 115, 119 Unknown Soldier 119 passim Tomić, Fra Gabrijel 70 tourism 4,7–8,11, 20, 22, 37 passim, 84, 85, 116–17, 137, 156 tradition 2, 5–6, 9–10, 21, 29, 40 passim, 68, 70, 76, 80, 84, 91 passim, 117, 133 passim, 146, 155, 157 transnational 96–9, 135 identity 10 networks 10 ties 9 Tšerkassova, Polina 5, 7, 8, 11, 153, 154, 158 Tsimouris, Giorgos 4, 7, 8, 20, 38, 154 Turkey 4, 8, 37 passim, 66, 137, 153 Turner, Victor and Edith 137

187

Turnerian interpretation 119, 135, 153 Verdery, Katherine 123, 128 Virgin (St Mary) 20, 32, 41, 47 passim, 66, 69, 104, 105, 109, 116–17, 137, 153, 154 visual 1, 5, 6, 85, 93 passim, war 130, 131, 132 anti-Nazi 109, 110, 113 Communist 111 Independence 132 monuments 127 Napoleonic 89 passim Vietnam 129 White, Geoffrey 82 Wolf, Eric 153 Wyszyński, Cardinal Stefan 88 youth 45, 107 passim, 125, 126, 143 Zloušić, Fra Lujo 68