City of the ‘calm’: vernacular mobility and genealogies of urbanity in a southeast European borderland

Abstract

By combining a genealogical and ethnographic approach, this paper aims to explore temporal and mobility-related dimensions of the moral ‘self-essentialization’ in the north Albanian city of Shkodra. The image of the Shkodrani as ‘calm people’ – prominent in narratives, urban myths, life-stories, family histories or interpretations of everyday interactions – served both as an explanation of the ‘inherent’ peacefulness and inclusiveness of the inhabitants of Shkodra and as a marker of ‘urbanity’. Intrigued precisely by its a-historical ‘aura’, I will suggest that a very fruitful way of analytically disentangling ‘calmness’ is to view it through the temporal prism of the prevailing mode of migrant incorporation in Shkodra – not according to ethnicity or religion, but rather along lines of what I will refer to as ‘vernacular mobility’.

Keywords:

• Southeast Europe
• mobility
• migration
• morality
• moral economy
• temporality
• genealogy
• urbanity
• borderland
• late-Ottoman
• emic notions of belonging

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sabine Strasser, Olaf Zenker, Stale Knudsen, Luisa Piart, Sari Wastell, Julene Knox, Annika Lems, Paul Reade, Čedomir Vavić and Steve Vertovec and the participants of the work-in-progress meeting at the MMG MPI (Göttingen, March 2013) for their valuable comments. I would also like to express my appreciation to the anonymous reviewer for constructive comments on the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. As is apparent in the paraphrased urban myth, ethno-national and religion-based provocation is commonly identified as ‘external’ to Shkodra and its inhabitants. In a similar manner, new forms of Islamic practice, perceived as ‘fanatic’ (Alb. fanatike), are identified as ‘imported’ and ‘external’ (see Tošić 2015).

2. I join Glick-Schiller and Çağlar in critiquing both ‘methodological ethnicity’ and ‘methodological nationalism’ (Glick-Schiller and Çağlar 2008) as reductive and ideological assumptions when exploring migration. Furthermore, while I do consider the effect of state/imperial migration regimes, the nation-state is but one factor in my analysis, which is located on a regional and temporal scale reaching from developments in the late Ottoman frontiers up to the present; in this context, the nation-state does not figure as the norm, but rather as a historical and ideological development (see Image 1).

3. These emic terms of belonging represent nouns in the singular, while the plural (except in the case of Ulqinak) includes the suffix -i.

4. Following the dissolution of the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania in 1991–1992.

5. While the red colour of the line symbolizes the border closure between 1948 and 1990, the border did not shift after the regime change and the opening of the border in 1990 up to the present.

6. Other mobility-related emic notions of belonging prominent in present-day Shkodra are e.g. Vrakaçor and Magjyp/Egyptian (see Tošić 2015).

7. Podgoriça represents the generic ‘location’ within this vernacular mobility term to which people refer as the place their family came from even if further conversations reveal that the precise location turns out to be a smaller urban (e.g. Nikšić) or rural (e.g. Spuž) unit. This can be read as an indication that claiming an urban (qytetar) identity was an important aspect of the incorporation strategy of the Podgoriçani.

8. Hamdi Bushati – the author of the most popular history of Shkodra, which embellishes the shelves of almost every Shkodran family I have visited (Bushati 1998, 1999) – lists the following four stages of the Podgoriçan migration to Shkodra: during the reign of the Bushati family (1757–1831), after the Congress of Berlin (1878), WWI and WWII (Bushati 1999, 309).

9. Apart from Rus, today many Podgoriçani live in the nearby quarter Kiras.

10. Both first names and surnames are anonymized.

11. The word sabar is derived from the Arabic (sabr, صبر) via Turkish and can be understood as ‘Patience: the capacity to endure hardship, difficulty, or inconvenience with ‘calmness’, self-control and without complaint’ (http://quranicteachings.org/sabr/).

12. The ‘Vrakaqor’ – the Slavic-speaking and Christian-orthodox population in the Shkodra region – was also exposed to this assimilationist regime.

13. Either by the erasing of the Slavic surname-suffix ‘ić’ (e.g. Piranić becoming Pirani) or by substituting a surname with an Albanian word that happens to have spontaneously crossed a clerk’s mind, as I was often told during fieldwork among the Podgoriçani (e.g. Hebovija becoming Arrë, meaning ‘walnut’).

14. Which is why many Podgoriçan families today participate in one of the minority organizations in Shkodra, providing language lessons in Serbian/Montenegrin for both children and adults.

15. Since the opening of the border in 1990, and particularly during economic sanctions against FRY (1992–1995) the ‘flea-market’ in Tuzi became the main regional market, and a crucial source of income for the Podgoriçani. While during the sanctions the market in Tuzi provided essential commodities, such as fuel and cigarettes, after the sanctions were lifted it still continued to be the leading market offering a variety of goods at lower prices compared to, for example, the market in Podgorica. Lumije sells textiles of all sorts, which her son purchases during his regular trips to Istanbul.

16. The first minority organization founded in Shkodra after the regime change (‘Moraça Rozafa’) aimed at representing the Slavic-speaking population of Shkodra and its surroundings with reference to the minority of ‘Serbo-Montenegrins’ (mn. srpsko-crnogorska manjina/alb. minoritet serbo-malezeze) (see http://www.moraca-rozafa.com, accessed 11 July 2015).

17. A similarity to the Podgoriçani as revealed through family histories – and a potential problem for their incorporation in Shkodra – was the fact that most members of these migrant populations were more outwardly religious, which stood in contrast to one of the crucial aspects of the local regime of ‘calmness’ – the modest display of religious belonging in the public urban space (see Tošić 2015).

18. After the Montenegro–Turkish war (1876–1877), in which Montenegro’s defeat was prevented by retreat of the Ottoman armies due to a Russian offensive at the Danube front, Montenegro was able to double its territory (Treaty of San Stefano in 1877) and eventually gain independence (Congress of Berlin 1878). Apart from Nikšić, Spuž, Podgorica, Kolašin, Andrijevica, Žabljak, Plav and Gusinje, the harbours Bar and Ulqin/Ulcinj were included in the newly independent Montenegrin state (Morisson 2009, 28).

19. After Montenegro was granted Ulcinj, the half-moon symbol embellishing the sails was replaced by a cross. In line with his overall aim to prevent the Muslim outmigration, the Montenegrin King Nikola I Petrovic Njegos was eager to keep the wealthy Albanian families in Ulcinj. Apart from sending his famous and respected official Duke Simo Popović to Ulcinj with the aim of convincing the wealthy families to stay, he had also reversed this symbolic act of power. However, the massive outmigration of Albanian families, many of whom left for Shkodra, but also Durres or present-day Turkey, could not be prevented.

20. When doing research in Shkodra and Ulqin, one often hears about the ‘traditional’ and long-standing connection between these two cities along trade and kinship ties.

21. As opposed to some 50 families that have been settled in a neighbourhood in one of the Muslim city quarters, Lagjia e Kodralijve (see Bushati 1998, 83).

22. The ideology of ‘calmness’ crucially intersects with a prominent middle-class discourse in Shkodra – the discourse on so-called ‘old urban families’ (familje e vjetër) (see Tošić forthcoming).

23. The Tijaniyya Order – a strict orthodox North African brotherhood founded at the end of the eighteenth century – was established in Albania in Shkodra by Muhammed Shaban Domnori after his Hajj in 1920. Since then the order has gathered respected Muslim religious representatives, intellectuals and businessmen in Shkodra. As Nathalie Clayer lays out, while King Zog had initially aimed at secularization in Albania – which the Tijaniyya representatives strongly opposed – after 1930 he aimed at strengthening religion as a means of weakening the emerging communists (for more see Clayer 2009).

24. Originally, Tophane was a Catholic neighbourhood up to the nineteenth century, at which point Muslim families living in the old city neighbourhood around the Lead Mosque started buying houses in Tophane, while the Catholic families started moving to other parts of the city such as Gjuhadol, Rremaj and Sarreq. In the nineteenth century – especially the second half – the city started to spread due to the influx of migrants, among whom precisely the well-off Ulqinak families tended to buy houses in Tophane (personal communication with the historian Ndriçin Mlika, Muzeu Historik i Shkodrës).

25. As opposed to the hegemonic and orientalizing historiography of late Ottoman transformations where the notion of the ‘bourgeoisie’ refers to non-Muslim and ‘imported’ fragments of the population, the Sinanis can serve as an example of a Muslim ‘bourgeoisie’ due to their transnational mobility and trade, or in Eldem’s terms, their ‘integration with western-oriented or dominated networks’ (2014, 161).

26. This narrative is highly interesting beyond the aim of this article. It confirms the assumption (Clayer 2009, 492) that after the death of Muhammet Bekteshi in 1958 the Tijaniyya Order in Shkodra was headed by Sheh Xhemal Alibali and thus existed informally during the intensification of communist purges of religious institutions and clerics.

27. The third example of migration legacy and vernacular mobility - the case of the Malesor - differs in several important aspects from those of the Podgoricani and the Ulqinak.

28. The Albanian notion of Fis (bratstvo in Montenegrin), denotes patrilineages as forms of social organization that consolidated due to the Ottoman presence (e.g. Kaser 1992, 14; Morrison 2009, 17).

29. For an elaborate historical account on the relation between the population of the Albanian highlands and different imperial/state regimes – as well as the implied marginalization and essentialization of the highland peasants – see Pula 2011.

30. This organization was co-founded by Gjon F. and has as its aim mediation in cases of blood-feuds on the basis of traditionally inherited knowledge of the Kanun and, as Gjon highlights, ‘the ultimate fulfilment of achieving a forgiveness and thereby saving lives, as the prime duty before God’.

31. The Kanuni i Dukagjinit is the north Albanian customary law, which was documented by the Franciscan priest Shtjefen Gjecovi at the end of the nineteenth century. The Kanun regulates core aspects of social relations and obligations (family, property, marriage, etc.) and thus contains detailed rules regarding blood-feuds and their potential mediation. Gjon F. acquired knowledge of the Kanun from his father who was considered a prime authority in this regard in the region of the Dugadjin.

32. For a detailed account of the interrelation between the post-socialist transformation in Albania (e.g. instability and retreat of the state, contestations over property) and the ‘re-vitalization’ of the northern Kanun see Schwandner-Sievers 2001.

33. After the collapse of pyramidal schemes, which left thousands of Albanians without means, a civil uprising against the government spread throughout the country in the course of which around 2000 people were killed.

34. In the course of the Tanzimat reforms – instead of status (e.g. nobility) – mainly property and fiscal capacity became prime ‘coordinates’ of the urban incorporation of migrants (Lafi 2011, 21).

35. Although some of them surely did.