Belfry Architecture in the Balkans (19th-20th Centuries). Contestation of ‘Sacred’ Space and Normativity.

This work is the second part of a study on new belfries built from the final three decades of the nineteenth century to first three decades of the twentieth centuery contesting sacred space. The study focuses primarily on the territory of modern-day Albania, but also looks at the matter from a comparative perspective by drawing parallels with similar observations in the Balkans. The study demonstrates that in times of critical junctures, under the pressure of sociopolitical pressures from within and from without, contestation over ‘sacred’ space stimulated changes in bothy, urban and non-urban space. Newly erected, tall and impressive belfries were aimed at as visual statements of an extended role and space of the Orthodox Christian religious community at and after the end of trhe Ottoman rule, in the context new political and religious developments, which challenged the previous urban and non-urban normativity. Similarly to the first paqrt of this study, we pursued a phenomenological approach. Our methodological design consisted in formal analysis of the beldfry towers under consideration in Albania from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. We interpreted findings from an iconological methodological perspective. The study is grounded on three fundamental concepts: normativity, contestation and antagonistic tolerance, discussed in the first part of the study. These concepts were utilized to demonstrate the aspirations of Christian communities to visually affirm their presence in a shared, ‘sacred’ space, thereby breaking off from the older Ottoman normativity. In this conceptual framework, in the first part of this study we presented in a chronological order eighteen belfries built in the form of multi-storeyed towers not rarely deviating from the architectural traits of the churches to which thety were attached in volume and architectural-decorative treatment. This second part follows up and deepens our understanding of the construction new belfries in modern-day Albania in the period under consideration.