Ecclesiastical Pressures and Language Politics: The Boundary Work of Albanian Language in the 17th-18th Centuries

Albert Doja (1, 2)

1 Université de Lille
2 CLERSÉ - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019

In this article, I examine early religious literature in the Albanian language in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which, in combination with ecclesiastical rivalries and a differential opposition to Ottoman rule, must have promoted an inherent cultural process of differentiation, especially between Greek-speaking and Albanian-speaking Orthodox Christians. In particular, I argue that the contradicting motivations of political contradistinction, Enlightenment propagation, Orthodox evangelism, ecclesiastical confrontation, and missionary counteraction lead inadvertently to a boundary work of the social reorganization of linguistic and cultural difference.

Mots clés: Language politics; Church politics; Orthodoxy; Albania

Domaines: Religions; Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Histoire; Linguistique; Littératures; Héritage culturel et muséologie

Albert Doja. Ecclesiastical Pressures and Language Politics: The Boundary Work of Albanian Language in the 17th-18th Centuries. Nationalities Papers : The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 2022, 50 (4), pp.742-769. ⟨10.1017/nps.2021.55⟩. ⟨halshs-03648536⟩