The Choreography of Cohabitation: Contemporary Sharing of Shrines in Macedonia (in Russian)

This paper aims to contribute some contemporary fieldwork insights

from Macedonia to discussions on the coexistence of Muslims (both

Sunni and Sufi) and Orthodox Christians around sacred sites. While

recent developments have led to the dominance of ‘clash of civilisations’

discourse in such situations, I here use detailed studies of the three

sites where intercommunal mixing occurs to evidence a range of

different modalities of interaction, spanning a spectrum from overt

antagonistic intolerance through non-conflictual cohabitation to

forms of sharing close to syncretistic practice. The paper investigates

the elements of the social fields engaged by these communities that

prompt hostility, permit coexistence, and promote identification, and

inquires whether the more benign forms of interaction currentlymanifest in Macedonia are atavistic in settings increasingly marked

by ethno-nationalism and fundamentalism.