Of Women, Faith, and Nation: American Protestantism and the Kyrias School For Girls, Albania by ...

328 Pages·2016·2.09 MB·English

by  Nevila Pahumi

Of Women, Faith, and Nation:
American Protestantism and the Kyrias School For Girls, Albania

by

Nevila Pahumi

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(History)
in the University of Michigan
2016

Doctoral Committee:

Professor Pamela Ballinger, Co-Chair
Professor John V.A. Fine, Co-Chair
Professor Fatma Müge Göçek
Professor Mary Kelley
Professor Rudi Lindner
Barbara Reeves-Ellington, University of Oxford
© Nevila Pahumi
2016
For my family

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Acknowledgements

This project has come to life thanks to the support of people on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is now the time and my great pleasure to acknowledge each of them and their efforts here.
My long-time advisor John Fine set me on this path. John’s recovery, ten years ago, was
instrumental in directing my plans for doctoral study. My parents, like many well-intended first
generation immigrants before and after them, wanted me to become a different kind of doctor.
Indeed, I made a now-broken promise to my father that I would follow in my mother’s footsteps,
and study medicine. But then, I was his daughter, and like him, I followed my own dream. When
made, the choice was not easy. But I will always be grateful to John for the years of unmatched
guidance and support. In graduate school, I had the great fortune to study with outstanding
teacher-scholars. It is my committee members whom I thank first and foremost: Pamela
Ballinger, John Fine, Rudi Lindner, Müge Göcek, Mary Kelley, and Barbara Reeves-Ellington.
Rudi Lindner and John Fine, in good part, made my decision to continue on at Michigan
an easy one. I knew that with their approach, I would have the freedom to develop a project of
my own choosing. The open enthusiasm of Müge Göcek, also an early advisor, during my
classwork with her was instrumental in convincing me to turn this into a project about women.
Few people speak of “turning the wheel” with the boldness of Müge, but the power has stayed
with me, and for that I thank you especially, Müge.
Mary Kelley’s brilliant work on women’s education in nineteenth century U.S., very
quickly became the connecting bridge I needed in my own study. Quite by accident, Mary’s
advice at the start of fieldwork to turn to archival sources at Mount Holyoke proved to be
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essential, just as I got ready to finish the research. Thanks to a truly serendipitous encounter at a
MESA conference, I was able to contextualize the great role that Mt. Holyoke’s women
missionary graduates played in extending American education in the late Ottoman Balkans. The
lovely Peggy Henson very generously shared her Holyoke alumni aunt Mary Louisa Matthew’s
records of missionary and broader educational work in Monastir, where the Kyrias family got
their start.
It was within the analytical framework and under researched gaps of gender in the
Modern Balkans, that Pamela Ballinger’s input became key. Finally, my continued
correspondence with Barbara Reeves Ellington during fieldwork, helped crystallize my initial
ideas into their final form. In different ways, their approaches and scholarship became the
bedrocks of this study.
Faculty in the Modern Greek Studies Department similarly helped steer this project into
its final form. Very early on, conversations with Artemis Leontis forced me to think about
crafting a viable project that would still fit within my initial, if vague, framework of inquiry into
the processes of identity formation along linguistic margins in the Balkans. Panayiotis Pafilis and
Despina Margomenou nurtured my love of Modern Greek, and after fieldwork, Despina very
patiently translated with me for a semester as we dove into the often cryptic meeting-minutes of
Orthodox Church records in katharevousa, which would otherwise still remain “Greek” to me.
In Albania, the list of due acknowledgements is, again, a long one. First, I thank the
cohort of then doctoral students in Albanian studies here in the U.S., Elidor Mëhilli and Daniel
Ramirez, for sharing their intimate knowledge of the field and resources. Daniel, in particular,
further convinced me to work on women, and went out of his way, to put me in touch with initial
contacts in Albania, Sonila Boçi and Ana Lalaj. Navigating the bureaucratic and many
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institutional channels to work at the Central State Archive and the National Library in Tirana
would have been impossible without them. Both sacrificed their precious time to connect me to
fellow scholars and archivists, without whose input, the finer details of inquiry would not have
come to light.
Through her conversations and groundbreaking scholarship on women from
independence through the interwar period, Fatmira Musaj, inspired the second half of this
project. The brilliant archivist and friend, Sokol Çunga, directed me to the equally collegial
historians of Ottoman and Orthodox Görice/Korça, Andi Rëmbeci and Kostantinos Giakoumis.
Their scholarship on early modern Görice, especially vis-à-vis the position of the Orthodox
Church, and their pointed advice to explore the local social and religious dynamics in depth have
been invaluable. Knowing Albanian, I did not have some of the difficulties that new scholars
sometimes have when first getting to the archive; yet Sokol Çunga and Suela Çuçi-Iaccono made
it easier for me to zero in on materials each time that I have returned to Tirana.
Research in Tirana led me to other wonderful mentors, colleagues, and friends. Among
them, I single out the faculty at Universiteti S & P Qiriazi, the modern day resurrection of the
Kyrias School for Girls, now a business school. Robert Dako, in particular, was the living key I
had to the Kyriases. Second I thank the wonderful personnel at the American Embassy, Elizabeth
Lewis and Mirela Çupi, for identifying and coordinating several important research meetings,
and providing many a warm respite, when they were most needed. The initial meetings with
David Hosaflook, missionary pastor, and fellow scholar, have now blossomed into a constant
source of insight and I hope years of future collaboration as VUSH and the Albanian Institute for
Protestant Studies take off. Special thanks also go to my fellow researchers and friends Elizabeth
Claffey, and Elena Shomos, who kept me grounded and focused through much of my second
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research year. Finally, I thank Ina Kosturi for sharing parts of her grandmother’s diary, and the
delightful chats about life in Tirana.
Extended family also gave to this project, whether through setting up connections or
providing me with lots of love, food, and tearful laughter. Nertila Pahumi, Jonida Nuredini,
Klaudia Muraku, Prof. Edlira Haxhiymeri and family, Elona Elezi and family, provided needed
camaraderie and perspective, when the going sometimes got rough.
Portions of this research, which I eagerly hope to continue in the future, were conducted
at the American Research Institute in Istanbul and the Başbakanlık Ottoman Archives. Indeed, I
mourn the inability to return to ARIT’s heavenly abode, cozily nestled in the Albanian village on
the Bosphorus shore. My brief but short research stays there were made pleasant and insightful
by Joshua White and Fariba Zarinebaf, both of whom spent time to introduce me to the two
facilities and led me to think about future research projects.
None of the back-and-forth that this project has amounted to would have happened
without the coordination, swift attention to detail, kindness, and always smiling faces of the
History Department staff, especially Lorna Altstetter and Kathleen King. They have been
dependable both here in Ann Arbor and during my years abroad, often reducing potential
bureaucratic mishap to sweet nothings.
The project has grown in large part because of the generous support of units within the
University of Michigan, and outside institutions. Funding from the History Department, the
Rackham Graduate School, the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, the Center for Russian
and East European Studies, and finally the Institute for Research on Women and Gender kicked
off preliminary archival research and funded return research trips to the United States, Albania,
and Turkey, between 2009 and 2014. A Fulbright Research Fellowship, administered by the
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Institute for International Education, funded the heavy chunk of my thirteen months of research
in Albania. Then in the fall of 2014, a Charlotte Newcombe Dissertation Completion Fellowship
allowed me to concentrate on writing full time.
Feedback from fellow graduate students and more advanced, senior scholars both at
workshops and numerous academic conferences has often forced me to structure this work,
particularly when it came to thinking about making broader connections. Among these are: the
Graduate Conference for European History and the European History Workshop (2010) at
Michigan, the “Muslim Politics in Comparative Perspective” panel at ASEEES (2012), the
Journal of Women’s History Conference “Changing Feminist Paradigms in the Eastern
Mediterranean” (2013) in Istanbul, the Eastern European Studies Junior Scholars Training
Seminar at the Woodrow Wilson Center (2014), the American History Workshop (2014) at
Michigan, the “Activism during WWI” panel at MESA (2014), the History Dissertation Writing
Seminar at Michigan (2014), and finally the Rackham Dissertation Writing Retreat (2015). I am
deeply grateful to the participants for their questions and conveners for giving me the
opportunity to present my work in concert with those of others who have enabled it to grow:
Minayo Nasiali, Alyssa Reiman, Trevor Kilgore, Katie Rosenblatt, Edin Hajdarpasic, Robert
Donia, Arzu Ozturkmen, Brian Porter-Szucs, Piotr Kosicki, and Emma Flores- Scott, Leslie
Pincus, and John R. Lampe.
Special thanks go to fellow students and friends who have read and critiqued portions of
my work through the years: Yoni Brack, Fabio Busonero, William Burton, Elizabeth Claffey,
Sherry Funches, Asli Gur, Jonathan McLaughlin, Jaymin Kim, Amanda Hendrix Komoto,
Yiping Qian, Kimberly Powers, Alyssa Reiman, Elana Resnick, Elena Shomos, Marie Stango,
and Josh White.
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My family has been there for me at every turn. My parents, Abdulla and Ikbale, made
education the very definition of success after coming to the United States. Single-minded
determination is my father’s greatest gift to me. But I would not have come this far without my
mother’s utter selflessness. She was the same spirit of sacrifice, supporting my father’s continued
education, alongside that of mine and that of my two brothers: Ani and Miri. That she succeeded
in getting us to equitably contribute to each other’s careers and happiness is the greatest
testament of how her efforts have paid off. Over eighteen years, the tough moments have been
countless. But so have the good ones. I am only too happy that my brother and I are concluding
our graduate studies in the same year.

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Table of Contents
Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………. ii
Acknowledgments……………………………………………………………………………….iii
List of Abbreviations......................................................................................................................x
Cast of Characters..........................................................................................................................xi
Timeline.......................................................................................................................................xiii
Chapter 1 Introduction.....................................................................................................................1
Chapter 2 For Christ or Country? Teaching ‘Masonkas’ in ‘Turkey- in- Europe’
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Chapter 3 From Education to Politics: Framing Albanian Independence.....................................99
Chapter 4 Instituti Kyrias: Training “Soldiers of the Nation”.....................................................166
Chapter 5 Which Feminism will be ours? “The Albanian Woman” in Print during the Interwar
Period..........................................................................................................................................229
Chapter 6 Epilogue......................................................................................................................293
Bibliography................................................................................................................................304

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