Paper short abstract:

The study is devoted to the analysis of the revitalization of the celebration of Christmas/the birth of a new tradition of seeing off the old year and welcoming the new year among the Albanians of the Balkans. A significant role is played by the factor of the prestige of the "sacred family house".

Paper long abstract:

Albanians in the Western Balkans traditionally practice Sunni Islam (the majority of believers, in Albania 56%) and Christianity in the forms of Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Accordingly, it was impossible to talk about “uniform” rites of the ritual year before - until the beginning of the 21st century. In Albania, unlike in Kosovo and North Macedonia, the ritual practices of the population were greatly influenced by militant atheism, which formally banned religious institutions from 1967 to the early 1990s. After the abolition of all prohibitions, new forms of the ritual year began to take shape. So, the most important event for everyone without exception - both Muslims and Christians, unbelievers and atheists - was the gathering of the family and family visits and meals at the end of the year, the peak of which falls on New Year’s Eve from December 31 to January 1. People of all ages and social status, living both in Albania itself and working abroad (primarily in the EU countries and the USA), contribute to the construction of a new tradition, which has its own specifics in villages and cities. A significant role in the change of ritual practices was played by: 1) the factor of the prestige of the sacred locus – family house; 2) the mechanism of revitalization of tradition, which is activated in the event of artificial interference in the ritual sphere; 3) voluntary or involuntary desire of various communities to museify the past and to construct the future.