Turkey’s Imperial Gaze on the Balkans. Grand Mosques as Restorative Nostalgia

Turkey’s Imperial Gaze on the Balkans: Grand Mosques as Restorative Nostalgia Since the early 1990s, Turkey has been a significant actor in the Western Balkans, but only since the late 2010s has this presence taken the form of highly visible symbolic architectural interventions. Focusing on the central mosque projects in Tirana and Prishtina, this article conceptualises them as material expressions of a Turkish imperial gaze rooted in a domestic project to re-sacralise and dominate urban space. Drawing on qualitative analysis of architectural forms, institutional arrangements, and local contestation, it argues that these mosques have different situated functions: for Ankara, they represent symbols of empire; within Turkey, they operate as instruments of domination; while locally, they acquire more pragmatic and relational meanings. The article theorises this disjuncture as nested imperialism, through which a middle power projects symbolic authority into a hierarchically subordinated region, primarily sustaining a self-referential imperial imagination for Turkish elites and domestic audiences.