The article, in the paradigm of cultural studies, examines the role of jewellers’ workshops in preserving traditions, significant institutions of public life and cultural memory of Albanians in Kosovo at the beginning of the 21st century. The city of Prizren, chosen as a case study, is the most important urban centre in terms of cultural attraction on the territory of Europe’s youngest state (with limited sovereignty). For Albanians in the Balkans, traditional jewellery for women and men, made mainly of silver using filigree techniques, is a marker and symbol of ethnic (related to the people), national (directly associated with state ideology) and regional (important for all the Balkans) culture. The workshops of jewellers who preserve centuries-old traditions are firmly associated with the cultural code of the city and are included by the residents of Prizren in the composition of the main loci of historical heritage.
Prizren; Albanians of the Balkans; jewellers’ workshops; filigree; cultural code; traditions and ideology of nation-building.