Recommendation about speakers with limited space behind

Hello all, this is my first post. I see that there is real expertise here, so I hope some of you don't mind spending some time helping a noob.

(This paragraph is background story, you can skip it to go to the actual question). When I was little, my parents had a great hi-fi system and I used to enjoy the great sound. It really made a difference. Unfortunately, in more recent stages of my life, I have never had good quality systems for several reasons (the proliferation of mp3, economic factors, lack of space, etc.) But now I would like to build a decent system. Probably not as good as that one (I don't have the space for it), but as good as I can. For that purpose I'm looking at amps, etc., but the part of the setup where I have the most doubts is the speakers.

In principle, I would really like the speakers to be Monitor Audio, mainly because my parents' speakers were that brand and I loved the sound. Probably this doesn't make much sense because those speakers were from the 80s and whatever I buy now won't have much to do with that, but I have a soft spot for them.

The great problem is space. The speakers would need to be placed on a bookshelf. I know bookshelf speakers are misnamed and a bookshelf is not optimal, but that's what I have for now (I don't think I can negotiate a better space with the partner - I prefer to not spend too much negotiation points in this and save them for the inevitable future subwoofer instead). The bookshelf space is about 32 cm deep and 33 cm high.

In this space, in principle I could fit the Monitor Audio Bronze 1 or the Silver 50 (unfortunately the Bronze 2, which would seem ideal as they are front-ported, don't fit). Both of these speakers are back-ported. The Bronze 1 is 20.5 cm deep, which would leave around 11 cm of clearance to the back of the shelf, which I guess is not much (from what I have read, people seem to recommend more). The Silver 50 is higher range but it's 27 cm deep, leaving 5 cm, even worse.

So my questions are: (1) placing any of these speakers in such a space would just be somewhat suboptimal but they would still sound good if it's the place I have, or it would be sacrilege comparable to mixing champagne with water and drinking it to the plastic glass? Does it make sense at all or would I be wasting my money by placing them in such a place? (2) can the port bungs mentioned in both speakers' manual help?, and (3) provided I buy one of these models, which should I go for? I'm OK with paying the extra money for the Silver 50 over the Bronze 1, but obviously if they're actually going to sound worse (due to having less room behind, 5 cm vs. 11 cm, and also less room on top if that matters) it wouldn't be worth it.

Thanks in advance.