Albanian Nationalism after the Cold War: Selected Writings

Albania remained in isolation for fifty years after the Second World War, sealed its borders to preserve the ruling regime from Western Powers and neighboring countries. When the communist regime collapsed in 1992, Albania emerged into a Balkans ravaged by civil war. Tens of thousands of Albanian refugees fled into Albania, leading to a new Albanian national question and calls for a Greater Albania. This resurgence of pan-Albanian nationalism alarmed Albania's neighbors and the international community, but it was far more layered and complex than understood. This collection of papers and essays offers new perspectives on the nature of pan-Albanianism, its aspirations, and the post-Cold War dynamics of the Albanian world.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 210 pages
\n Publication date: 24 June 2021
\n Publisher: Signal Books Ltd
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For nearly fifty years after the end of the Second World War, Albania remained in almost total isolation from the rest of the world. The hard-line communist dictatorship sealed the tiny country's borders in an effort to preserve Albania and the ruling regime from the threat posed by Western Powers and from neighbouring countries and their territorial ambitions. When the communist regime finally collapsed in 1992, Albania emerged into a Balkans ravaged by civil war in neighbouring Yugoslavia, which spread into the regions bordering Albania inhabited by significant ethnic Albanian minorities. As the war ignited in Kosova, tens of thousands of Albanian refugees fled into Albania, which itself was suffering violent internal conflict. Albania had entered the post-communist world in an impoverished and broken state, immersed in civil strife between the new quasi-democratic government and the opposition socialists, which culminated into virtual civil war in 1997 that pitted northerners against southerners with more than 4,000 deaths. Amidst the chaos, the disintegration of Yugoslavia ignited a new Albanian national question that had lain dormant since 1945. There were calls for the creation of a Greater Albania to incorporate Yugoslavia's Albanian minorities within the Mother state, which was to also include an area of north-western Greece which had historically been inhabited by ethnic Albanians known as Chams. The Chams were forced to leave their homeland following three distinct phases: the first during the Balkans Wars 1912-14; the second resulting from the Greek-Turkish population exchanges in the 1920s; the third at the end of the Second World War. The calls for a Greater Albania alarmed Albania's neighbours and the international community, who viewed it as a serious threat to regional stability.

\n Weight: 362g\n
Dimension: 143 x 215 x 22 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781909930926\n \n