Internalizing Europe:Albanian Perceptions of the Continent in

Historical Perspective (1878–2008)Adrian Brisku

Research Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy

Abstract • This article argues that post-socialist Albanian myths and images sur-rounding the concept of Europe need to be considered from a triadic dimension of (geo)politics, modernities, and cultural identity as well as within a larger his-torical perspective of the modern Albanian political and intellectual landscape. Seen from a perspective stretching from the late nineteenth century to the pres-ent, a triadic Europe appears pluralistic with continuous as well as contested im-ages and narratives. Yet, behind these images and narratives stands one constant understanding of the continent: a political and military power and prosperously untamed marketplace through which Albanians have attempted to navigate their modern existence.

Keywords • Albanianness, culture and civilization, European modernities, geopoli-tics, modern Albania, Ottoman legacy, political Europe

The contemporary omnipresence of the concept of Europe, both within and external to the continent, is not to be underestimated,

be it in various spheres of public life, social politics, and the media, or a number of academic domains. This could be attributed largely to the European historical legacy of the nineteenth century: the rise of Eu-ropean dominance on the world scene through its political, economic, technological, and cultural developments, as well as colonial expan-sion, followed by its subsequent decline in the twentieth century as a result of two world wars and the Cold War divide.1 It could also, however, be linked to the emergence of the European Union, which because of—and despite—its declining dominance on the world scene in the late twentieth century has nevertheless created new political, economic, and cultural dynamics in the post–Cold War era affecting

Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society Volume 1, Issue 2, Autumn 2009: 97–124 © GEIdoi: 10.3167/jemms.2009.010205 ISSN 2041-6938 (Print), ISSN 2041-6946 (Online)

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the lives and catching the imagination of millions of its inhabitants around the turn of the twenty-fi rst century. Contingent to this new historical reality, a number of discourses have emerged surrounding the concept of Europe, from both public and academic points of view, seeking to defi ne its signifi cance, identity, and borders. These wide-ranging discourses largely generate, on the one hand, narratives that depict teleological and ahistorical images of Europe (i.e., myths), in the domains of identity and civilization, and on the other hand, nar-ratives that stress the existence of contested and pluralistic views of Europe.2

A similar process of European identity construction coating the post-socialist Albanian identity is well underway in modern Alba-nia, triggered by the country’s expressed desire to join the political and economic structures of the EU. This aspiration enjoys widespread support among the Albanian population,3 while concrete political steps have already been taken by successive Albanian governments toward this process, the latest example being the 2006 signing of the Stabilization Association Agreement with the EU. As a result, the post-socialist political and intellectual landscape currently cherishes a growing political and economic integration into the EU, while ques-tions related to the meanings of Europe, European identity and civi-lization versus Albanian identity and culture are answered in terms of the dichotomy mentioned above. This approach conveys teleologi-cal and ahistorical images of Europe and the Europeanness of Alba-nian identity such as those illustrated by Aurel Plasari’s booklet The Kidnapping of Europe or Ismail Kadare’s essay “European Identity of Albanians,”4 as opposed to a pluralist approach that criticizes this es-sentialized take on the matter, siding for a more open view of both contemporary Europeanness and Albanianness.5

Embedded in the latter approach, this article goes further by sug-gesting that the post-socialist Albanian myths and images surrounding the concept of Europe need to be considered from a triadic dimen-sion of (geo)politics, modernities, and cultural identity as well as from the larger historical perspective of the modern Albanian political and intellectual landscape. Seen from this perspective, the triadic Europe appears pluralistic with its contested images and discourses. The ahis-torical and teleological post-socialist meanings of Europe, as well as those in the previous periods, can be attributed to a fundamental modern Albanian understanding of Europe in terms of its military and political power and market dominance through which Albanians have attempted to navigate their modern existence.

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The plurality of these images of Europe stems from change and continuity within the geopolitical powers of political Europe between the late nineteenth century and World War II, as opposed to the Ot-toman Empire that determined the existence of the Albanian state. Subsequently, a bipolar political and ideological system emerged: the European Community versus the Eastern communist bloc, the col-lapse of which has led to an eastward expanding EU that post-socialist Albania seeks to join. As a result of these geopolitical changes, another dimension of Europe, its modernities—understood as sociopolitical and economic designs—such as liberal democracy, fascism, and com-munism, have added to Europe’s plurality from an Albanian perspec-tive in the latter’s efforts to either embrace or reject these elements. Each of these discourses, however, has been accompanied throughout by the idea of progress, or the lack of it. These European geopolitical changes and modernities were and are accompanied by assertions with regards to the cultural and civilizational foundations of Europe as well as to Albanianness: assertions oscillating between the entan-gled discourses and myths pertaining to Illyrian legacy, as a contem-porary of Greco-Roman heritage and infl uences from Christianity, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, and rejecting or downplay-ing the Ottoman heritage and Islam.

These images and discourses of Europe within the modern Alba-nian imaginary are captured by the use of written sources such as ex-cerpts from essays; newspaper articles; documents; political, cultural, and literary commentaries; speeches; memoranda; manuscripts; and visual images such as political caricatures published during each of the periods of the analysis. Methodologically this article largely subscribes to principles of constructivism,6 which emphasize the shift from the macro level of empiricism and the analysis of large-scale social struc-tures to an engagement with context, culture, and language.

Europe as the Future

The Mighty and Unreliable Political Europe

The emergence of the Albanian state in the early twentieth century was closely linked to the geopolitical changes occurring within Euro-pean political space during the late nineteenth century and the sub-sequent reaction of the Albanian political and intellectual landscape. These changes primarily had to do with the persistent political and

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military decline of the Ottoman empire within European space and particularly in the Balkans, hence being referred to as the “sick man of Europe,” while the advancement of the geopolitical interests of other European powers—especially those of the British, Russian, and Austro-Hungarian—increased.

Still an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, resident Albanians and particularly their Diaspora,7 came to realize that the Ottoman de-feat in the Russo-Turkish Wars of 1877 and 18788 and increased ter-ritorial threats from its neighboring countries of Serbia, Greece, and Montenegro toward what Albanians considered their ethnic lands, signaled their need for defense on the part of the Great Powers of Eu-rope. Although modern national consciousness, referred to by Alba-nian historiography as Rilindja Kombëtare (National Renaissance), had been brewing for most of the second half of the nineteenth century as a result of the activities of nationalist intellectuals in the Diaspora, the fi rst political demands for recognition of the modern Albanian na-tion-state were crystallized with the establishment of the fi rst modern political and military alliance in 1878—the League of Prizren.9 The League enhanced the political visibility of Albanians, who were now in a position to envisage a political “divorce” from the Ottoman em-pire and a reintegration into European political and military space. In this light, political Europe came to be seen as an entity that was all too powerful yet not entirely reliable as far as initial support of Albanian political independence and its later preservation were concerned.

For Ottoman-Albanian intellectuals such as Sami Frashëri, who contributed to both Albanian and Turkish nationalism,10 and politi-cians such as Ismail Qemali, the Great Powers represented hope at a time when Albanians were seeking a complete rupture from the Em-pire. On the eve of the twentieth century, Frashëri, in his canonical text titled Albania: Past, Present, Future (1899), asserted that the Alba-nian nation—the oldest in Europe—had nothing in common with the Turkish people: “We are neither Turks nor did we arrive from the des-erts of Asia. We are the oldest nation of Europe; we have more rights upon the land of Europe than any other nation.”11 For him Albania was part of the European space that would soon be modernized and integrated. Most important, he was certain that Europe would sup-port Albania’s independence claims against Turkey, while the empire would bow to pressure from the Great Powers. “Turkey will listen and concede to them whether it likes it or not, and Europe will help as it has done for other nations, pressurizing Turkey to return them their rights.”12 Qemali recalls in his memoirs:

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Having lost all hope of doing anything salutary for Turkey, all my efforts, as well as those … [of] other Albanian patriots, were devoted to the task of try-ing to save Albania from the disaster which we now realized was inevitable. From this period until 1908 I spent most of the time in Brussels, though I made several journeys to Greece, Italy, and England on missions connected with the service of my country.13

A signifi cant section of the Albanian local elite—politically con-servative fractions from North Albania and Kosovo—did not share the enthusiasm of cosmopolitan Albanians. They distrusted the Great Powers and opposed the idea of independence, instead calling for more autonomy within the confi nes of the empire. In fact, the tra-ditional rights of virtual self-government that they already enjoyed were better preserved, while the Europeanizing reforms of Tanzimat14 undertaken by the Ottoman government15 were to be halted. In spite of these opposing views, the cosmopolitans, who had been relying on the willingness of the Great Powers to support their cause, succeeded in proclaiming independence on November 28, 1912, not only as a re-sult of their haggling with political Europe, but also due to their efforts and support from the people. However, the whole political spectrum showed dismay at the decision of the Great Powers not to include the other mainly Albanian-inhabited territories of Kosovo and Western Macedonia in their fi nalizing of the new state’s borders in 1913.

Albania had become part of the European political space as a neutral state under a ten-year protectorate from the Great Powers.16 As the guarantors of the newly born Albanian state, political Europe also decided to appoint a German prince, Wilhelm von Wied, to rule the new state as of February 1914.17 Upon the arrival of the prince in the country, prominent politician and intellectual Theofan S. Noli renewed optimism regarding political support from Europe, in the belief that Europe would strengthen the new state and enlarge its borders to include the Albanian-inhabited territories that had been omitted.18 In his view, by accepting the German prince as ruler of the country, the political elite had embarked on establishing “a free, civi-lized and European Albania.”19 Faik Konica, another prominent na-tionalist intellectual, was unsure that the interests of Albania would coincide with those of political Europe, which appeared to be rather fond of the old maxim, “divide and rule.”20

This sense of ambivalence toward Europe was upheld throughout the interwar period. As the new state began to breathe and function in the wake of World War I, many Western countries, particularly Italy and Britain, showed increased political and economic interest in the

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country, while the Empire had all but disappeared with the subse-quent emergence of the Republic of Turkey, which was less intrusive into Albanian affairs. With a seemingly calm geopolitical scene, the Albanian elite could fi nally focus on European-style state-building, political stability, the strengthening of state institutions, and elements of democratization.21 However, the country was subject to internal political instability until the mid-1920s, when Ahmet Zogu came to power. Having held the posts of minister, prime minister, and presi-dent, he moved on to proclaim himself King Zog I in 1928, rendering Albania a constitutional monarchy. To demonstrate his Europeanness, “Zogu abandoned his Turkic name of Ahmed, together with the ‘u’ from Zogu, and crowned himself as ‘Zog I, King of the Albanians.’”22

Distrust toward the Great Powers would become stronger, while the economic and political pressure accumulating from fascist Italy in the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s had transformed the coun-try into Italy’s de facto colony. Retrospectively, for a while Albanians had the illusion that despite the Italian encroachment, the rest of Europe would support their country’s sovereignty. When French dip-lomats proposed the idea of the European Union on May 17, 1930, the Albanian government reacted with some reservations yet also with desire and hope.23 The Albanian government, who were under no illusions regarding the scale of its country’s role in the affairs of political Europe, considered that a common European responsibility would be necessary when dealing with threats.24 Nonetheless, Benito Mussolini’s army invaded the Albanian kingdom on April 9, 1939. A day earlier, King Zog had held talks with the U.S. ambassador in Tirana expressing his despair and disappointment at the Italian ag-gression and the betrayal by the rest of political Europe, especially Britain, in having abandoned his country.25

Indeed, Albania’s achievement and subsequent loss of indepen-dence revealed the volatility of the European political space and the drama of the Albanians in learning how to navigate their modern fate vis-à-vis the mighty and unreliable Europe. Still, the concept of Eu-rope remained appealing within the Albanian political and intellectual landscape because of its other dimension: its modernities. Despite the fact that the Albanians were unable to guarantee the country’s self-preservation via backing from the Great Powers, nostalgia for the old times of the Ottoman empire was limited, largely because the dream for prosperity and progress would be more tangible through accessing of the European socioeconomic space.

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Multiple European Modernities and Albanian Backwardness

Although the political dimension of Europe inspired a rather am-biguous attitude and eventually a destructive force for the nascent Albanian statehood, the discourse of European modernities, initially liberal capitalism, had been enticing the Albanian Diaspora for some time already. As mentioned above, a signifi cant section of the Otto-man-Albanian ruling elite in the Albanian-speaking territories had also been opposed to the modernizing efforts undertaken by the Ottoman empire via the Tanzimat reforms. Nonetheless, the liberal modernity narrative—implying sociopolitical change, technological innovation, and prosperity—had been channeled into the late Otto-man and post-independence Albanian discourses. The projected vi-sion of future progress “radiating” from Europe was contrasted to the sociopolitical and economic backwardness of the Empire and later to that of independent Albania.

To Frashëri, who had supported the modernization efforts of the Empire, cultural differences between Christianity in Europe and Islam in the East—mainly the Ottoman space—were not the obstacles in the transference of European modernity in the East and its allevia-tion from backwardness.26 Accordingly, backwardness, ignorance, and primitivism in the Muslim populations, he claimed, was due to the lack of political will on the part of both European and Muslim gov-ernments in providing opportunities for them to acquire technologi-cal skills and work, thus becoming “civilized.”27 Qemali, however, did not share Frashëri’s optimism, especially when European liberalism called for fundamental changes within Ottoman society. Although he advocated political reform and European style, he was skeptical as to whether these liberal reforms could mix well with Ottoman politics and people. Although for him liberal politics in Europe were an ex-pression of “luxury,” this type of politics could be extremely danger-ous in the autocratically run countries of the East.28

The Albanian desire for independence also entailed the idea of speeding up the process of modernity autonomously rather than merely as a part of the Empire. During the interwar period, pre-inde-pendence liberalism had bifurcated into conservative and moderate sociopolitical versions, while the Italian fascist modernity remained in the back seat until the occupation. Known for his authoritarian approach to politics, the Albanian King was keen to depict himself as the great European reformer and modernizer in the face of the social

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and economic backwardness of his country. One of his apologists de-picted him in such terms:

Recent historical events have shown that Albania, as an integral part of Eu-rope, could no longer live, isolated, the life of the Middle Ages. Thus His Maj-esty, King Zog, has arrived at certain convictions for reforms … to leap over the distance that separates the Middle Ages from the twentieth century.29

It was this gap between Albania’s backwardness and European mo-dernity that both politicians and intellectuals sought to erase from the Albanian reality. For Zavalani, Albania still remained a “backward” country. He called for modernization by implementing the best part of the European experience rather than go through the same errors Europe had committed earlier.30 This idea suited Zog well, who in the wake of his inauguration as king in 1928, argued for a guided approach to introducing progress to his underdeveloped society, while underscoring the crucial role Italy could play in this process. He stated:

We have to take our position into consideration. In terms of civilization, we are centuries behind Europe. People cannot read and write; only few writ-ten laws are respected … in many parts of the country. I am committed to civilizing my nation and forcing it to accept Western ways and rules. Today we cannot do this without help. … This time Italy is helping us out.31

Ironically, fascist Italy was not convinced that Zog could bring social and economic progress to the country, especially the fascist kind of modernity and progress. Consequently, Mussolini’s Italy embarked on on a “benevolent mission” of “modernizing and civilizing” Albania by occupying it. As an imposed replacement of nascent native liberal-ism, the fascist project was also bound to fall short with the collapse of the occupation, revealing the procrastination of Albanian back-wardness. The failure of these visions of modernities, which were open enemies of each other, opened up the path for a new vision of modernity in post–World War II Albania—that is communism, which had been lingering for some time in Europe and had challenged the foundation of European market power.

East, West, or In-between

One byproduct of geopolitical shifts and aspiration to European pros-perity during the late nineteenth century was the molding and sub-

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sequent reconfi guration of modern Albanianness, a process that produced tense discourses in Albania regarding the attributes of Al-banianness within the wider contexts of European narratives of East and West, Christianity and Islam. When the members of the League in Prizren sent a memorandum opposing the decisions of the 1878 Congress of Berlin, they emphasized, “just as we are not and do not want to be Turks, so we shall oppose with all our might anyone who would like to turn us into Slavs or Austrians or Greeks. We want to be Albanians.”32

Interestingly, despite their claims to a distinct Albanianness, in-tellectuals and nationalists construed it as part of European culture and Europeanness. Albanianness and Europeanness were bridged by evoking the myths of ancient Illyrians, Greeks, and Romans, and Christianity, as a space of Indo-European language affi nities, while associations with the East and Islam were downplayed or neutral-ized. Vaso Pasha, for instance, a high-ranking Ottoman-Albanian ad-ministrator who was also an active member of Rilindja Kombëtare (National Renaissance), saw European culture as an entity with which Albanian identity, history, and political future shared strong commonalities. In his book published in French in 1879, he justifi ed Albania’s belonging to Europe through their shared ancient history of thirty centuries—the encounter with the Ottoman empire being comparatively recent, and Christianity. He did not consider religious diversity among the Albanian population, which was Muslim, Ortho-dox, and Catholic, to be of great importance because “thirty centuries ago [it had been] the oldest nation in Europe and the less mixed race of all known races” and was able to preserve its language without literature or a developed civilization.33 He did, however, explain the religious make-up of Albanians prior to the Ottoman rule: “[B]efore the Ottoman occupation, [Albanian] Muslims were nothing but Or-thodox Christians, who by desire or interest embraced Islam, like all the Muslim of the Higher Albania who were nothing but Catholics converted to Islam.”34

The more imminent the geopolitical urgency for Europe’s back-ing, as on the eve of independence, the sharper the location of Alba-nianness in the West. Furthermore, the religious reality of the time, unlike in Pasha’s depiction, was predominantly Islam, which was seen at odds with the perceived traits of Europeanness. Konica, for instance, called for a readjustment of Albanian cultural traits in ac-cordance with Europeanness. In an article titled “A Short Warning to Mohammedans” published in his journal Albania in 1909, Konica

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discussed fi ve ways for Albania to become “European,” including in-structions such as “either return to the religion of your forefathers [i.e., Christianity], or remain Mohammedans but being united with so much realness and heart with Christians of your blood, so that you could give your nation a semi Christian character.”35 Soon after Alba-nia had been declared independent, Konica sent a message to Ismail Qemali, who was organizing the fi rst Albanian government, asking him to orientate the country toward the European cultural and politi-cal space, not as an Oriental country but as a European one.

We would request, being the occasion, not to make Albania an oriental state like … Afghanistan, Tunisia, etc. Keep as an ideal for Albania countries like Norway, Denmark, Holland and Belgium. That is why we would rather want a prince of a European king family, who could link us with Occidental tradition.36

During the interwar period the emphasis on Islam as an obstacle to “Europeanness” gradually subsided, largely because the country’s independence had been reconfi rmed by the Great Powers in the wake of World War I. However, most of the discourses on Europe as a “Christian club” of nations and its shared Greco-Roman heritage persisted. In this vein, intellectuals sought to emphasize examples demonstrating great contributions of Albanians to European civili-zation. The most paramount example enjoying regular appearances throughout modern history lessons was the fi fteenth-century na-tional hero, Gjergj Kastriot-Skanderbeg, who freed medieval Albania from Ottoman rule, put up resistance for twenty-fi ve years, and was praised as the defender of Christianity against the Turks. In the words of the early twentieth-century poet, Gjergj Fishta,

The greatest kingdoms wanted to have Skanderbeg as their friend: the na-tions wanted to set close ties with a tiny Albania and the Hapsburgs sought his help, the Pope of Rome wants to leave St. Peter residency to come to Albania to coronate him king and name him chief of all the military powers of Europe that would fi ght against the Turks.37

Intellectual discourse, however, shifted from directly scapegoat-ing Islam to a general critique of the Albanian “Eastern” mentality. For the prominent intellectual Branko Merxhani, a key fi gure of the neo-Albanians cultural and intellectual movement, the country was oriented more toward European than toward Eastern civilization. In an article titled “People and Intellectuals,” while arguing that intel-lectuals should have a leading role in changing the mentality of the

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people, he emphasized that the Eastern mentality needed to be re-placed by “none other than the Occidental civilization. This civiliza-tion has penetrated us and deeply we are part of it.”38 Even those who recognized the historical legacy of East and West infl uences on Albanian culture and history did not subscribe to the idea that the future of Albanianness was an in-between situation. As the distin-guished linguist Eqrem Çabej noted, “This middling positioning be-tween West and East, together with its preserved ethnic nature had created a special face of Albania. Even the Turkish rule was not able to erase it. … Presently, Albania has been oriented more to the West than its neighbors.”39

The Socialist Period—A Divided Europe: From Weak Political Europe to the Reality of European Integration

In the wake of World War II, the geopolitical situation in Europe could not have been more altered. Following the defeat fi rst of fascist Italy and then Nazi Germany by the Allied Forces the power of political Europe waned toward the end of the war, with the two victorious power—the United States and the Soviet Union—representing two competing sociopolitical versions of modernity: liberalism and commu-nism. Albania had managed to regain its national sovereignty through the larger outcome of the war as well as through native—largely com-munist—resistance to the Italian and German occupations.

The Albanian communists came to power in 1945, and remained there until 1990. Under Enver Hoxha’s communist rule with a one-party political system and an orthodox Stalinist socialist modernity, the country entered a long period of isolation and austerity. Linking the survival of his regime to the sovereignty and existence of the country, Hoxha upheld a heavy-handed approach toward the inter-nal political opposition and independent intellectuals, while those in a position to escape left the country.

With the subsequent emergence of the Cold War geopolitical di-vision of the European continent into the capitalist West and com-munist East, the Albanian communist elite found itself in the most outspoken role in geopolitics since the beginning of modern history. Initially siding with the communist bloc in which the regime navi-gated a series of broken alliances with Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and China, Hoxha’s socialist Albania claimed to stand alone and build communism in the face of a divided Europe.

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Meanwhile, the image of political Europe changed from an ambig-uous, threatening and not fully trustworthy entity to a weak political power serving as a playground for the interests of the two superpow-ers—the United States and the Soviet Union. Initially, while com-munist Albania was on good political terms with the USSR, only the United States had “tamed” political Europe, where it was needed to undermine the proletarian movements within. A 1953 in the commu-nist megaphone, Zëri i Popullit, criticized the U.S. role toward Europe.

In the West and everywhere rules the yoke of capital, American weapons, military bases, American troops, testing not only the aggressive aims of Wall Street against of camp of peace, but also the weakness of the bourgeoisie [European], which in order for to stand the winning attacks of the work-ing masses calls for the help of the gangsters beyond the ocean [United States].40

When the regime broke its ties with the USSR in 1960, having been a member of the Warsaw Pact Hoxha covered his fear for his regime in the light of de-Stalinization and the increasing isolation of his coun-try with a depiction of his Albania as the most revolutionary corner of the continent. He propagated Albania as revolutionary against the conglomerate of elements ranging from volatile to dangerous alleg-edly constituting the rest of the continent, including the USSR: mo-nopolistic capital, imperialism, Italo-German fascism, opportunistic traitors, social chauvinists, and other anti-Marxist groupings.41

After Hoxha’s death in 1985, his successor Ramiz Alia pursued a similar narrative, with an even more neutral depiction of political Eu-rope. To him Albania was a European country concerned about the political situation of the continent, which, he claimed, was weakened by the military presence of the superpowers.42 Concerned for the sur-vival of the regime linked directly to the survival of the country, Alia considered the military and political situation in Europe to be as inse-cure as it was in Albania. This military presence, he asserted, did not provide security but rather insecurity: time had shown that political and military blocs supported by two superpowers could not guaran-tee peace and security in Europe.43

Parallel to the perception of a weak political Europe, the com-munist narrative also featured a negative image of the European Community, which was seen as a vehicle of U.S. domination, a re-grouping of the Western European countries against socialist coun-tries, initially including Albania. Great reservations were expressed regarding the project of European “unifi cation”—the creation of a

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Common European Market and Euroatom—seen as opportunities for Western European capitalist circles to create closed groups against so-cialist countries. Accordingly, under the umbrella of “United Europe,” capitalist Europe sought to distract their people from the real issues of European security, general disarmament, and the free market.44 The communist narrative thus became a shadow of its former self, sub-

Figure 1. NATO and the Warsaw Pact are depicted as militarized birds eating from the same cup—“Europe.” Source: “Binjaket” [The Twins], Hosteni (Tirana), October 11, 1972, 16.

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ordinate to the whims of the capitalist United States and revisionist USSR, while Albania remained threatened, yet ideologically the most pristine corner of Europe.

Superior Communist European Modernity and Its True Proponents

The narrative of communist modernity gained dominance within the strictly controlled political and intellectual landscape. Albania had embraced a superior path from European modernity—socialism, to communism as explained by the teachings of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine in which progress and prosperity were guaranteed under the guidance of the Albanian Labor Party. This Soviet-inspired Albanian socialist modernity was hailed against the perceived brutality of the liberal capitalist modernities in Western Europe, the bankrupt fascist modernities, and later against what Hoxha considered a perverted streak of communist modernity: revisionism. In this narrative, unlike in the previous period, the concept of backwardness that had hith-erto been inherent conceded to one of swiftly approaching progress. Albanians were thus not concerned about being excluded from the European marketplace because their modernity was—allegedly—the most humane and prosperous.

Thus, the depiction of an inhumane Western European capitalist modernity comes as no surprise. Its bourgeoisie allegedly sought to re-main in power by exploiting its people through liberalization, compro-mise, reforms, and political freedoms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, by waiving all compromise regarding the reform of the workers’ movement and creating inhumane institutions detrimental to the well-being of its people. “The conditions today in the countries of Europe are clear proof of what the bourgeoisie is able to do out of fear of losing power. Now the governments of these countries are selling at different levels their national sovereignty to American imperialism.”45

In the light of shifting political alliances in the socialist camp, Hoxha attacked not only European capitalism but also Soviet revi-sionism and Euro-communism.46 In Eurocommunism Is Anti-Com-munism (1979), Hoxha claimed that Euro-communists had joined forces with the Western capitalists and social democrats in attacking Marxism-Leninism:

The Western bourgeoisie does not conceal its enthusiasm over the fact that now the Euro-communist revisionists have got in line with the social democrats and the fascists to attack the revolution, Marxism-Leninism, and

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communism with all their weapons. The capitalists are overjoyed to be pre-paring … an open struggle against the working class and the cause of social-ism in many countries.47

Hoxha considered Europe threatened by the widespread revision-ism sprouting not only in Western Europe but also after the death of Stalin in the socialist camp in which Tito’s regime in Yugoslavia and Nikita Khrushchev’s in the USSR were preparing complots against communist and people’s parties of Europe.48 World capitalism and its servants—the revisionists—were thus seeking to thwart any chances

Figure 2. The caption in Albanian reads: “The fi nancial crisis in the capitalist world is exacerbated.” Source: “Stuhi në Perëndim” [Storm in the West], Hosteni, March 25, 1968, 10.

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for revolution in Europe, Hoxha claimed, while planning capitalist dictatorship.49 Hoxha was careful to emphasize who were the real pro-ponents of progressive European modernity: “We are the only coun-try in Europe and the only communist party that is fi ercely fi ghting and successfully resisting this pressure we are subjected to day and night.”50

The same narrative was propagated by Hoxha’s successor, Alia. Yet the myth of Albania as a beacon of progressive modernity was shattered by the reality of the late 1980s: the country had gone eco-nomically bankrupt while political freedoms had been harshly sup-pressed. The collapse of communist modernity in 1991 would test Albanians as to whether they would fall for yet another vision of European modernity: liberalism.

Selected Europeanness: The Formation of a Socialist Identity

Although in the previous period Albanianness had been constructed with attributes of Europeanness with a denial of any affi nity to the Eastern images, during the socialist period the narrative embedded the national identity even deeper within Western civilization, with only a few confi gurations to suit the political context. Despite the fact that the geopolitical dimensions of East and West connoted a political and ideological divide between the socialist and capitalist camps, for socialist Albanians, the civilization component of “West” meant asso-ciations with the fi fteenth- and sixteenth-century European Renais-sance humanist culture. Because socialist Albania had declared itself an atheist country, there were no references to Christianity while the legacy of secularism was being revered.

In addition to the accepted shared myths of European antiquity, socialist Albanianness was extended to include the Indo-European family of languages, European humanism, and secularism, while omitting religious references, most obviously in depictions of the national hero Skanderbeg as champion of European civilization, re-ferred to as a humanist legacy.

Speaking during a ceremony to commemorate the 500th anni-versary of Skanderbeg’s death, Mehmet Shehu, the longest-serving communist prime minister, stated that the name Skanderbeg re-mained unforgotten for Albanian and European history because for twenty-fi ve years he had led a small nation against the ambitions of

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the strongest empire of the time. He recalled decisive events in the late fi fteenth century in which the Balkan coalitions had failed to re-sist the Ottoman incursions:

The Sultan could continue is victorious march against the West, against Europe. It was exactly these critical and tragic moments not only for the Albanian people but also for the whole European nations, our tiny nation, the smallest in the Balkan peninsula and in Europe, led by Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, took the historical responsibility to liberate the country and to oppose and to block the march of the Ottomans on the Albanian lands, at the gates of Europe. It [the Albanian nation] fulfi lled this historical duty with honor for twenty-fi ve years continuously, during which it had at its helm Skanderbeg.51

As a result, Skanderbeg’s medieval Albania helped European culture toward a fl ourishing humanism. This was especially true posthu-mously, Dhimitër Shuteriqi claims, when many Albanian historians and intellectuals, fearing Ottoman rule, moved to Italy and developed a thriving humanism, which was later to became an integral part of European culture.52 The fi fteenth century was thus also the “epoch of Albanian humanism, which has been involved and has given its precious contribution in the European Renaissance.”53 During this period, Albanianness was constructed as Western to such an extent that in the literary works of the prominent novelist Ismail Kadare, the historical and contemporary enemies of the Albanian nation were similarly depicted with a strong coating of Orientalist discourse. For occidental Albania, the “Orientals” were constituted by Ottoman ob-scurantism, the Scythian Soviet Union, and Genghis Khan’s China.54

Figure 3. An image from the walls of the National Museum Georg Kastriot-Skanderbeg (photograph Adrian Brisku, 2007), describing Skanderbeg, as the defender of European civilization.

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Returning to the ‘Real’ Europe: From Threats and Suspicion to Peace and Security

With the collapse of socialism, the narrative of a divided political Eu rope serving as a playground for the geopolitical interests of the United States and the USSR equally fell apart. For the fi rst time in modern history, the narrative on Europe was constructed positively as a political space which, thanks to its voluntary union, not only posed no threat to the Albanian state but also provided a sense of internal security and stability. The EU in the post-socialist political landscape was therefore admired as a distinct and reliable entity pro-viding territorial integrity and regional peace. Albanians thus sought to integrate their country into Europe’s political structures.

Although President Sali Berisha declared in the early 1990s that the “‘doors of Europe’ would be ‘thrown open to Albanians,’” the EU appeared less keen to reciprocate this enthusiasm.55 As Berisha’s government had failed to benefi t from European investment in the collapsed Albanian economy, many Albanians were beginning to be-lieve that Europe had turned its back on them once again, a situation further exacerbated by the president’s decision to make Albania a member of the Organization of Islamic Conference and thus a poten-tial ally of the Islamic world.56

The EU would become more involved in the Albanian political scene, especially after the 1997 fi nancial crisis, during which the country succumbed to a short but dangerous civil confrontation. Hav-ing lost faith in their own approach to problems, Albanians sought the support of Europe. With the subsequent political stabilizing of the country and closer involvement of the EU institutions, in June 2006 the Albanian government and the European Commission signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) toward advancing the process of integrating Albania into the EU.

For Albanian commentators this meant that Europe had not for-gotten Albania and the centuries’ old dream of becoming an equal member of the European political space was coming to fruition. Con-sequently, not only was the narrative changing; there were also calls to break with both old and new myths surrounding political Europe. An editorial in the Tirana Observer commented on the impact of the SAA, asserting that Albanians should not create myths of “farewell to sovereignty, farewell to classical patriotism, farewell to foreign policy! These are myths or some partial truths.”57 Albanian sovereignty was

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safeguarded inside the EU, suggesting that Albanians ought to discard their long-held historical perceptions of an “inequality of the fates between Albania and Europe.”58 The Tirana Observer concluded that, “In the contemporary conceptualizations, being also well-intended, Albania is understood as a country punished by history. With the signing of the SAA, it is offi cially fi nalized the end of problematic a problematic relationship between Albania as ‘victim’ and Europe as its ‘victimizer.’”59 For Kristo Frashëri the experience of the existing EU member states was a roadmap as to how Albania could forgo some of its sovereignty by pooling it together with the rest of the common Eu-ropean political space, thus ensuring political stability and security.60

The European Union as the Ultimate Benchmark of Modernity

The change to a positive narrative on political Europe went hand in hand with the reintroduction of the discourse of liberal-capitalist mo-dernity as the panacea for post-socialist Albanian society. Albania’s

Figure 4. Anti-government protests in Tirana in February 1997, following the collapse of fi nancial pyramid schemes. © Nikos Economopoulos/Magnum Photos

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political and intellectual elite had geared their country toward im-proved access to European marketplace prosperity during the period prior to the establishment of the communist regime, and a rejection of its inhumane attributes during the socialist period. For the post-socialist period, therefore, the return to real Europe in the modernity dimension meant a return to liberal capitalist modernity. Although this had been a distant dream for intellectuals in the period prior to independence, the political elite of the interwar period had attempted to materialize it, only to stumble over themselves and the imposed fascist visions of modernity.

Consequently, the narrative of liberal-capitalist modernity had been circulating within the modern landscape as visions of British and French sociopolitical and economic designs, only to be backed in the post-socialist realm by the infrastructure of the EU. In this light, the contemporary political and intellectual landscape embarked on promoting the EU with its political and economic benchmarks and standards as the “ultimate” modernity in the advancement of Alba-nian prosperity. Albanians, who had been bitterly disappointed by the falsity of the communist modernity, were widely supportive of

Figure 5. Albanian parliament speaker Jozefi na Topalli at a ceremony to raise the Euro-pean Union fl ag in front of the parliament building in Tirana, June 12, 2007. © Gent Shkullaku/LSA

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this new narrative, as illustrated by the slogan of early 1900s: “we want Albania to be like Europe.”61

Indeed, a great majority of Albanians62 considered the EU to be the path leading “closer to the European standards [assisting] in the establishment of a stable market economy so that Albania gradually takes its place in the construction of the future of Europe.”63

Unlike in the two previous phases, European modernity as embodied by the EU offered concrete steps—the Copenhagen Cri-teria64—that the country could follow in order to “Europeanize,” im-plementing a smooth sociopolitical and economic transition from the legacy of communism to liberal modernity. All Albanian political and intellectual spectra were haunted, however, by the diffi culty of ful-fi lling the European standards and benchmarks. A leading politician commenting on the general election of July 3, 2005, stated that he was “expecting restlessly the fi nal result of this unimaginable mara-thon for a European country—since the moment of the closing of the voting boxes, this process took place completely outside the standards of European democracy and mentality, indicating a shivering back-wardness vis-à-vis the world that we say were are integrating.”65 And while the signing of the SAA was seen as a step closer to the political and modern dimensions of the EU, European leaders had made it clear to the ruling elite that reaching the standards was not an achiev-able contemporary myth but an absolute condition: The question as to whether or not Albania would succeed in holding a free and fair election in 2009 would decide whether Albania was truly on the right track toward EU membership.

The blame for the country’s inability to streamline itself to the prosperity of the European market was directed toward the post-socialist ruling elite, who according to prominent publicist Mustafa Nano, were not able to carry out the Europeanization process. Having placed his hopes on the role nascent civil society was playing here, Nano suggested that “the Europeanization of Albania is a process that will move ahead. One can dictate its rhythm but not its direction. The fact that the Albania and Albanians of today, despite the dramatic developments in the post communist period, are more Europeanized than ten years ago is an evidence of the irreversibility of this pro-cess.”66 He claimed that this political apathy vis-à-vis the process of Europeanization was a product of the Eastern mentality still existent in Albania, suggesting that the difference between Europe and Alba-nia lies not where the westerners look fi rst—religion—but rather in cultural roots.67

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European Civilization and Culture Revisited

This article opened with a critique of the post-socialist narrative that evokes intrinsic values in approximating Albanianness and European-ness, with the emphasis on the discourse surrounding Christian heri-tage as an essential component of European civilization. In a sense, the proponents of this view were drawing on the myths of the pre-socialist period in which Albanianness was defi ned via the categories of East and West, with the decision to orient it toward and depict it as the latter. In this representation, Islam was seen as something of an obstacle to a European civilization based on Christian values. Aurel Plasari, in his contemplations on the French and Dutch rejections of the European constitution in 2004, claimed that Europe was failing to unite politically because it had forgotten what united them: its “soul,” read Christianity. In his “Europe as a Soul,” he viewed European civi-lization as predominantly Christian because “the majority population of Europe has been and remains Christian: Catholic, Orthodox, Prot-estant, and so on; [also] the idea of the United Europe was planted by number of politicians and thinkers with Christian orientation, like De Gasperi, Adenauer, Schuman … Monnet, Spaak, and so on.”68 Solely concentrating on the discourse of Christian heritage caused tension with regard to the make-up of post-socialist Albanianness under-pinned by a multi-confessional but predominantly Muslim society, which was not to be overlooked in the speech of Albanian president Alfred Moisiu:

Albanians are often called a Muslim people or with a Muslim majority. This is a very superfi cial reading of the Albanian reality … Islam in Albania is an Islam with European face. As a rule it is a shallow Islam. If you dig a little in every Albanian you can discover his Christian core.69

This focus on the Christian heritage also led to the resurfacing of the East-West positioning of Albanianness, but this time Rexhep Qosja argued for an equal consideration of the infl uences of both Christian-ity and Islam. Unlike President Moisiu’s claim that Muslim Albanians were in reality Christians, Qosja saw East and West as two real and distinguishable historical clusters, asserting that Albanianness was a unity of both civilizations:

Albanians [culturally] are part of two civilizations: Western and Eastern. … By inhabiting in between East and West, by being occupied by Western and Eastern powers, by being infl uenced from Christian and Islamic civiliza-tions, Albanians have taken what they wanted and did not want, willingly

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or unwillingly. Their culture, their civilization represents a unity of both cultures and civilizations.70

Qosja’s position elicited heated polemics with the prominent novel-ist Kadare who rejected what he called Qosja’s “handicapped” thesis of identity. According to Kadare, it was the existing myths of Greco-Roman and Illyrian heritages, the role of Skanderbeg as champion of European civilization, and the existence of medieval literature written both in Albanian and Latin that rendered Albanianness European.71 This response was a reassertion because it almost repeated the repre-sentation of Albanianness of the socialist period, the only distinction being that Kadare’s evocation of the Skanderbeg myth strictly referred to the defense of secularist and humanist values in the post-socialist context, thus generally implying a defense of Christianity.

Meanwhile, proponents of a pluralist approach criticized this es-sentialist narrative as it reintroduced long-held Albanian historical stereotypes,72 while the European identity narrative within the EU pointed out the fl uid nature of Europeanness.73 As such, European-ness at EU level, which had also been defi ned as “unity in diversity,” rendered the process of “Occidentalizing the past and Orientaliz-ing the present” apparently unproductive.74 As Kristo Frashëri has pointed out, “It has been long time that Europe has not been exclu-sively a Christian space. Europe has always had inside itself for many centuries Muslim inhabitants, in the turn from the fi rst millennium to the second millennium.”75

Conclusion

This historical perspective reveals the continuous mark that Europe has imprinted on modern Albania’s political and intellectual landscapes. Yet this continuity bears a number of fl oating narratives and myths attributed to Europe, which are not “natural givens” but rather “nat-urally in the process of construction,” of redefi nition, omission, con-testation, and internalization. As such, they should be considered in terms of the geopolitical changes in Europe affecting modern Albania, its internal sociopolitical conditions, and the attempts of Albanians to navigate their modern existence in the face of a Europe understood as political and military within a prosperous and untamed market space.

Triadic dimensions of Europe thus point toward the nature of con-tinuity and change that has characterized the modern Albanian po-

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litical and intellectual imaginary. Images of geopolitical dimensions of Europe in the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, in which the Great Powers were ambiguously regarded as being in support of the Albanian state, differed from the communist perception of politi-cal Europe as a tamed aggressor suppressed by the leashes of two su-perpowers. They also differed from the post-socialist positive image of a family of friendly states. Within the domain of modernities, Europe has remained an unaccomplished dream: sociopolitical liberalism initially became unattainable through the inability of the Ottoman empire to adopt it, and continued to be a far-off dream in view of Al-bania’s “backwardness” and the imposition of aggressive fascist moder-nity. Embracing utopian communism during the socialist period was revealed to be a failed and tragic experiment with dire consequences for the country, while fulfi lling the criteria and benchmarks set by the EU still proves to be arduous and time-consuming. In the contexts of culture and civilization, narratives depicting Albanianness as European continuously evoke the myths of Indo-European language, Illyrian an-cestry, a shared Greco-Roman heritage, the values of Christianity, and secularism, all of which have remained in constant tension with the narratives of Oriental culture, Ottoman heritage, and Islam.

Embedded within a constructivist perspective, it is only logical to suggest that Albanian discourses on culture and modernity must be regarded as linked to the political discourses of the relevant period in order to avoid the construction of essentialized images of Europe as well as national identity, culture, and sociopolitical history. As such, present and future images, concepts, and discourses on Europe will continue to be redefi ned and affected by the sociopolitical situations emerging within Europe, and Albanian responses to them.

Notes

1. Felix Gilbert, The End of the European Era: 1890 to the Present (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970), xii.

2. See, for instance, a critique by Bo Stråth, “A European Identity: To the Historical Limits of a Concept,” European Journal of Social Theory 5, no. 4. (2002); see also Bo Stråth, “Europe as Teleology,” in Refl ection on Europe: Defi ning a Political Order in Time and Space, ed. Hans-Ake Person and Bo Stråth (Brussels: PIE-Peter Lang, 2007).

3. George Welton and Adrian Brisku, “Contradictory Inclinations? The Role of ‘Europe’ in Albanian Nationalist Discourse,” in Theorising Social

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Change in Post-Soviet Countries: Critical Approaches, ed. Balihar Sanghera, Sarah Amsler, and Tanya Yarkova (Oxford and New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 87.

4. See, Aurel Plasari, Rrëmbimi i Europës [The Kidnapping of Europe] (Tirana: Shtëpia Botuese “55,” 2005); Ismail Kadare, Identiteti Evropian i Shqi ptarëve [The European Identity of Albanians] (Tirana: Onufri, 2006).

5. See Adrian Brisku, “Occidentalising the Past and Orientalising the Pres-ent: Ismail Kadare’s and President Moisiu’s ‘European’ Albanian Identity,” Albanian Journal of Politics 2, no. 2 (2006): 82–103; Artan Puto, “Fryma Romantike dhe Nacionaliste në Debatin për ‘Identitetin Shqiptar’” [Ro-manticist and Nationalistic Trends in the Debate around “Albanian Iden-tity”], Përpjekja, no. 23 (2006): 13–33; Enis Sulstarova, “Evropa e Ngurtë e Kadaresë” [Kadare’s Essentialized Europe], Përpjekja, no. 23 (2006): 34–51; Piro Misha, “Invention of a Nationalism: Myth and Amnesia,” in Albanian Identities: Myth and History, ed. Stephanie Schwanderner-Sievers and Bernd J. Fischer (London: Hurst & Company, 2002).

6. See Gerard Delanty and Chris Rumford, Rethinking Europe: Social The-ory and the Implications of Europeanisation (New York: Routledge, 2005), 12–13.

7. During this period, the Albanian émigrés communities, whose intellec-tual and political activities played a crucial role in the cementing of mod-ern Albanian political and cultural identity, were spread across many countries such as Southern Italy, Egypt, Bulgaria, Romania, the United States, and most important, in the capital of the Empire: Istanbul.

8. Anton Logoreci, The Albanians: Europe’s Forgotten Survivors (London: Vic-tor Gollancz, 1977), 40.

9. Ibid.10. George W. Gawrych, The Crescent and the Eagle: Ottoman Rule, Islam and the

Albanians, 1874–1913 (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 14–15.11. Sami Frashëri, Shqipëria: Ç’ka Qënë, Ç’është e Ç’do të Bëhëtë? (Albania: Past,

Present and Future) (Prishtina: Rilindja, 1978), 75.12. Frashëri, Shqipëria, 76.13. Sommerville Story, ed., The Memoirs of Ismail Kemal Bey (London: Con-

stable and Company, 1920), 314–15.14. The Tanzimat reforms were started in 1839 by the Ottoman govern-

ment, who were seeking to modernize the Ottoman empire as a way of securing its territorial integrity in the face of growing nationalist move-ments. They envisaged integrating Muslims and non-Muslims into Ot-toman society by giving them some civil liberties and equality.

15. Noel Malcom, Kosovo: A Short History (London: Macmillan, 1998), 8.16. Kristaq Prifti, et al., eds. Historia e Popullit Shqiptar [The History of the

Albanian People], vol. 3 (Tirana: Botimet Toena, 2007), 27–28.17. Prifti, Historia, 58.18. Fan S. Noli, Ligjërime [Discourses] (Tirana: Dudaj, 2002), 80.

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19. Prifti, Historia, 81.20. Gazmend Shpuza, Shqipëria nëpërmjet Ballkaneve dhe Apenineve [Albania

between the Balkans and Apennines] (Tirana: Extra, 1999), 39.21. Ibid., 176–87.22. Miranda Vickers, The Albanians: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris,

1999), 124.23. Shpuza, Shqipëria nëpërmjet Ballkaneve dhe Apenineve, 22–23.24. Ibid., 26–27.25. Prifti, Historia, 365.26. Sami Frashëri, Vepra 1 [Works] (Tirana: Akademia e Shkencave e RPS të

Shqi përisë, 1988), 175.27. Ibid.28. Story, The Memoirs, 172–73.29. Christo A. Dako, Zogu the First King of the Albanians (Tirana: Kristo Luar-

asi, 1937), 159.30. Tajar Zavalani, “Për Një Ideologji Shqiptare” [For an Albanian Ideol-

ogy], in Misioni i Shekullit XX [The Mission of the Twentieth Century], ed. Ndricim Kulla (Tirana: Phoenix & Shtëpia e Librit, 1998), 25.

31. See Besnik Pula, “Ligjërimi Nacionalist Shqiptar dhe Perandoria Fash-iste” [Albanian Nationalist Discourse and the Fascist Empire], Përpjekja no. 23, (2006): 103.

32. Logoreci, The Albanians, 40.33. Vaso Pasha, “La Vérité sur L’Albanie et les Albanais” (The Truth about

Albania and Albanians), in Antologji e Mendimit Shqiptar: 1870–1945 [The Anthology of Albanian Thought: 1870–1945], ed. Ndricim Kulla (Tirana: Plejad, 2003), 46.

34. Pasha, “La Vérité,” 48 (all translations are by the author).35. Plasari, Rrëmbimi i Europës, 109.36. Ibid., 110. 37. Gjergj Fishta, “Skanderbegu e Shqyptarët” [Skanderbeg and Albanians],

in Përndritje: Analiza, Polemika, Kronika [Enlightenment: Analysis, Polemics, Chronicles], ed. Ilir Nikolla (Tirana: GEER, 2000), 61.

38. Branko Merxhani, “Populli dhe Intelektualet” [The Nation and Intel-lectuals], in Vepra [Works], ed. Aurel Plasari and Ndricim Kulla (Tirana: Plejad, 2003), 149.

39. Eqrem Çabej, Shqiptarët midis Perëndimit dhe Lindjes [The Albanians be-tween East and West] (Tirana: MCM, 1994), 19.

40. Arben Puto, “Borgjezia Imperialiste drejt Fashizmit, Luftës dhe Trad-hëtisë” [Imperialistic Bourgeoisie Heading toward Fascism, War and Be-trayal], Zëri i Popullit, January 20, 1953, 2.

41. Enver Hoxha, Dy Superfuqitë [The Two Superpowers] (Tirana: 8 Nëntori, 1986), 107.

42. Ramiz Alia, “Raporti i Shokut Ramiz Alia” [The Report of Comrade Ramiz Alia], Zëri i Popullit, November 4, 1986, 14.

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43. Ibid.44. ATSH, “Në Asamblenë Kombëtare në Francë” [In the National Assembly

of France], Zëri i Popullit, January 17, 1957.45. Arben Puto, “Borgjezia Imperialiste drejt Fashizmit,” Luftës dhe Tradhëti-

sës [Imperialist Bourgeoisie Is Heading Toward Fascism, War and Be-trayal], Zëri i Popullit, 20 January 1953, 2.

46. The debate on the concept of Euro-communism was opened in the mid-1970s. Its theoretical foundations derived from Antonio Gramsci’s writ-ings on Marxist theory criticizing the sectarianism of the Left by urging them to develop social alliances to win hegemonic support for their so-cial reforms. It led to Euro-communist parties in Western Europe, espe-cially in Spain and Italy, distancing themselves from Soviet communist doctrine and at the same time agreeing to work within democratic insti-tutions. See Ernest Mandel, From Stalinism to Euro-Communism: The Bitter Fruits of “Socialism in One Country” (London: NLB, 1978); also see, Er-nesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 2001).

47. Enver Hoxha, Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism (Tirana: Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, 1979), 1.

48. Ibid.49. Ibid.50. Ibid.51. Mehmet Shehu, “Fjala e Shokut Mehmet Shehu” [The Talk of Comrade

Mehmet Shehu], Zëri i Popullit, January 17, 1968, 1.52. Dhimitër S. Shuteriqi, Mbi Barletin dhe Shkrime të Tjera [On Barleti and

Other Works], (Tirana: Shtëpia Botuese “Naim Frashëri,” 1979), 86.53. Mikel Prenushi, Kontributi Shqiptar në Rilindjen Evropiane [The Albanian

Contribution to the European Renaissance] (Tirana: 8 Nëntori, 1980), 7.54. Enis Sulstarova, Arratisje Nga Lindja: Orientalismi Shqiptar nga Naimi

te Kadareja, 2nd ed. [Escaping from the East: Albanian Orientalism from Naim Frashëri to Ismail Kadare] (Tirana: Botimet Dudaj, 2007), 134n35.

55. Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer, Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity (London: Hurst & Company, 1997), 80.

56. Ibid., 105.57. “Integrimi Evropian dhe Mitet e Tij” [European Integration and Its Myths],

Tirana Observer, June 7, 2006, 3.58. Ibid.59. Ibid.60. Kristo Frashëri, Identiteti Kombëtar Shqiptar dhe Çështje te Tjera [The Alba-

nian Identity and Other Issues] (Tirana: Edisud, 2006), 30.61. Mustafa Nano, Europa: Destinacioni X [Europe: Destination X] (Tirana:

Korbi, 2002), 16.62. Welton and Brisku, “Contradictory Inclinations,” 87.

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63. Albanian Youth Network for European Integration (AYNEI), ed., The Eu-ropean Union and Albania (Tirana: 2002), 64.

64. See Stephen George and Ian Bache, The Politics in the European Union (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 413.

65. Edi Rama, “Të Ndryshojmë për të Fituar” [Change Will Bring Victory], Zëri i Popullit, August 26, 2005.

66. Nano, Europa, 62.67. Ibid., 39–40.68. Plasari, Rrëmbimi i Europës, 83–84.69. Alfred Moisiu, “The Inter-Religious Tolerance in the Tradition of Alba-

nian People,” Offi cial Web site of the Albanian President, http://www.president.al, 4, accessed November 2005.

70. Rexhep Qosja, Ideologjia e Shpërbërjes [The Ideolgy of Disintegration] (Ti-rana: Botimet Toena, 2006), 31.

71. Kadare, Identiteti Evropian i Shqiptarëve, 18–23.72. Puto, “Borgjezia Imperialiste drejt Fashizmit, 33.73. Sulstarova, Arratisje Nga Lindja, 49.74. Brisku, “Occidentalising the Past.”75. Frashëri, Identiteti Kombëtar Shqiptar dhe Çështje te Tjera, 40.