Albania

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ALBANIA.

ECONOMIC RESOURCES AND TRENDS
INDEPENDENCE
COMMUNISM
POSTCOMMUNISM
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albania, today formally the Republic of Albania, is a small mountainous country situated on the Adriatic coast and bordered to the north by Serbia and Montenegro, to the east by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and to the south by Greece. When Albania first gained independence in 1913 it had a population of 800,000, which grew to 1 million in 1930, 1.4 million in 1955, 1.6 million in 1960, 2.7 million in 1981, and 3.3 million in 1991. Historically, ethnic Albanians have been divided into two major groups—the Gegs, mountaineers who lived in tribal clans in the part of the country north of the Shkumbin River, and the rural Tosks, who inhabited the southern areas. In the early part of the century, the tribal chiefs enjoyed the almost unlimited power of local feudal lords. However, during the interwar period King Zog (r. 1928–1939) managed to centralize power to an extent, and under the post–World War II communist regime suppressed the power of these chiefs altogether. Albania has a significant Greek minority, especially in the southeastern areas of the country. A large number of ethnic Albanians live outside of the borders of the country, in Italy, Greece, Turkey, and especially in Kosovo, a province of neighboring Serbia. Albanians speak two different dialects—the Geg dialect is spoken by two-thirds of the population, as well as Albanians in the neighboring Kosovo province, Montenegro, and Macedonia, while the Tosk dialect is spoken by the remaining third of the population. Ottoman rule had thwarted the development of a literary Albanian language, and a standardized Latin alphabet, which was originally adopted in 1908, was made official by the government in 1924. The interwar government also unsuccessfully tried to create an official language that combined the Geg and Tosk dialects. Under the rule of the communist leader Enver Hoxha (1908–1985), the Tosk dialect (which was Hoxha's native dialect) became the official language of the country.

Traditionally, there were three major religions in Albania—Islam, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Catholicism. Catholics lived primarily in the north, while the central part of the country was overwhelmingly Muslim and the southern part had an equal number of Muslims and Christians in the early 1920s. At end of World War II approximately 80 percent of the population was Muslim, 20 percent Orthodox, and a little less than 15 percent Roman Catholic. Until World War II the Albanian constitution guaranteed religious freedom and did not establish an official religion. Hoxha, considering religion to be a divisive force, launched an active campaign aimed at the eradication of organized religion in Albania by passing the Decree on Religious Communities, which subjugated all religious communities and institutions to the state. This decree nationalized church property, violently repressed the clergy, and outlawed the practice of religion. Realizing that Hoxha's campaign had met with limited success, in the mid-1980s his successor, Ramiz Alia (b. 1925), relaxed this virulently antireligious stance and in December 1990 revoked the ban on religious observance.

ECONOMIC RESOURCES AND TRENDS

From the beginning of independence Albanian statehood was thwarted by lack of economic development and severe poverty. In 1920 the country's lack of railroads and its insufficient roadways thwarted commerce. Furthermore, an underdeveloped educational system resulting from the ban on Albanian schools during Turkish rule hindered social and economic development. A small percentage of the population was educated in foreign schools and the development and nationalization of the school system was not achieved until the mid-1930s. Albania's economic situation largely dictated its political path, as it had to be dependent on outside powers for economic assistance. Between 1925 and 1939 Albania was subsidized and controlled by fascist Italy, which, among other measures, founded the Albanian National Bank and the Society for the Economic Development of Albania. Despite or perhaps due to Italian interference Albania remained an agricultural country with virtually no industrial development and its natural resources were untapped. Moreover, the Italians used their economic presence to gain political domination of Albania. Under communist rule Albania relied first on Yugoslavia, then the Soviet Union, and then China, for aid. However, beginning in 1976 the Albanian government followed an economic policy of "self-reliance," essentially autarky, and prohibited the acceptance of aid from any capitalist source. Through a series of five-year plans the government sought to increase productivity, exports, and self-sufficiency in food, but these measures did not meet with long-term success. By the mid-1980s Albania's economy was on the precipice of a major fall. In 1990, after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the government moved toward decentralizing economic reform, but the measures proved to be insufficient and the economy collapsed. Between 1992 and 1996 the Albanian government implemented a macroeconomic stabilization program, which, with the help of strong leadership and popular compliance, brought about substantial economic progress. However, the national economy met with yet another significant setback when a network of pyramid schemes collapsed in 1997.

INDEPENDENCE

Albania was first recognized as an independent state in 1913 with the Treaty of Bucharest, which ended the Second Balkan War. It was organized under the protection of the Great Powers as a constitutional monarchy, and led by Prince William of Wied (1876–1945), a German army captain. As early as the summer of 1914 uprisings against the prince succeeded in divesting him of power. After the outbreak of World War I Albania fell into a state of political chaos. In September 1914 Prince William left Albania to fight with the German army on the eastern front.

During World War I Albania was occupied by at least seven foreign powers, and was used as a bargaining chip in the creation of wartime alliances. In 1914 Serbia and Montenegro occupied parts of northern Albania, Greece occupied southern Albania, and Italy occupied Vlorë. When Serbia was defeated in 1915, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria occupied two-thirds of the country. Furthermore, the Great Powers partitioned Albania in the secret Treaty of London, promising land to Italy, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro, leaving only a small autonomous state in the central regions that also would be under Italy's control. At the end of the war most of Albania was in Italian hands. However, the Albanians sent a delegation, which included members from Albanian émigré communities, to the Paris Peace Conference in order to oppose the partitioning of their country and regain their independence, which they managed to secure with the support of Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924). In 1920 Albania was admitted into the League of Nations as a sovereign country and the Italians withdrew.

The early interwar period saw a power struggle for political control of Albania, primarily between the Orthodox bishop Fan S. Noli (1882–1965) and Ahmed Zogu (1895–1961), both members of the Popular Party. Noli was a western-minded liberal who had been educated at Harvard and had strong ties to the Albanian expatriate movement in the United States. Zogu, the son of a chief of a central Albanian Muslim tribe, was politically conservative. Both men held offices in the government formed by the Popular Party in 1921; Noli served as foreign minister and Zogu as internal affairs minister. However, they quickly came into conflict. In 1922 Zogu became premier and with his supporters organized the Government Party. In response, Noli and like-minded leaders organized the broadly based Opposition Party of Democrats. Even though Zogu's party won parliamentary elections in 1924, an assassination attempt and financial scandal caused him to flee to Yugoslavia, and Noli became prime minister. During his brief time in power, Noli tried to introduce parliamentary democracy and internal economic, social, and infrastructural reforms. However, Zogu, supported by Yugoslav forces to which he had promised territorial gains, regained power, causing Noli to flee to Italy.

In December 1924–January 1925, Albania was proclaimed a republic of which Zogu was elected president for a seven-year term. He ruled with a new constitution that gave him dictatorial powers supported by the military. In 1928 parliament was dissolved with its consent and the constitution was amended to make Albania a kingdom and name Zogu as King Zog I. King Zog began to resist Italian attempts to gain increasing political and economic control of Albania and in 1934 signed trade agreements with Yugoslavia and Greece. Nonetheless, in 1939, no longer able to resist Italian pressure, which aimed at full occupation and colonization of Albania, King Zog and his family fled to London. In April 1939 Albania was united with Italy and declared an autonomous constitutional monarchy with Italian King Victor Emmanuel III (r. Italy 1900–1946, r. Albania 1939–1943) at the helm. When Germany defeated Yugoslavia in 1941 it gave the province of Kosovo, as well as a Greek province that had a small Albanian minority, to Albania. In 1942 two Albanian resistance groups emerged. First came the National Liberation Front, which was organized by the Communist Party, and shortly after Balli Kombetar, which was strongly nationalist. In 1941 the Albanian Communist Party (ACP) was created with the assistance of Yugoslav communists. The supporters of the party came largely from European-educated urban intellectuals and the landless southern peasants. Despite Allied efforts to unite the two resistance groups, they fought openly with each other, and the increasing strength of the National Liberation Front led the Ballists to collaborate with the occupiers. Following the example of the Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980)–led Yugoslav partisans, the National Liberation Front convened the National Congress in May 1944 and created the Antifascist Council of National Liberation, the supreme legislative body, and forbade King Zog from returning to Albania. At the second meeting of the Antifascist Council in October 1944 a provisional government was created and was led by Hoxha, a young European-educated teacher of Muslim Tosk descent. Hoxha was a veteran of the Spanish civil war and a member of the National Liberation Front. Working alongside Hoxha, mainly in his shadow, was Mehmet Shehu (1913–1981), a prominent communist leader in the provisional government.

COMMUNISM

Albania established a communist regime largely under Yugoslav and Soviet tutelage. The communists consolidated control and created a one-party system. In January 1946 the People's Republic of Albania was declared. It was led by Hoxha, who served as party general secretary, prime minister, foreign minister, and commander in chief. Through repression and terror, his government eliminated all opposition and assumed full control of the economy. The internal-affairs minister, Koçi Xoxe (1917–1949), oversaw the purges of the opposition. In 1948, following Tito's split with Joseph Stalin (1879–1953), Hoxha in turn broke with Belgrade, changed the name of the ACP to the Albanian Party of Labor (APL), and entered into closer alliance with the Soviets, who gave Albania economic and military aid. In 1949 Xoxe was secretly tried and executed for being "pro-Yugoslav." Hoxha was a dogmatic Stalinist, and in the 1950s Albania became known as the most Stalinist regime in Eastern Europe. Albania avoided the destalinization process that swept throughout the region following Nikita Khrushchev's (1894–1971) denunciation of Stalin and instead pursued increased repression and centralization, key elements of which were the full collectivization of agriculture, the initiation of a cultural revolution, and the repression of religion. At the same time, Hoxha broke with Khrushchev and began forming an alliance with China, which also opposed the USSR's policies. China replaced the Soviet Union as Albania's source of economic and military aid. Cooperation between the two countries peaked in the 1960s and ended when China began to normalize relations with the United States in 1971. Albania increasingly moved into international isolation, extreme centralization, and internal repression marked by a series of purges in the 1970s. In 1980 Hoxha chose as his successor Ramiz Alia, who assumed responsibilities in 1983 and succeeded Hoxha as president and secretary of APL upon his death in 1985. In choosing Alia, Hoxha overlooked Shehu, who was found dead in 1981. The regime claimed he had committed suicide and denounced him as a spy. Some claim that Hoxha murdered Shehu because he opposed Hoxha's isolationist policies.

POSTCOMMUNISM

Despite Alia's efforts to reform and make his reforms appear democratic, discontent with the APL only grew. In July 1990 thousands of Albanians stormed foreign embassies in Tirana trying to flee the country. This "embassy incident" undercut the legitimacy of the Albanian regime and garnered unprecedented international attention to its problems. In response the regime moved toward liberal reforms and privatization. Largely under the pressure of students and liberal-minded intellectuals, Albania slowly began to move toward political pluralism. In December 1990 the first opposition party, the Albanian Democratic Party (ADP), was formed, and Sali Berisha (b. 1944), a cardiologist and public critic of the communist regime, was elected chair of the party in 1991. That same year multiparty elections were held for the first time since the 1920s. The ADP won 30 percent of parliamentary seats and the APL gained 67 percent, although Alia lost his seat. A few months later Albania passed an interim constitution and changed the name of the country to the Republic of Albania, which was declared to be a parliamentary state. The new republic was led by Prime Minister Fatos Nano (b. 1942), a moderate communist, and Alia as president. Popular protests and strikes forced the resignation of this government. In the 1992 elections the ADP took control of the government and Berisha became president. The government fell in 1997 largely due to corruption and the economic crisis brought on by the collapse of pyramid schemes. The socialists came back into power under President Rexhep Meidani (b. 1944). However, in the 2005 general election, the ADP won the majority in the parliament and Sali Berisha became prime minister. Albania in the twenty-first century continues to face many challenges on the road to democratization and economic reform.