Download or read book History of Albania written by Tajar Zavalani and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-01-19 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The History of Albania by Tajar Zavalani (1903-1966) is the first full-length history of Albania to have been written in English. It covers the period from ancient times to the mid-twentieth century and provides the reader with a good overview of the historical development of a Balkan nation, which has to a large extent been ignored, even by scholars and specialists in Southeast European history. Retrieved after fifty years of oblivion, the fruits of Zavalani's imposing project are now available to the reading public for the first time. Tajar Zavalani was born in Korça (Albania) and fled to Italy with the rise of the dictatorship of Ahmet Zogu. There, Soviet agents recruited him and offered to let him study in Russia as a “victim of counter-revolution.” In November 1930, after several years of study in Moscow and Leningrad, he left Russia, about which he now had serious misgivings. After the Italian invasion of Albania in 1939, Zavalani was interned in northern Italy, from where he escaped with his wife, Selma Zavalani (1915-1995), former lady-in-waiting to Queen Geraldine, via Switzerland to France and then in 1940, with King Zog's party, on into exile in England. In November 1940, Zavalani was given a job in the BBC's new Albanian-language service, which he came to head and where he worked until his death in an accident on 19 August 1966. He was a well-known and active figure of the Albanian exile community in Britain. The present History of Albania was composed for the most part between 1961 and 1963.About the Editors:Robert Elsie is an internationally recognized expert in the field of Albanian studies and the author of many books on the history and culture of Albania.Bejtullah Destani is a British-Kosovar scholar and founder of the Centre for Albanian Studies in London. As a diplomat, he has served recently at the Embassies of the Republic of Kosovo in London and Rome.

Download or read book Albanian Identities written by Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors to this study critically de-construct Albanian myths and offer insights into Albanian history and politics. They conclude with contemporary Albanian critiques of the origins and functions of Albanian politics and ideologies.

Download or read book The Fall of the Stone City written by Ismail Kadare and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013. In September 1943, Nazi troops advance on the ancient gates of Gjirokastër, Albania. The very next day, the Germans vanish without a trace. As the townsfolk wonder if they might have dreamt the events of the previous night, rumours circulate of a childhood friendship between a local dignitary and the invading Nazi Colonel, a reunion in the town square and a fateful dinner party that would transform twentieth-century Europe. A captivating novel of resistance in a dictatorship, and steeped in Albanian folklore, The Fall of the Stone City shows Kadare at the height of his powers.

Download or read book Modern Albania written by Fred Abrahams and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early 1990s, Albania, arguably Europe’s most closed and repressive state, began a startling transition out of forty years of self-imposed Communist isolation. Albanians who were not allowed to practice religion, travel abroad, wear jeans, or read “decadent” Western literature began to devour the outside world. They opened cafés, companies, and newspapers. Previously banned rock music blared in the streets. Modern Albania offers a vivid history of the Albanian Communist regime’s fall and the trials and tribulations that led the country to become the state it is today. The book provides an in-depth look at the Communists' last Politburo meetings and the first student revolts, the fall of the Stalinist regime, the outflows of refugees, the crash of the massive pyramid-loan schemes, the war in neighboring Kosovo, and Albania’s relationship with the United States. Fred Abrahams weaves together personal experience from more than twenty years of work in Albania, interviews with key Albanians and foreigners who played a role in the country’s politics since 1990—including former Politburo members, opposition leaders, intelligence agents, diplomats, and founders of the Kosovo Liberation Army—and a close examination of hundreds of previously secret government records from Albania and the United States. A rich, narratively-driven account, Modern Albania gives readers a front-row seat to the dramatic events of the last battle of Cold War Europe.

Download or read book Albanian Literature written by Robert Elsie and published by I.B. Tauris. This book was released on 2005-07-29 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The tender plant of Albanian literature grew in a rocky soil. It was late to evolve and its development, indeed its very existence, was threatened in many periods. "Albanian Literature: A Short History" tells the story of the survival and growth of Albanian creative writing beginning with the earliest thirteenth century texts of Theodor of Shkodra, tracing the development of the modern literature of Buzuku, Budi and Bogdani, the incorporation of the Muslim influences of Frakulla and Kycyku and continuing with the works of Cajupi and Kadare during the reign of King Zog and the Hoxha administration. A unique book that illuminates an under-researched subject, "Albanian Literature" is an essential reference guide for all those interested in Balkan cultures, in comparative literature and in European cultural history in general.

Download or read book Chronicle in Stone written by Ismail Kadare and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masterful in its simplicity, Chronicle in Stone is a touching coming-of-age story and a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. Surrounded by the magic of beautiful women and literature, a boy must endure the deprivations of war as he suffers the hardships of growing up. His sleepy country has just thrown off centuries of tyranny, but new waves of domination inundate his city. Through the boy’s eyes, we see the terrors of World War II as he witnesses fascist invasions, allied bombings, partisan infighting, and the many faces of human cruelty—as well as the simple pleasures of life. Evacuating to the countryside, he expects to find an ideal world full of extraordinary things, but discovers instead an archaic backwater where a severed arm becomes a talisman and deflowered girls mysteriously vanish. Woven between the chapters of the boy’s story are tantalizing fragments of the city’s history. As the devastation mounts, the fragments lose coherence, and we perceive firsthand how the violence of war destroys more than just buildings and bridges.

Download or read book The Albanian written by Donna Mazza and published by Fremantle Press. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rosa is a young woman from a small, country town in Australia who longs for mystery, adventure, and the exotic. She is fatally attracted to a romantic image of Eastern Europe, arriving alone in Dubrovnik in the months before the implosion of the old Yugoslavia. Rosa has no idea of the politics, yet she ends up dangerously drawn into a relationship with a young Albanian on his path to becoming a political refugee. Unable to tease apart destiny, reality, and fantasy, she becomes a captive of her heart and the excitement and danger of the unknown.

Download or read book Free A Child and a Country at the End of History written by Lea Ypi and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the 2021 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction Shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Biography Award The Sunday Times Best Book of the Year in Biography and Memoir A Financial Times Best Book of 2021 (Critics' Picks) The New Yorker, Best Books We Read in 2021 Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2021 A Guardian Best Book of the Year A reflection on "freedom" in a dramatic, beautifully written memoir of the end of Communism in the Balkans. For precocious 11-year-old Lea Ypi, Albania’s Soviet-style socialism held the promise of a preordained future, a guarantee of security among enthusiastic comrades. That is, until she found herself clinging to a stone statue of Joseph Stalin, newly beheaded by student protests. Communism had failed to deliver the promised utopia. One’s “biography”—class status and other associations long in the past—put strict boundaries around one’s individual future. When Lea’s parents spoke of relatives going to “university” or “graduating,” they were speaking of grave secrets Lea struggled to unveil. And when the early ’90s saw Albania and other Balkan countries exuberantly begin a transition to the “free market,” Western ideals of freedom delivered chaos: a dystopia of pyramid schemes, organized crime, and sex trafficking. With her elegant, intellectual, French-speaking grandmother; her radical-chic father; and her staunchly anti-socialist, Thatcherite mother to guide her through these disorienting times, Lea had a political education of the most colorful sort—here recounted with outstanding literary talent. Now one of the world’s most dynamic young political thinkers and a prominent leftist voice in the United Kingdom, Lea offers a fresh and invigorating perspective on the relation between the personal and the political, between values and identity, posing urgent questions about the cost of freedom.

Download or read book Elegy for Kosovo written by Ismail Kadare and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2011-12-03 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: June 28, 1389: Six hundred years before Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic called for the repression of the Albanian majority in Kosovo, there took place, on the Field of the Blackbirds, a battle shrouded in legend. A coalition of Serbs, Albanian Catholics, Bosnians, and Romanians confronted and were defeated by the invading Ottoman army of the Sultan Murad. This battle established the Muslim foothold in Europe and became the centerpiece of Serbian nationalist ideology, justifying the campaign of ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars that the world witnessed with horror at the end of the past century. In this eloquent and timely reflection on war, memory, and the destiny of two peoples, Ismail Kadare explores in fiction the legend and the consequences of that defeat. Elegy for Kosovo is a heartfelt yet clear-eyed lament for a land riven by hatreds as old as the Homeric epics and as young as the latest news broadcast.

Download or read book The Traitor s Niche written by Ismail Kadare and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Kadare is inevitably linked to Orwell and Kundera, but he is a far deeper ironist than the first, and a better storyteller than the second. He is a compellingly ironic storyteller because he so brilliantly summons details that explode with symbolic reality." —The New Yorker At the heart of the Ottoman Empire, in the main square of Constantinople, a niche is carved into ancient stone. Here, the sultan displays the severed heads of his adversaries. People flock to see the latest head and gossip about the state of the empire: the province of Albania is demanding independence again, and the niche awaits a new trophy . . . Tundj Hata, the imperial courier, is charged with transporting heads to the capital—a task he relishes and performs with fervor. As he travels through obscure and impoverished territories, he makes money from illicit side–shows, offering villagers the spectacle of death. The head of the rebellious Albanian governor would fetch a very high price indeed. The Traitor's Niche is a surreal tale of tyranny and rebellion, in a land where armies carry scarecrows, state officials ban entire languages, and the act of forgetting is more complicated than remembering. Long-listed for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize "The name of the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare regularly comes up at Nobel Prize time, and he is still a good bet to win it one of these days . . . He is seemingly incapable of writing a book that fails to be interesting." —The New York Times

Download or read book Crossing written by Pajtim Statovci and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2019 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The death of head of state Enver Hoxha and the loss of his father leave Bujar growing up in the ruins of Communist Albania and of his own family. Only his fearless best friend, Agim--who is facing his own realizations about his gender and sexuality--gives him hope for the future. Together the two decide to leave everything behind and try their luck in Italy. But the struggle to feel at home--in a foreign country and even in one's own body--will have corrosive effects, spurring a dangerous search for new identities"--

Download or read book Scanderbeg written by A.K. Brackob and published by Vita Histria. This book was released on 2020-05-01 with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The struggle of the Albanian people led by George Castriota Scanderbeg to defend Europe against the assault of the Ottoman Turks has been much celebrated. For a quarter of a century, from 1443 until his death in 1468, he used his military prowess to thwart the efforts of the most powerful Empire in the world at the time to subdue his tiny country. One of the true heroes of the Middle Ages in Europe, unfortunately the remarkable story of Scanderbeg remains little known outside of Albania. George Castriota defended Europe for a quarter of a century and, it can rightly be said, helped to save Western civilization from being overrun by Islam and suffering the same fate as the once mighty Byzantine Empire. This book examines the genius and remarkable achievements of Scanderbeg who helped shape the identity of the Albanian people and reveals the important contribution this small but proud nation has made to European civilization. Although the challenges have changed over the centuries, the clash of civilizations, which the history of the Albanian struggle to fend off the Islamic onslaught illustrates, continues today. As a result, it is all the more worth noting the contribution that this tiny land, led by Scanderbeg, made in the fight to preserve Western culture and civilization. Equally important is the example set by the Albanian people in ultimately harmonizing these two great civilizations. A.K. Brackob has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a specialist on the history of southeastern Europe during the Middle Ages and author of Mircea the Old: Father of Wallachia, Grandfather of Dracula.

Download or read book Girl of Kosovo written by Alice Mead and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A child's perspective on war. In 1998 the Serb military intensifies its efforts to expel Albanians from Kosovo. Ethnic cleansing forces many families to seek safety in the surrounding hills and mountains. The Kosovo Liberation Army fights back guerrilla style, struggling for an independent Kosovo. Some Albanian villagers support the freedom fighters. Others fear that armed resistance, which they have successfully avoided through long years of Serb repression, will only increase the death toll. And always there is terrible tension between Serbian and Albanian neighbors who once were friends. Eleven-year-old Zana Dugolli, an Albanian Kosovar, isn't sure what to think. She does know not to speak her language to Serbs. And every day she worries about her mother and father, her brothers, the farm, the apple orchard. Already she has lost her best friend, a Serb. Then Zana's village is shelled, and her worst nightmare is realized. Her father and two brothers are killed in the attack, and her leg is shattered by shrapnel. Alone in a Serb hospital, she remembers her father's words: "Don't let them fill your heart with hate." Based on a true story, Alice Mead's stark, affecting novel about a place and conflict she knows well will help young readers understand the war in Kosovo.

Download or read book Agamemnon s Daughter written by Ismail Kadare and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2011-12-03 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psychologically incisive and impeccably crafted, Agamemnon’s Daughter tells the crushing story of passion shattered by a heartless regime. Once again, Kadare denounces with rare force the machinery of oppression, drawing us back to the ancient roots of Western civilization and tyranny. This collection also showcases two masterful stories: “The Blinding Order,” a parable about the uses of terror in the Ottoman Empire, and “The Great Wall,” a chilling duet between a Chinese official and a soldier in the invading army of the great conqueror, Tamerlane.

Download or read book My Life written by Sevasti Kyrias Dako and published by . This book was released on 2016-10-23 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sevasti Kyrias-Dako, known in Albanian as Sevasti Qiriazi, was the first Albanian girl to receive a higher education. She grew up in Monastir (Bitola), Macedonia, attended Protestant mission schools in Monastir and Istanbul, then went to Korca, Albania in 1891 to help establish the Albanian Girls' School with her brother Gerasim. She taught the Albanian language in the face of strong opposition. She witnessed Albania's progression from its last years under Ottoman rule, to independence and successive governments, and through world wars and occupations, until the beginning of the communist era. She wrote her memoirs in English but they were never published until 2016. This title is part of the 500/200 Albanian Protestant Commemorative Series. Historical Reviews: "In telling the story of the Kyrias sisters, we are telling the story of the educational movement in Albania, a story of achievement and romance." -HESTER JENKINS, educator and biographer "Never should we deny or forget the great service done by a 'national nest' that became a hub and a fortress where national feelings and sparks both gathered and spread. This "nest" was the Girls' School in Kortcha." -MIHAL GRAMENO, Albanian writer, publisher, and warrior "The school of the Kyrias sisters has elevated us in the eyes of the world as people of progress for the Albanian Idea. It revived the idealism of our Renaissance. Among Albanian mothers, the school awakened feelings for the preservation of our nation, as Carmen Sylvia has expressed so well: 'The woman weaves the future of the nation.'" -ASDRENI, Albanian poet, patriot, and author of the Albanian -national anthem "One of the first apostles of the Albanian language who embraced the holy but extremely dangerous idea of writing the Albanian language within Albania.... When we speak of her bold actions, brave resistance, and unrivaled patriotic service, the name of Miss Sevasti Kyrias is revered as a heroine." -PANDELI EVANGJELI, two-time prime minister of Albania "Pure inspiration, poetry and song. Sevasti's work is a call to the younger generation. It is the symbol of liberty and progress. It is a call to restore Albania's honor to new heights, as every Albanian employs their knowledge and efforts so that Albania may one day be listed among the most developed European nations." -DHIMITER DISHNICA, Albanian scholar, in "Motrat Qiriazi" ("The Kyrias Sisters")

Download or read book The Successor written by Ismail Kadare and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-04-18 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful political novel based on the sudden, mysterious death of the man who had been handpicked to succeed the hated Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha.Did he commit suicide or was he murdered? That is the burning question. The man who died by his own hand, or another+s, was Mehmet Shehu, the presumed heir to the ailing dictator, Enver Hoxha. So sure was the world that he was next in line, he was known as The Successor. And then, shortly before he was to assume power, he was found dead.THE SUCCESSOR is simultaneously a mystery novel, an historical novel-based on actual events and buttressed by the author+s private conversations with the son of the real-life Mehmet Shehu-and a psychological novel (How do you live when nothing is sure?). Vintage Kadare, THE SUCCESSOR seamlessly blends dream and reality, legendary past, and contemporary history. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Download or read book The Siege written by Ismail Kadare and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2010-02-12 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Ismail Kadare, winner of the inaugural Man Booker International Prize – a novelist in the class of Coetzee, Pamuk, Márquez, and Rushdie – the stunning new translation of one of his major works. In the early fifteenth century, as winter falls away, the people of Albania know that their fate is sealed. They have refused to negotiate with the Ottoman Empire, and war is now inevitable. Soon enough, dust kicked up by Turkish horses is spotted from a citadel. Brightly coloured banners, hastily constructed minarets, and tens of thousands of men fill the plain below. From this moment on, the world is waiting to hear that the fortress has fallen. The Siege tells the enthralling story of the weeks and months that follow – of the exhilaration and despair of the battlefield, the constantly shifting strategies of war, and those whose lives are held in the balance, from the Pasha himself to the artillerymen, astrologer, blind poet, and harem of women who accompany him. "Believe me," the general said. "I’ve taken part in many sieges but this," he waved towards the castle walls, "is where the most fearful carnage of our times will take place. And you surely know as well as I do that great massacres always give birth to great books. You really do have an opportunity to write a thundering chronicle redolent with pitch and blood, and it will be utterly different from the graceful whines composed at the fireside by squealers who never went to war." Brilliantly vivid, as insightful as it is compelling, The Siege is an unforgettable account of the clash of two great civilisations, and a portrait of war that will resonate across the centuries.