Download or read book The Myth of Greater Albania written by Paulin Kola and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Kosovar Albanians came to Albania after the fall of Communism, they were surprised to find an impoverished motherland whose people were consumed with questions of basic survival. Albania's citizens, for their part, were dumbstruck by the relatively opulent lifestyles of the Kosovars. Yet despite their profound differences, the myth of a "Greater Albania" persists. In this timely book, Paulin Kola challenges this myth, arguing that there is not widespread support for a "Greater Albania" among the Albanian-speaking peoples. He shows that Albanians do not wish to join a single, politically recognized entity and demonstrates how the Albanians are marked by ideological, religious, and other divisions. While a "Greater Kosovo" remains a remote possibility, there is little chance of the Albanians of either Albania or the diaspora supporting moves to dissolve the present international borders in pursuit of an "Albanian homeland." Albanians appear content to retain their discrete political entities, while traveling and trading freely. Accessible and urgent, this book effectively puts to rest the cherished myths of Albanian nationalism.
Download or read book The Albanian National Question and the Myth of Greater Albania written by United States Army War College and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-03-31 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In order to know what the Albanian National Question (ANQ) is, one should learn it not from what its neighbors, namely Serbia and Greece, have to say, but from a more direct and reliable source, the voice of the Albanians themselves. No nation is in a position in which it can express in a realistic way the needs, the rights and aspirations of a different nation in the same way as an individual cannot be an exact representative for someone but himself. For many years the Western countries used to rely on either Serbian or Greek lenses for the ANQ. In the late 1990s the U.S.-led intervention against Serbia over Kosova on humanitarian grounds and the Albanian insurgency in Macedonia has contributed to an altered power balance in the region. The neighbors frightened by the power shift in the Southern Balkans use their propaganda machinery to express the danger posed by the alleged Greater Albania scheme in order to demonize and morally downgrade the ANQ. However, one can easily see that Albanians since the creation of their state have not, are not, and will not pursue an irredentist agenda toward their neighbors.
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 A Dictionary of Albanian Religion Mythology and Folk Culture written by Robert Elsie and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In some senses, Albania is a living museum of the past. Originally a small herding community in the most inaccessible reaches of the Balkans, the presence of Albanians in southeastern Europe has been documented for over a thousand years. Albanian traditional folk culture, which evolved over centuries of relative isolation, is surprisingly rich. Yet despite recent events this culture remains little known to the Western world. Due to the lasting effects of a half century of Stalinist dictatorship, very few individuals even in Albania know much about their own popular traditions. The Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture makes available for the first time a wealth of knowledge about Albanian popular belief and folk customs. Alphabetical entries shed light on blood feuding, figures of Albanian mythology, religious beliefs, communities, and sects, calendar feasts and rituals, and popular superstitions, as well as birth, marriage, and funeral customs, and sexual mores. This unique volume will stand as the standard reference work on the subject for years to come.
Download or read book Rebels Believers Survivors written by Noel Malcolm and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Albania and Kosovo have long, fascinating histories of connection with the wider European world. These essays explore this history from the 15th century to the 20th, through stories of Italian pilgrims, British diplomats, Albanian village girls converting to Islam, Muslims practising secret Christianity, and Ottoman men enslaving fellow citizens.
Download or read book The Search for Greater Albania written by Paulin Kola and published by C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. This book was released on 2003 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this topical text Paulin Kola challenges the accepted notion that there is widespread support for a Greater Albania among the Albanian-speaking peoples of the Balkans, and argues that Albanians do not wish to join a single, politically-recognized entity. He explains how the Albanians are marked by ideological, religious and other divisions, many of which were exacerbated by their differing reactions to nationalism, as experienced in Tito's Yugoslavia and Hoxha's Albania.
Download or read book Kosovo written by Dr Denisa Kostovicova and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-10-09 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kosovo: The Politics of Identity and Space explores the Albanian-Serbian confrontation after Slobodan Milosevic's rise to power and the policy of repression in Kosovo through the lens of the Kosovo education system. The argument is woven around the story of imposed ethnic segregation in Kosovo's education, and its impact on the emergence of exclusive notions of nation and homeland among the Serbian and Albanian youth in the 1990s. The book also critically explores the wider context of the Albanian non-violent resistance, including the emergence of the parallel state and its weaknesses. Kosovo: The Politics of Identity and Space not only provides an insight into events that led to the bloodshed in Kosovo in the late 1990s, but also shows that the legacy of segregation is one of the major challenges the international community faces in its efforts to establish an integrated multi-ethnic society in the territory.
Download or read book The Case for Kosova written by Anna Di Lellio and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2006-07-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book makes the case for the independence of Kosova – the former province of 'old-Yugoslavia' and now temporarily a United Nations-led International protectorate – at a time in which international diplomacy is deeply involved in solving the contested issue of its 'Final Status'. The aim of the book is to counteract the anti-Albanian propaganda waged by some parties, but never to propose a counter-propaganda hostile to others or to the goals of a democratic Kosova.
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 Decoding Albanian Organized Crime written by Jana Arsovska and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-02-06 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The expansion of organized crime across national borders has become a key security concern for the international community. In this theoretically and empirically vibrant portrait of a global phenomenon, Jana Arsovska examines some of the most widespread myths about the so-called Albanian Mafia. Based on more than a decade of research, including interviews with victims, offenders, and law enforcement across ten countries, as well as court files and confidential intelligence reports, Decoding Albanian Organized Crime presents a comprehensive overview of the causes, codes of conduct, activities, migration, and structure of Albanian organized crime groups in the Balkans, Western Europe, and the United States. Paying particular attention to the dynamic relationships among culture, politics, and organized crime, the book develops a framework for understanding the global growth of the criminal underworld and provides a model for future comparative research.
Download or read book High Albania written by Mary Edith Durham and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Great Cauldron written by Marie-Janine Calic and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-10 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of southeastern Europe from antiquity to the present that reveals it to be a vibrant crossroads of trade, ideas, and religions. We often think of the Balkans as a region beset by turmoil and backwardness, but from late antiquity to the present it has been a dynamic meeting place of cultures and religions. Combining deep insight with narrative flair, The Great Cauldron invites us to reconsider the history of this intriguing, diverse region as essential to the story of global Europe. Marie-Janine Calic reveals the many ways in which southeastern Europe’s position at the crossroads of East and West shaped continental and global developments. The nascent merchant capitalism of the Mediterranean world helped the Balkan knights fight the Ottomans in the fifteenth century. The deep pull of nationalism led a young Serbian bookworm to spark the conflagration of World War I. The late twentieth century saw political Islam spread like wildfire in a region where Christians and Muslims had long lived side by side. Along with vivid snapshots of revealing moments in time, including Krujë in 1450 and Sarajevo in 1984, Calic introduces fascinating figures rarely found in standard European histories. We meet the Greek merchant and poet Rhigas Velestinlis, whose revolutionary pamphlet called for a general uprising against Ottoman tyranny in 1797. And the Croatian bishop Ivan Dominik Stratiko, who argued passionately for equality of the sexes and whose success with women astonished even his friend Casanova. Calic’s ambitious reappraisal expands and deepens our understanding of the ever-changing mixture of peoples, faiths, and civilizations in this much-neglected nexus of empire.
Download or read book Kosovo written by Tim Judah and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-23 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the historical and geopolitical background of the country of Kosovo, including its annexation by Serbia in 1912 and incorporation into Yugoslavia, its declaration of independence in February 2008, and its strategic importance to the Western Balkans.
Download or read book Ideologies and National Identities written by John R. Lampe and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twentieth-century Southeastern Europe endured three, separate decades of international and civil war, and was marred in forced migration and wrenching systematic changes. This book is the result of a year-long project by the Open Society Institute to examine and reappraise this tumultuous century. A cohort of young scholars with backgrounds in history, anthropology, political science, and comparative literature were brought together for this undertaking. The studies invite attention to fascism, socialism, and liberalism as well as nationalism and Communism. While most chapters deal with war and confrontation, they focus rather on the remembrance of such conflicts in shaping today's ideology and national identity.
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 The Myth of Race written by Robert Wald Sussman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-06 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biological races do not exist—and never have. This view is shared by all scientists who study variation in human populations. Yet racial prejudice and intolerance based on the myth of race remain deeply ingrained in Western society. In his powerful examination of a persistent, false, and poisonous idea, Robert Sussman explores how race emerged as a social construct from early biblical justifications to the pseudoscientific studies of today. The Myth of Race traces the origins of modern racist ideology to the Spanish Inquisition, revealing how sixteenth-century theories of racial degeneration became a crucial justification for Western imperialism and slavery. In the nineteenth century, these theories fused with Darwinism to produce the highly influential and pernicious eugenics movement. Believing that traits from cranial shape to raw intelligence were immutable, eugenicists developed hierarchies that classified certain races, especially fair-skinned “Aryans,” as superior to others. These ideologues proposed programs of intelligence testing, selective breeding, and human sterilization—policies that fed straight into Nazi genocide. Sussman examines how opponents of eugenics, guided by the German-American anthropologist Franz Boas’s new, scientifically supported concept of culture, exposed fallacies in racist thinking. Although eugenics is now widely discredited, some groups and individuals today claim a new scientific basis for old racist assumptions. Pondering the continuing influence of racist research and thought, despite all evidence to the contrary, Sussman explains why—when it comes to race—too many people still mistake bigotry for science.
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.
