THE NATIONAL IDEAL and THE ALBANIAN STATE
The state in idea
We mark the 80th anniversary of the independent Albanian state, of Albania, but we are not yet marking the anniversary of the pan-Albanian state ideal. History has not yet afforded us this opportunity.
The history of the Albanian people is a martyrological chronicle of a people that has paid dearly for its geostrategic position—as a people of the West to those in the East, and as a people of the East to those in the West—whose homeland lies at the planet’s busiest crossroads, through which invaders setting out from the West and invaders setting out from the East have continually passed; a people continually battered by different faiths, ideologies and policies, spiritually enriched by the cultures of both sides, but endangered by their conflicting interests. The history of the Albanian people is therefore marked by frequent struggles for liberation: for the liberation of Albanian lands, for the liberation of the people and the creation of an independent state. Our state was administratively divided into four vilayets and threatened by the territorial claims of neighboring states; the Albanian unification of a people belonging to three religions, their clergy directed by three centers outside Albania, a republic as a form of government, and the people’s religious education suited to them.
The state envisioned in the program of our National Renaissance is a state created on the principle of the people’s ethnic, linguistic and cultural extent—that is, on the principle on which European nation-states have been built since the time of the Great French Revolution. The most distinguished poets of the Renaissance wrote about it: De Rada, Dara i Ri, Naimi, Çajupi, Fishta and Asdreni, and especially its most distinguished publicists, Vaso Pasha and Sami Frashëri. They describe its linguistic and cultural, historical and geographical identity. The Albania they envisioned consists of all the ethnic territories in which Albanians are still today the sole population or an overwhelming majority, plus territories in which Albanians were the majority population in their time, but which were diplomatically [text unclear] with the European Great Powers.
This, however, is not the only reason why Albanians are the only Balkan nation—with the exception of the Macedonians, who were not then recognized as a nation—that has failed to realize even approximately the national program it had prepared nearly forty years earlier. The reasons are more numerous, both external and internal. Compared with the national movements of other Balkan peoples, the Albanian National Movement is more or less belated. The Albanian Muslim political and cultural elite is late in creating distance from Turkey, while the Orthodox Greece. Albanian national policy, which is still taking shape, has not yet developed a full, critical and diplomatic understanding of the nature of relations between nations and states, the role and policies of the Great Powers, or their conflicting interests, whether in the Balkans or on the continent generally. It is endangered by local politicians who would not hesitate to shrink it even further than its neighbors have already shrunk it, just so they themselves can become leaders. It is endangered by poverty, into which Albanian lands had been reduced under Ottoman rule; economic, cultural and dialectal localism; periodically intensified clericalism; clan vendettas; the outdated mentality of the tribal chieftain; and the bitter political struggle between groups and parties, which sometimes takes on the character of local civil war. And so on.
Born amid great suffering and bearing geographical and demographic wounds, the new Albanian state begins life as an invalid, seeking support on foreign crutches. It is an autonomous Albania under the sovereignty of the Sultan. It is an autonomous, sovereign and neutral principality under the guarantee of the Great Powers. To endure and become an international subject, it is proclaimed a constitutional, sovereign and hereditary principality under a foreign prince—a Prince Wied! [The source text is disjointed here.] In short: Albanian national policy still does not realistically assess the Albanian people’s position in the Balkans and Europe. In national life, to a greater or lesser extent, several central factors are at work, such as the fragmentation of economic and cultural space due to the division into vilayets; the restraining influence of clergy dependent on religious centers outside the homeland; the absence of a national information center; and the impossibility of mobilizing the entire nation. The burden of the movement is not shared equally among all the social strata involved. Many merchants, as they grow wealthy, move away from the homeland and go to Istanbul or to centers in the Balkans and the Near East. The intelligentsia, though active, is small and dispersed in the diaspora, so its influence on the people is slower than it would be if it lived on Albanian soil. The peasantry is mobilized slowly in the national struggle, not because it is insufficiently politicized, but because there is no organized force capable of mobilizing it quickly.
For all the reasons mentioned above, the Albanian Movement is pan-national more in idea than in action. There is no doubt that the Balkan—and, more generally, Slavic—conspiracy is the main reason why Albanians failed to realize, as they were entitled to, their national liberation program in 1912. But there is also no doubt that the weakness of the Albanian factors—their inadequate organization, insufficient mobilization, predominantly regional political and, especially, military action—is an additional reason why the Albanian people failed to defend Kosovo against Serbian occupation at a time when Serbs made up only around 5 percent of Kosovo’s population.
...of the planet, through the succession of generations, have passed conquerors arriving from the West and conquerors arriving from the East, who have continually brought different beliefs, ideologies and policies, who have been spiritually enriched by the cultures of both sides, but have been pulled in opposite directions by their conflicting interests.
In the history of the Albanian people, therefore, the struggle for liberation is frequent: for the liberation of lands from foreign sovereignty—Byzantine, Slavic, Ottoman; for the liberation of the language from Latin dogma in churches and from Ottoman dogma in mosques; for liberation from foreign sovereignty—Byzantine, Slavic, Ottoman—coming at times from one side and at times from the other, arriving as ideology and becoming deception, arriving as policy and becoming occupation. for a state is frequent, as the collective protection of the people’s existence and progress, as the possibility of living in freedom and attaining the highest meaning of historical life. has been lost and won: it was lost tragically when the Albanian people were conquered by the Ottoman Empire, and it was won when the Albanian people were liberated from it. for a state has been lost and won many other times, up to the present day, and has been lost or won both as a physical struggle and as a political struggle.
The struggle for the Albanian state, as the geographical, constitutional, legal and political framework of the Albanian nation, has nevertheless not yet been won.
The hardest and most consequential battle for the state of the Albanian people was fought in the 15th century under the leadership of Skënderbeu, but the historically most decisive battle for the state of the Albanian nation was fought in the second half of the 19th century and in the first decade of the 20th century. The present-day Albanian state, which nevertheless does not correspond to the Albanian state ideal, is owed to the National Renaissance Movement, which first built the Albanian state in ideas and in form, so that it could then build it in real life as well.
The Albanian National Renaissance is a movement that began as an effort to revive the spiritual and cultural life of the people, and in time became a revolution in its ideology, morality and politics. It is a movement for creating a cultured people as a condition for statehood. It achieves national integration, so necessary for the creation of a state, through language and culture, history and the ideal of a state, just as state integrations—and the integration of modern nations in Europe—have also been achieved. The Renaissance of the Albanians overturned the principle according to which a people without national consciousness is a body without bones, while a people without a state is prey for foreign states.
The National Renaissance is a movement that thus produces the first Albanian national program, whose realization is fought for in an organized way by the first pan-national political organization, the Albanian League of Prizren. This organization’s national objectives are: preserving the integrity of Albanian lands
...graphic and demographic, the new Albanian state begins its life as an invalid, needing foreign crutches to support it. the guarantee of the Great Powers. To sustain itself To become a state with a more orderly institutional and political structure, it is at times made better for its subjects and at times for its rulers! It becomes a democratic republic, but within a short time ends up as a repressed democracy. Democracy, it is said, existed in Athens in the time of Pericles, but even then it ended in ostracism! It becomes an Albanian republic, which two years later ends up as a parliamentary monarchy! It becomes a monarchy which, after a few years, ends up under Italian rule! It is clear: the Albanian state had not attained the ideal through its extent across the ethnic lands, nor did it manage to attain the ideal through the quality and stability of its internal order.
But, despite being territorially truncated, as it is, and despite being politically unstable, as it is, Albania, through its statehood and indeed through all Albanians, is perpetuated as a factor in their national integrity, existence and progress. It guarantees historical continuity and the linguistic, cultural and spiritual identity of the Albanian people in the time to come, and not only within its borders. Ultimately, it is the home of all Albanians. They can find shelter there when the weather turns bad—not only those who live there permanently, but also those who do not. Whenever Serbian, Montenegrin, Macedonian or Greek terror against Albanians left under their sovereignty intensifies, Albania’s population will grow considerably. They will all be able to pray as one: Albania! I owe my life to you,
you are my Mother, and I your Son!
Although the Albania created in 1912 cannot represent the pan-Albanian state ideal envisioned during the National Renaissance, today it can be said: if Albania did not exist, the Albanian people as such would have had a tragic historical fate: they might have suffered the fate of the Kurds. The existence of Albania in 1912 nevertheless means the existence of the historical possibility of creating an Albania encompassing all Albanian lands, where Albanians are the only population or an overwhelming majority.