The 2012 Albanian Centennial: Commemoration and Collective Identity

The 2012 Albanian Centennial

Commemoration and Collective Identity

Rebecca Mueller

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

2

Introduction

On New Year’s Eve 2011, then-Albanian President Bamir Topi offered a rallying year-

end speech to the Albanian people to put aside their differences and join together to better their

country in 2012, the hundredth anniversary of Albania’s Declaration of Independence from the

Ottoman Empire. Topi called the 2012 centennial a “most beautiful and historic year” (Alb. viti

më i bukur historik) that offers all Albanians a chance for deep reflection over “all of the

obligations that should be fulfilled” (Alb. të gjitha detyrimet që duhet të përmbushim) in order to

build an Albania that is strong, democratic, and just. He urged Albanians to “join their efforts

with the values inherited from those who laid the foundations of the state (Alb. duke bashkuar

energjitë tona rreth vlerave të trashguara, të cilët hodhën themelet a para të shtetit shqiptar) in

1912, to move forward together, and to leave the bad memories behind (Topi 2011).

The 2012 Albanian centennial offered Albanians an opportunity to re-assess and re-assert

what it means to be Albanian. It also affords scholars of Albania an opportunity to take the

“pulse” of the nation and of Albanians’ attitudes toward their collective past(s). In this paper, I

will examine the “mosaic” of Albanian centennial commemoration, analyzing a diverse range of

official and alternative commemorative texts and their reception and considering the Albanian

centennial as a spatial, temporal, and metaphorical “site” of political work and identity formation

in contemporary Albania.

In her 2009 monograph on history and memory in modern Romania, Maria Bucur

distinguishes between “official memory,” which is narrated by the state and celebrated publicly

through ceremonies, memorials, and other forms of remembrance, and “counter-memory,”

criticism of or resistance to official narratives expressed publicly or privately by citizens. In this

paper, I employ the more active terms “official commemoration” and “counter-commemoration,”

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

3

following Bucur’s distinction and further underlining the fact that all historical projects are

carried out in the present, and according to present needs (Domansky 1992; Halas 2010; Vangeli

2010). I examine multiple instances of commemoration and identify themes that emerge from the

broader centennial “mosaic” (Kansteiner 2002), and though I make heavy use of media sources, I

attempt to move beyond a strict study of mainstream media coverage to interpretations of

centennial commemorations as texts in and of themselves.

I will first consider official centennial commemoration initiated by the Government of

Albania. Who are the official heroes of Albanian independence, or the first hundred years of the

Albanian state? What national(ist) narratives are present, and how inclusive or exclusive are

they? What images of the Albanian state and nation are reflected in official commemorative

projects and events, and to whom are they reflected? What are the political aims of the Albanian

government’s centennial project(s)? Finally, where does Albanian centennial commemoration fit

into the above discussion of commemoration in communist and post-communist contexts?

After identifying and analyzing the major organizing discourses of official centennial

commemoration, I will offer examples of counter-commemoration, projects that oppose official

commemoration but that may either oppose or reify larger national discourses. The study of

official and counter-commemoration in the Albanian context sheds light on post-communist,

ethno-national, and cosmopolitan discourses mobilized in political projects and collective

identity formation elsewhere in the region and beyond.

Centennial Heroes: Albania’s “Semi-Revisionist” Post-Communist Discourse

Early in 2012, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha convened an international

Centennial Commission to guide the planning and implementation of centennial celebrations that

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

4

would, according to Minister of Culture Aldo Bumci, “ include Albanians everywhere, at home

and abroad” (Andoni 2012). The Commission was headed by Berisha and included several

government ministers, the governor of the central bank, the head of the National Albanology

Institute, the director of the state archives, and the head of the national library, and many

promises were made in spring and early summer regarding the celebrations to come.

The national government’s centralized planning materialized in predictable forms of state

spectacle: statues and monuments, commemorative coins, speeches, military parades and other

visual shows of state power. Beyond these, centennial year plans included “more populist ideas,

such as mega-concerts by international pop idols” (Likmeta 2012a) and a bill granting mass

amnesty to all criminals convicted of or under investigation for non-violent crimes facing prison

sentences of less than two years (Likmeta 2012c). The government also sponsored several

historical projects, including museum exhibits and an international academic conference.

Albanian national heroes were an important organizing schema of official centennial

commemoration. An examination of the historical figures commemorated and the forms these

commemorations took sheds light on the Albanian government’s overarching or multiple aims

throughout the 2012 centennial year.

According to Nicola Nixon (2010), Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg (1405-1468) is the object

of Albania’s most ubiquitous mythmaking project. Skanderbeg, a member of a north Albanian

ruling family who led one of the last anti-Ottoman military campaigns in the western Balkans,

has been variously upheld as a symbol of anti-imperial resistance, pan-Albanian unity, and the

defense of Europe since the Albanian Rilindja Kombetar or National Renaissance in the late

nineteenth century. The equation of Skanderbeg’s fourteenth century anti-Ottoman resistance

with the 1912 declaration of independence from the Ottomans is quite easy, and Skanderbeg

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

5

received ample attention during the 2012 centennial. He was memorialized by a National

Museum exhibit of medieval weaponry on loan from Vienna, the performance of two operas

written about his life at the Tirana National Ballet, and the planning of a statue to be installed in

Budapest, Hungary (Bumci 2012).

Ismail Qemali Vlora (1844-1919), an Ottoman civil servant who worked toward Ottoman

constitutional reform and played a large role in the Rilindja before spearheading Albania’s

declaration of independence in his hometown, is perhaps the most prevalent figure connected

specifically with the Albanian centennial. Like Skanderbeg, Qemali has been heavily

mythologized, his name frequently bestowed on streets and high schools, and two new larger-

than-life Qemali statues were unveiled in 2012, one by the national government in Tirana and

one by the municipal government in his hometown, Vlorë. Tellingly, the newly-installed statue

of Qemali of Vlorë stands across from and does not replace the socialist-realist monument to

Albanian independence, in which an unidentifiable male figure looking rather more like a World

War II-era communist partisan than a late Ottoman statesman raises Albania’s red and black flag.

Qemali and Skanderbeg are un-besmirch-able historical figures. The reputations of both

seem impervious to the legacies of their respective communist-era memorializations. But the

Albanian centennial also facilitated the re-emergence of less ubiquitous Albanian heroes,

including a few whose commemoration had been expressly forbidden under the Hoxha regime.

One such instance of reemergence occurred through the Institute of Albanology’s “One Hundred

Years of Albanian Independence” conference (QSA 2012). A special closing session entitled

“Personalities of the National Movement and Statehood” featured nine national figures: Sami

Frashëri, Ismail Qemal Vlora, Aqif Pasha Elbasani, Lef Nosi, Fan Noli, Kristo Dako, Midhat

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

6

Frashëri, and Mehmet Pasha Derralla (all signatories of the Albanian Declaration of

Independence) and Leo Freundlich (Austrian consul and advocate for Albanian statehood).

These individuals’ stories are as complex and contradictory as any historical figure’s, but

two names on the list stand out as particularly informative to an examination of post-communist

commemoration. Lef Nosi (1877-1946) and Midhat Frashëri (1880-1949, a nephew of Sami

Frashëri) played major roles in founding and then leading the anti-Communist, anti-monarchy,

and allegedly pro-German Albanian National Front (Alb. Balli Kombetar). Frashëri managed to

escape from Albania after the Communists took control of the government in 1944. Nosi was

captured and executed by the state in 1946. Most of their Ballist followers were put on trial and

either killed, imprisoned, or forced with their families into internal exile in isolated rural villages.

During subsequent communist rule, both Nosi and Midhat Frashëri were declared national

traitors. Their roles in the formation of the early Albanian state were minimized, and Communist

authorities even produced a modified version of the country’s 1912 Declaration of Independence

in which Nosi and Frashëri’s signatures are missing (Elsie 2013).

While their designation as influential “Personalities”—though admittedly not heroes—

indicates that the above communist-era taboo has been lifted, the place of Nosi and Frashëri’s in

Albanian history remains ambiguous. Another fairly ambiguous hero from before the communist

period is Albania’s King Zog, whose remains were repatriated by the Albanian government in

November 2012. Ahmet Zogu, from a prominent northern Albanian clan, was Albania’s Prime

Minister or President for most of the 1920’s until he declared himself King in1928. He made

numerous, highly-unpopular political concessions to Yugoslavia and Italy and was ultimately

ousted from power and exiled by invading Italian forces in 1939. Zog ran his royal court in

absentia in the United Kingdom and was buried in Paris, France upon his death in 1956. In 2012,

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

7

the French government agreed to the Albanian government’s request to unearth the King’s

remains from a cemetery outside of Paris. The Albanian Embassy in France held a small

ceremony and sent the remains for re-interment in a newly-built mausoleum at the National

Martyrs Cemetery outside of Tirana (Myles 2012).

The Albanian government’s Zog fixation communicates a clear break with Communist

ideology. During the communist period, Zog was condemned as a national traitor by the

Communist Party for both his subservience to foreign powers and for “abandoning” his country

in its darkest days (Konomi 2012). During the1962 celebration of fifty years of Albanian

independence, in fact, Enver Hoxha promised to “break those who called Zog King,” and anti-

Zogist propaganda featured prominently in Hoxha’s international propaganda campaigns (ibid).

At the reburial ceremony, Albanian President Bamir Topi declared Zog to be “the most

important figure in the history of the state’s hundred years” (Lajme 2012). Zog’s repatriation

might also be interpreted as a political move. With a June 2013 Parliamentary election

approaching, Sali Berisha’s re-election campaign was in full swing for much of the centennial

year. The parallels between Zog and Berisha, intended or not, include their north Albanian

heritage, their right-wing orientations, their attempts to bring Albania closer to its European

allies, and their extended years in office.

We might characterize the above commemorative projects as following the logic of

“post-communist semi-revisionism,” a discourse that mobilizes anti-communist symbolism

without addressing communist histories directly. The historical significance of communism is

suppressed while ambiguous pre-communist heroes are propped up instead. The unspoken anti-

hero of the Albanian centennial was Albania’s communist-era dictator Enver Hoxha, but he

made no featured appearances in the two-day One Hundred Years of Albanian Independence

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

8

conference. (Not coincidentally, the entire conference featured only two papers on Albanian

domestic politics during the communist period.)

Ethno-Politics and Collective Identity: The “Greater Albania” Discourse

In contrast to the post-communist semi-revisionism mentioned above, a more familiar

theme united a large number of elements in Albania’s mosaic of official centennial

commemoration. It existed before the establishment of Albanian Independence in 1912 as the

Albanian ethno-national Rilindja or (re)awakening, and after the First World War as “Greater

Albanianism.” Greater Albania, according to its proponents, includes an area about twice the size

of the modern Albanian state, encompassing parts of present-day southern Montenegro, southern

Serbia, Kosovo, western and southern Macedonia, and northern Greece.

In 1912, the fate of the Albanian state, let alone its eventual borders, were a huge

unknown. Delegates from cities under siege at the time, including Shkodër and Korçë, sent

telegrams of support and asked fellow leaders to sign the Declaration of Independence in their

stead. Delegates from parts of Kosovo did not arrive in Vlorë until December 3, and the

signatories waited until they were present to form a provisional government. And recognition of

the original declaration was delayed by the Great Powers (Greece, France) for almost a year as

ethnic Greeks along the coast south of Vlorë protested their inclusion in the new “Albania” (Bon

2008). The Greater Albania discourse is intricately tied to the earliest iteration of the modern

Albania state and has been featured on and off throughout recent history.

The discourse surfaced in various ways during the 2012 official centennial

commemorations, but an affection and affinity between today’s two majority-Albanian states—

Albania and Kosovo—took central priority. In the lead up to November 28, 2012, several

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

9

Kosovar Albanian figures were honored by the Government of Albania. A 2.3 meter bronze

statue of Hasan Prishtina, a late Ottoman Minister of Parliament and head of the Kosovar

Albanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference, was inaugurated in front of Albania’s

National Museum (Top Channel 2012). Adem Jashari, who helped found the Kosovo Liberation

Army in the early 1990’s and was murdered along with 52 members of his extended family in

1998, was erected along Durrës Road, a major Tirana thoroughfare (Shqiptarja 2012).

Contemporary Kosovar politicians were invited to attend and even to make speeches at the

unveiling ceremonies. And in a kind of culminating display of relations between these two states,

sixty-five Kosovo Security Force soldiers dressed in NATO uniforms marched through

downtown Tirana as part of an official Independence Day procession on November 28.

While one could debate as to the level of politicization behind, for instance, King Zog’s

repatriation, it would be difficult to argue that the surfacing of a “greater Albania” discourse

could have lacked intentionality on the part of Berisha and his administration. At the November

23 inauguration of the Hasan Prishtina memorial, Prime Minister Berisha declared Prishtina the

“architect of ethnic Albania” (Top Channel 2012b). Several days later, he claimed that Adem

Jashari, a controversial figure who operated closely with several Kosovo Liberation Army

leaders who have been indicted on war crimes charges, was “after Skanderbeg, the most

dignified, brave, and masculine protector of the Albanian flag” (Shqiptarja 2012).

According to Ibrahim Shala, the Kosovo Security Force Ministry’s Director of Public

Information, KSF participation symbolized the strengthening of economic ties between Albania

and Kosovo as well as increasing “bilateral co-operation” between Kosovo and Macedonia and

Kosovo and Montenegro. But the integral role played by official Kosovar representatives in

Albanian state ceremony was perceived as a directed provocation by representatives of Serbia’s

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

10

ruling coalition (Brajshori and Jovanovic 2012) and other Balkan neighbors. Similarly, for

Greece, the only neighbor with which Albania can be said to harbor major border disputes,

Berisha’s quoting of late Ottoman poet Vasko Pasha’s famous Oh Albania, My Albania in a

November 26 national address—“From Bar [in modern-day Montenegro] to Fair Prezeva [even

further south in Greece than the usually disputed region of Epirus]”—became an excuse for a

diplomatic boycott of the country’s November 28 festivities (Likmeta).

Regional fears of a potential political union between Albania and Kosovo are as old as

Albanian independence, and have perhaps at no time in history been more far-fetched than in the

present. But in this author’s personal experience, the lack of interest for this union among

Albanian citizens when compared to ethnic Albanians in Kosovo is striking. The imbalance is

evidenced in other ethnic Albanian communities, too. In Tetovo, a majority Albanian city in

western Macedonia, the slogan for (Albanian) centennial year festivitie was “One Hundred Years

without Albania” (Municipality of Tetovo 2012). This statement exemplifies one-way, non-

reciprocated nationalist longing for Albania as an ethnic home by Albanians living abroad.

The Greater Albania discourse functions on multiple levels. While it provokes Albania’s

Balkan neighbors and stirs patriotic feelings in Albanians in the region in the wider Diaspora, I

would argue that it is aimed primarily at a domestic audience. The 2012 centennial does seem to

have opened the floodgates of ethnic nationalism, a discourse which has been a platform of

Albania’s mainstream politicians only rarely in recent years. Any resulting shift in domestic

attitudes towards the Greater Albania discourse and Albania’s relations with Kosovo in particular

remains to be seen.

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

11

Albania in the World: Liberal-Democratic and Albanian-Exceptionalist Discourses

A third major component of official centennial commemoration in Albania was the

government’s engagement in the international arena. I have argued above that the “Greater

Albania” discourse is an inwardly-aimed, politically-exploitative project meant to appeal

popularly without offering realistic future projections of the Albanian nation. I will now present

a set of closely-related discourses in which the Albanian state and nation are consciously

performed for those beyond its borders.

Partly because of Bill Clinton’s 1999 bombing of Belgrade in defense of Kosovar

Albanians and partly because of the reputation of the United States as the ideal model of post-

communist neo-liberal democracy, Albania’s relationship with the United States is viewed as

particularly instrumental. One illustration of the Albanian attempt to underscore and potentially

reinforce its ties with the United States is the erection of a grandiose statue of Woodrow Wilson,

credited with “saving independent Albania” against partition by Greece, the Kingdom of

Yugoslavia, and Italy at the Paris Peace Conference in 1920, in a Tirana square which also bears

Wilson’s name (Top Channel 2012a).

According to a 2010 Gallup poll in Albania, NATO (which Albania joined in 2009 with a

good deal of advocacy by the United States) and the European Union are the number one and

number two most-trusted entities, listed above domestic entities including Parliament, religious

leaders, military, and police. There is no doubt that Albania’s alignment with European values (if

not the wholesale fulfillment of European integration agreements) are also major foci for the

Albanian government. Even the centennial-year remembrance of Albania’s sole monarch might

be tied to some kind of European “club” of royalty, a group that, however problematic, is usually

tolerated through to today.

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

12

A confluence of pro-American and pro-European self-positioning is evident in Prime

Minister Berisha’s October 2012 diplomatic delegation to the United States. The delegation

visited Albanian Diaspora communities in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and

Washington, D.C., where Berisha also spoke at a screening of Rachel Goslin’s 2012

documentary film, Besa: The Promise. The film recounts the stories of an estimated 600-1,800

Jewish families who fled deportation in Yugoslavia and were hidden at great risk by Albanian

families from their country’s Nazi occupiers (Vashem, 2013).

Albania’s Holocaust-related historical claims are conveniently situated between the

Albania-as-European and Albanian-exceptionalism discourses. Albania, like countries

throughout Western and Eastern Europe, has a World War II legacy to grapple with: occupation

by (multiple) Axis forces, and a connection to the Holocaust. But Albania’s Holocaust

connection is also distinct: By the end of World War II, Albania could claim to be the sole

country in Europe whose Jewish population rose during the war. Though I would certainly not

argue that the Albanian government’s commemoration of this legacy is insincere (or that it rings

that way for Albanian citizens), it is useful to note how emphasizing this history furthers

Albania’s national “positioning” today.

The Besa film and history behind it refer to a long-time focus of Albanian exceptionalism

within Albania and of outsiders describing the country: the vision of Albania as a model of

religious diversity. The film praises the fact that it was Albanian Muslims who saved Balkan

Jews. As one reviewer notes, the film “challenges today’s assumptions about the presumed

enmity between Muslims and Jews” [Calgary Jewish Film Festival, emphasis mine]. The

international appeal of religious harmony is only increasing, and Albania’s multi-faith society is

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

13

something that Albanian politicians often reference, particularly to set themselves apart from the

perceived religious intolerance present in the wider Balkans region.

Commemoration and History

The centennial year presented an opportunity for the Albanian government to assert itself

as the narrator of Albanian nationalism at home and abroad. The politicians in power worked

hard to (re)define themselves in relation to the country’s founding fathers, mobilizing several

traditional and non-traditional Albanian national “heroes” to reinforce several discourses: a semi-

revisionist approach to pre-communist legacies without the adoption of a fully anti-communist

stance, Greater Albanian ethno-nationalism, and a vision of Albania’s place in the world that

simultaneously lays claim to both liberal-democratic Europeanness and Albanian exceptionalism.

Way back in April 2012, Vlorë’s Socialist MP Fatmir Toci offered the following

criticism of Berisha’s handling of centennial commemoration in its entirety: “Berisha,

grotesquely, is taking on both the role of politician and historian, just like Enver Hoxha did for

half a century” (Andoni 2012, emphasis mine). While the political opposition’s criticisms of

centennial commemorations are discussed below, Toci offered a meta-level critique that brings

the Albanian government head to head with its semi-revisionist approach to communist history.

A more nuanced interpretation of that history is necessary, not only for things like justice and

collective closure, but as a foundation for effective post-communist commemoration and

identity.

Any thoughtful remembrances of half of Albania’s first hundred years have been

overshadowed by competing discourses: a strategic domestic politicking aimed at securing the

current administration for another term, and a fore-fronting of international pressures on

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

14

Albanians to be both distinct and to fit with the rest of Europe. Through various centennial

commemorations, the Albanian government has favored a rejection of history over its

remembrance.

Counter-Commemoration

In this section, I will analyze several of the many groups and communities that engaged

in centennial “counter-commemoration,” projects that negotiated with or resisted official forms

of commemoration while both breaking from and reifying the wider discourses identified above.

I have already alluded to the ways that political strategy influenced official centennial

commemoration in Albania. Centennial-related criticisms by the Berisha administration’s

political opponents were similarly intended to benefit opposition groups’ own political projects.

The biggest opposition party, the Socialist Party, made concerted efforts to utilize the centennial

as an opportunity for political gain. In fact, when the recently-unseated Mayor of Tirana, Edi

Rama took the helm of the Socialist Party and named his Parliamentary campaign Rilindja,

referring directly back to the late nineteenth century movement that preceded Albanian

Independence.

In one example of Socialist Party criticism of official commemoration, the Socialist

Party’s youth wing protested in front of the Albanian Parliament in Tirana against the Berisha-

led centennial commission’s plan to slaughter 1,000 lambs in the center of the city, roast, and eat

them in celebration of Independence Day (Hooper, 2012). Interviewed at the scene of protests on

November 27, the Socialist youth spokesman, Erjon Veliaj, admitted that while “the issues of

animal rights and cruelty are not pre-eminent [in Albanian society], to glorify this process gives

this society a reputation it doesn't deserve." The protesters were conscious of an international or,

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

15

more precisely, Euro-American audience that would presumably find the public slaughter of

hundreds of lambs problematic in a way that domestic Albanians would not. In the end,

celebration-goers in Tirana settled for a gigantic, western-style, iced birthday cake measuring

550 square meters, and no roast lamb.

The Socialist opposition criticized the Albanian government for almost everything,

usually related to their poor management of centennial-related projects and events rather than the

content of these projects. But one more particular running focus involved the Albanian

government’s supposedly calculated decision to hold the national November 28 Independence

Day celebrations in Tirana (the capital) instead of Vlorë. According to journalist Ben Andoni,

Prime Minister Sali Berisha and his government snubbed Vlorë out of fear: the city was the

epicenter of anti-Berisha opposition in 1997 when, during his first term as Prime Minister, two

nation-wide pyramid schemes promoted by his government collapsed under his watch. Andoni

alleges that Berisha, like King Zog before him, views Vlorë as a site of “resistance” and

“revival.” The people of Vlorë, it is claimed, represent the anger of the Albanian people over

their neglect by successive regimes spanning the past century (Andoni 2012b).

The symbolism of the city, whatever the reasoning behind its centennial year

“abandonment,” is also powerfully connected to the communist period. In 1962, the fiftieth

anniversary of Albanian independence, the Albanian Communist Party heraleded Vlorë as a

“Hero City” (Konomi 2012). The struggle for or against Vlorë is complicated by two competing

concerns of post-communist commemoration: the urge to actively ignore history by purposefully

refusing to commemorate the centennial in the way the Communist Party commemorated it, and

the urge to refuse the communist legacy’s hold over the present by commemorating in similar

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

16

ways. I would deem these as two sides of the same, semi-revisionist coin. A total unwillingness

to directly grapple with that legacy characterizes both.

At least two of Albania’s marginalized communities, already accustomed to couching

their post-communist demands in the language of (Western) non-governmental and international

organizations, aligned their projects with this particular centennial discourse. A coalition of

women’s groups organized a counter-commemorative roundtable in collaboration with the

European Union Information Center in Shkodër, northern Albania. The roundtable, aptly titled

“100 Years of Women’s Lives and Contributions to Albania – Women’s Rights and European

Integration [emphasis mine],” was attended by representatives of local government, civil society,

educational institutions, and media (European Union Information Center-Shkodër 2012). The

importance of the relationship between the Albanian state and women citizens here is explicit:

As a party to the Southeast Europe Stability Pact that opens a pathway to EU succession, Albania

is bound to European standards related to minority rights and representation. Albanian women—

and the role they are afforded or denied in the Albanian political system, economy, and civil

society—can make or break Albania’s European future.

Another centennial-year project was implemented by a group who call themselves the

“ex-politically persecuted”: former dissidents and those wrongly accused of dissidence who

spent time in prisons, work camps, or internal exile during the communist period. Most of the

country’s ex-politically persecuted organize themselves around the Albanian Rehabilitation

Center for Trauma and Torture (or ARCT), an organization founded by ex-prisoners in the early

1990’s which has grown in scope and visibility thanks to international funding. ARCT is one of

the most well-funded NGO’s in Tirana, and its staff regularly collaborate with the European

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

17

Commission to inspect prisons and mental hospitals and publish reports on the state of ex- and

currently- persecuted and other socially excluded persons.

In September of 2012, six ex-politically persecuted men initiated a hunger strike in front

of the Albanian Parliament in downtown Tirana. The strikers demanded quicker and more

consistent disbursement of government pensions. In October, two of the strikers attempted self-

immolations and one subsequent fatality from injuries sustained before onlookers intervened

(Balkan Insight, 2012). After this incident, the ARCT negotiated the end of the strike amongst

the ex-politically persecuted but without any increased commitments from the Albanian

government.

ARCT and its members have always particularly vocal in criticizing the “continuity of

characters” in powerful positions in the Albanian government and state sectors before and after

1991. This criticism is quite warranted, as ex-politically persecuted individuals are regularly

faced to meet their former police interrogators and prison wardens, most of whom have

continued on in their roles as civil servants (Greeley-Murati 2003). And recently, the ex-

politically persecuted have begun to make blanket criticisms of politicians from all major

political parties, including the Democratic Party, formerly perceived as their supporters (Balkan

Insight, 2012).

Anxieties over the centennial year projects of women’s groups and ex-politically

persecuted people may have less to do with true cultural conservatism or any widespread

hesitation to accept progressive changes to a hegemonic national identity, and more to do with

the fact that both projects highlight just how little Albania has changed in the past two decades,

let alone the past hundred years. Albanian women held the unusual designation of living, on

average, five fewer years than Albanian men well into the second half of the twentieth century

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

18

(Gjonca 2001), and are still fighting for their rights to not be beaten and killed by their partners

in their own homes. The ex-politically persecuted are living reminders of the deep paranoia and

moral depravity of Albania’s communist leadership. They also highlight a post-communist

reality in which ex-prisoners continue to suffer while ex-imprisoners enjoy immunity, privilege

and even political power. Both groups highlight Albania’s inability to meet international human

rights standards and the demands of a free, fair, and representative democratic system.

Collective Commemoration

2012 also saw the creation of alternative centennial commemoration projects that gained

popularity not by “countering” other projects alone, but by imagining (and realizing) different

kinds of togetherness and collective identity. One of these was the Men with Mustaches (Alb.

Burrat me mustaqe) Project. According to the Project’s website, the project was started to “honor

the men of the period of [Albanian] independence” (Burrat me mustaqe, 2012). Albanians from

“the entire Pan-Albanian multi-verse, all Albanians including those from Albania, Kosovo,

Macedonia, Montenegro, Chameria Diaspora and beyond” were invited to participate in growing

their mustaches “like old men” (ibid). Women and those unable to grow mustaches so are

specifically encouraged to utilize fake mustaches.

The Project presents the mustache as an “ironic” form of protest against the “celebration

of the 100th anniversary of Albania’s independence…being used to gain political points.”

Albanian men of the past had traits like “integrity, wisdom, honesty, [and] moral character,” and

the hope, the page continues, is that politicians will “stop and watch” and maybe “ learn

something” from the past about what it means to be a burrë (Eng: man) or burrneshë (Eng:

feminized version of man for which the colloquial term “she-man” might be the closest

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

19

equivalent). A disclaimer reads that “Burrat Me Mustaqe recognizes the contribution of women

before, during and after independence. The concept of manhood in this site is not to do with sex,

but with a value system…” The page also includes many historical examples of burrneshë,

including Shote Galica (1895-1927), a Kosovar woman who fought alongside her male family

members for Albanian unification and anti-Slav resistance.

The pan-Albanian mutli-verse imagined by Burrat me mustaqe incorporates the revival of

so-called “traditional” Albanian traits and the inversion of gender roles, and meshes a critique of

present-day politics with a turning back toward an Albania of the independence-era past. Its

“followers” attracted attention in both Kosovo, where a group of hundreds of Burrat me mustaqe

gathered in the center of Prishtina to sing the Albanian national anthem, and Albania, where

many participants in Independence Day activities could be seen sporting old-fashioned

mustaches (or donning fake ones).

Another centennial-year collective project was the online campaign for an Albanian

centennial Google Doodle (or graphic image incorporating the “Google” name which appears

above the search bar on Google’s otherwise bare homepage). Klajdi Hëna from Korçë, Albania

started a Change.org petition asking Google to honor Albania’s independence with an Albania-

themed Google Doodle on November 28, 2012. Hëna’s regular project updates were written in

Albanian, but the description and main text of the petition were in English, aimed, like many

Change.org petitions, to go “viral” globally. The petition was signed by 77,452 supporters from

around the world, falling short of its original goal of 153,000.

On November 28, 2012, the petitioners could claim partial success. Google did feature an

Albanian centennial-themed Doodle, but to the great disappointment of many, it was visible only

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

20

in Albania. User OniOniOni’s email of complaint to Google, which was also posted for public

view on a Google Groups message board, read:

“I'd like to express my utmost thanks to you and everyone else at Google involved in

creating a Google doodle for Albania's Independence Day. Without the sightliest [sic] hesitation,

I can duly state that your kind contribution will be wholeheartedly appreciated by every Albanian

the world over.

However, while I take this opportunity to thank you, may I also ask why the doodle has

been restricted to specific internet providers in limited geographical locations, i.e. Albania? This

restriction defies the fundamental principle of a Google doodle increasing awareness of key

anniversary dates to be shared, recognised and or celebrated across the world wide web regardless

of borders, politics and representations!” (Thanks to Google Doodle Albania, 2012)

Several centennial discourses are at play in the text above. The author stresses the significance of

Google Doodle recognition by Albania’s domestic audience and Albanians in the Diaspora

(though they could not see it directly). OniOniOni goes on to lament the fact that the Doodle was

not seen by a global (non-Albanian) audience, which is left, as before, largely unaware of what

makes Albania “exceptional” and, maybe, of the fact that it exists at all.

Other users positioned their criticisms differently. Username Entela Cela writes, “The

display of the Albanian Google Doodle all over the world was a must as a good part of Albanians

live abroad and the doodle was supposed to gather us in a symbolic way and online. The display

of the doodle in the Albanians IPs is an ‘unfinished wish.’” Albanian-ness is not limited to the

borders of Albania, and the centennial of Albanian statehood is not significant only to domestic

Albanians. Username Astrit Mema suggests that Google “could have done more, or maybe we

did not do enough. We should have asked The White House to lobby for us.”

Mema stresses what is perhaps a driving force behind the entire years’ worth of

centennial commemoration: Small countries like Albania have to work especially hard to gain

any kind of wider recognition. The White House suggestion, while presumably tongue-in-cheek,

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

21

rings with some historical truth. Big friends are important, but unfortunately, the most crucial

and continuously difficult piece of the puzzle for Albania has been an inability to build political

consensus or strengthen the collective demands of the citizenship within its borders.

Conclusion

During the 2012 centennial year, the Albanian government pursued a multi-faceted

celebratory project that only partially met the objectives of laid out by President Topi in his 2011

year-end address. Bad memories related to Albania’s succession of bad political systems and

broken social contracts were largely left behind, but their legacies and influence on everyday life

in Albania—attested to most strikingly by groups like the ex-politically persecuted—continue to

affect the country’s progress toward goals like European integration, financial and political

stability. The Albanian government worked tirelessly to assert their stance as a pan-Albanian,

anti-communist, and liberal-democratic power, but did not fully succeed due in part to an

unwillingness or inability to grapple with both certain histories and contemporary realities.

Throughout 2012, counter-commemoration provided important alternatives for identity

formation and memory work. Counter-commemorations were politically diverse, ranging from

party-political criticisms to revivals of “traditional” Albanian moral codes. Ethnic Albanians

within and outside of Albania found opportunities to reconnect with their historical roots and to

imagine together what Albanian identity looks like in 2012 and what it could (or should) look

like in the future.

Fatos Lubonja, an ex-political prisoner and influential critic of Albania’s communist and

post-communist governments, writes: “If Albanians educated during communist time were asked

what was, for them, the most important thing in life, their answers invariably included: ‘the

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

22

fatherland,’ ‘its freedom and independence,’ ‘the Party,’ ‘Enver Hoxha,’ ‘the Soviet Union’ (or

later China), and ‘the construction of socialism.’ Things such as love or individual freedom were

never mentioned” (2002:100). Gradually, national-communist ideology became a “belief not

believed” (ibid), but meaningful post-communist ideologies have been slow to replace it.

In this paper, I have attempted to take the “pulse” of Albanian national identity formation

as framed by the country’s centennial anniversary of independence. I sought as sources a mosaic

of official and counter-commemorative projects, texts, and events, and have attempted to identify

unifying discourses among its disparate pieces. Most of these discourses are historically familiar

to Albanians, or common across post-communist societies. And it seems that any one of them, or

perhaps all of them, are beginning to replace the void left after communism which has inhibited

both nostalgia for and criticism of Albania’s (recent) collective past.

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

23

References

Agence France-Presse

2012 Angry Neighbours Snub Albania Independence Celebration. November 28.

http://www.ipotnews.com/index.php?jdl=Angry_neighbours_snub_Albania_independence_c

elebration&level2=newsandopinion&level3=&level4=ALBANIA&news_id=711848&group

_news=ALLNEWS&taging_subtype=ALBANIA&popular=&search=y&q=ALBANIA,

accessed April 10, 2013.

Alexander, Michael

2012 Three Coins Mark Centennial of Albanian Independence. Coin Update, December 3.

http://news.coinupdate.com/albanian-independence-coin-set-1762/, accessed April 6, 2013.

Andoni, Ben

2012a Socialist Sees Red Over Albania’s Centennial. Balkan Insight, April 3.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/socialist-sees-red-over-albania-s-centennial,

accessed April 7, 2013.

2012b 100 vjet pavarësi, ose kompleksi i madh i Vlorës. Milosao, November 25.

http://lajm.al/lajme/100-vjet-pavar-si-ose-kompleksi-i-madh-i-Vlor-s.html, accessed April 8,

2013.

Balkan Insight

2012 Hunger Strike Shames Albania’s Communist-Bashing PM. October 9.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/hunger-strike-shames-albania-s-communist-

bashing-pm, accessed May 1, 2013.

Bon, Natasa Gregoric

2008 Spaces of Discordance: The Ethnography of Space and Place in the village of

Dhërmi/Drimades, Southern Albania. Ljubljana: ZRC.

bot2013

2013 Monument of 100 Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the Albanian State.

Beauty of Concrete, February 23. http://beautyofconcrete.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/100

years-of-indipendence/, accessed April 6, 2013.

Brajshori, Muhamet and Ivana Jovanovic

2012 KSF participating in Albania celebrations. Southeast European Times, November 16.

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2012/11/16/

feature-01, accessed April 6, 2013.

Bucur, Maria

2009 Heroes and Victims: Remembering War in Twentieth-Century Romania. Indiana

University Press: Bloomington.

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

24

Bullku, Rid

2012 Ja 5 Bocetat për Monumentin e 100 Vjetorit të Pavarësisë, Zgidhni Kush Ju Pëlqen.

NOA, April 7. http://noa.al/news/artikull.php?id=170916, accessed April 6, 2013.

Burrat me mustaqe

2012 Mbi Neve. http://burratmemustaqe.com/about/, accessed April 28, 2013.

Calgary Jewish Film Festival.

2012 2012 Brochure. http://www.bethtzedec.ca/filmfest-2012-brochure, accessed May 1, 2013.

Domansky, Elisabeth

1992 “Kristallnacht," the Holocaust and German Unity: The Meaning of November 9 as an

Anniversary in Germany. History and Memory 4(1):60-94.

Elsie, Robert

2013 1912, The Declaration of Albanian Independence. Albanian History.

http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts20_1/AH1912_1.html, accessed April 10, 2013.

Ely, John

2010 Re-Membering Romania: A Ghost Story. History of Communism in Europe1:59–62 .

European Movement Albania

2013 Albania’s EU Membership Process. http://www.em-al.org/?fq=artikuj&gj=gj2&bir=26,

accessed April 9, 2013.

European Union Information Center-Shkodër

2012 Meeting “100 Years from Women’s Life and Contribution to Albania” – Women’s

Rights and European Integration. November 9.

http://www.shkodra.euic.al/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=239:meeting-

100-years-from-womens-life-and-contribution-to-albania-womens-rights-and-european-

integration&catid=54:krye&Itemid=1&lang=en&date=2013-03-01, accessed April 10, 2013.

Gallup Balkan Monitor

2010 Summary of Findings. http://www.balkan-monitor.eu/index.php/dashboard, accessed

May 1, 2013.

Gjonca, Arjan

2001 Communism, Health and Lifestyle: The Paradox of Mortality Transition in Albania 1950

1990. Greenwood Press: Westport, Connecticut.

Greeley-Murati, Susan

2003 A Cultural Psychological Study of the Narratives of the Ex-Politically Persecuted People

of Albania: Toward a National Narrative. (Thesis prepared for Alliant International

University.) California School of Professional Psychology: San Diego.

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

25

Halas, Elzbieta

2010 Time and Memory: A Cultural Perspective. Trames 4:307–322.

Hëna, Klajdi

2012 Google: Have a Doodle for Albania’s 100 Year Anniversary of Independence.

Change.org petition. http://www.change.org/petitions/google-have-a-doodle-for-albania-s-

100-year-anniversary-of-independence, accessed May 1, 2013.

Hooper, John

2012 Anger as Albania Marks 100th Birthday with Mass Slaughter of Lambs. The Guardian,

November 27. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/27/albanian-birthday-mass-

slaughter-lambs, accessed May 1, 2013.

Kansteiner, Wulf

2002 Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory

Studies. History and Theory 41:179–197.

Konomi, Esiona

2012 Hoxha: Kush e quan Zogun mbret, t’i thyhen turinjtë. Panorama, December 4.

http://www.panorama.com.al/2012/12/04/hoxha-kush-e-quan-zogun-mbret-ti-thyhen-

turinjte/, accessed April 7, 2013.

Koresaar, Ene and Harro-Loit, Halliki

2010 National Temporality and Journalistic Practice: Temporalising Anniversary Events in

Estonian Television News. Trames 4:323–341.

Lajme

2012 Ahmet Zogu: Ishte mbret hero apo tradhetar i Shqiptareve? Lajme gjeneral,

http://www.lajme.gen.al/2012-11-20/ahmet-zogu-ishte-mbret-hero-apo-tradhetar-i-

shqiptareve.html, accessed May 1, 2013.

Likmeta, Besar

2012a Munich Architects to Build Albania’s Centennial Monument. Balkan Insight, April 25.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/architect-due-to-build-memorial-for-albania-s-

centennial, accessed April 6, 2013.

2012b Albanians Divided on Centennial Monument. Balkan Insight, April 25.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albanians-divided-on-centennial-monument,

accessed April 6, 2013.

2012c Albania’s Centennial Brings Joy to Jailbirds. Balkan Insight, October 6.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albania-to-hold-mass-amnesty-for-its-centennial,

accessed April 7, 2013.

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

26

2012d Albanian Ditches Lamb Slaughter at Independence Party. Balkan Insight, November

28. http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albania-avoids-mass-slaughter-in

independence-party, accessed April 10, 2013.

2012e Greece Laments Nationalist Fervor in Albania. Balkan Insight, December 10.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/greece-cautions-against-rise-of-nationalism-in-

albania, accessed May 1, 2013.

Lubonja, Fatos

2002 Between the Glory of a Virtual World and the Misery of the Real World. In Schwandner

Sievers, Stephanie and Bernd Jürgen Fischer, eds. Albanian Identities: Myth and History.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 91-103.

Marku, Hana

2012 A Day for Pride and Moustaches. Kosovo 2.0, November 28. http://www.kosovotwopoint

zero.com/en/blog/people/a-day-for-pride-and-moustaches-28-11-2012, accessed May 1,

2013.

Municipality of Tetovo

2012 Starts the Project of 100 Years without Albania [sic].

http://www.tetova.gov.mk/en/press/729.html, accessed April 26, 2013.

Myles, Robert

2012 Bizarre King Zog’s Remains Repatriated to Albania. Digital Journal, November 17.

http://digitaljournal.com/article/337095, accessed April 8, 2013.

Nixon, Nicola

2010 Always already European: The Figure of Skanderbeg in Contemporary Albanian

Nationalism. National Identities 12(1):1-20.

Qendra e Studimeve Albanologjike (QSA)

2012 100 Vjet Pavarësi. November 22.

http://www.qsa.edu.al/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=162%3A100-vjet-

pavaresi&catid=92%3Aadministrim&Itemid=1&lang=sq, accessed March 10, 2013.

Rama, Edi

2012 Twitter account, November 28. https://twitter.com/ediramaal, accessed May 1, 2013.

Schwartz, Stephen

2012 Fireworks in the Rain: Albania’s Independence Centennial. The Weekly Standard Blog,

December 6. http://www.islamicpluralism.org/2151/fireworks-in-the-rain, accessed April 6,

2013.

Rebecca Mueller

E612, May 1, 2013

27

Shqiptarja

2012a Statuja e Adem Jasharet ngrihet ne Tirane, Jahjaga-Thaci ne ceremoni. November 27.

http://www.shqiptarja.com/aktualitet/2731/statuja-e-adem-jasharit-ngrihet-ne-tirane-jahjaga-

thaci-ne-ceremoni-135094.html, accessed March 3, 2013.

2012b Perurohet busti i Adem Jasharit; Presidenca me pamje te re. November 27.

http://www.shqiptarja.com/politike/2732/perurohet-busti-i-adem-jasharit-presidenca-me-

pamje-te-re-135093.html, accessed March 3, 2013.

Thanks to Google Doodle Albania

2012 Google Groups thread. http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/websearch/

cy2qhkn8Eio, accessed May 1, 2013.

2012a Woodrow Wilson’s statue in Tirana. November 21.

http://www.topchannel.tv/english/artikull.php?id=7637, accessed April 27, 2013.

2012b Hasan Prishtina’s Statue in Tirana. November 23. http://www.topchannel.tv/english/

artikull.php?id=7656, accessed April 7, 2013.

Topi, Bamir

2011 New Year’s Eve Address. Published by NOA as “Mesazhi i Topit për Vitin i Ri: Të lëmë

pas kujtimin e keq të 2011,” December 31. http://noa.al/news/artikull.php?id=132627,

accessed April 9, 2013.

Vangeli, Anastas

2010 Facing the Yugoslav Communist Past in Contemporary Macedonia: Tales of Continuity,

Nostalgia and Victimization. History of Communism in Europe 1:183–205.

Vashem, Yad

2013 Besa: A Code of Honor. Muslims Albanians who Rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/besa/introduction.asp, accessed May 1, 2013.