Divided Nations and European Integration

5. Albanians Divided by Borders: Loyal to State or Nation?

CHAPTER 5 Albanians Divided by Borders: Loyal to State or Nation? Alexandra Channer Introduction “If you look down there [pointing into the valley], you can see the border. It cuts straight across the valley and up the other side into those mountains. That’s Albania. I remember standing here every evening when I was 11 years old with my father and just gazing at Albania. We couldn’t point then because it was too dangerous. We just looked. I came to this spot every day just to look.” The longing expressed by this Albanian above the MacedonianAlbanian border in July 2007 illustrates the fascination that the state of Albania holds for Albanians left outside its border in 1913. This persevering commitment to “Albania” is this chapter’s subject. The objective is to describe how border changes dividing Albanians over time and the process of EU integration have shaped and are shaping Pan-Albanianism’s historical development. The declaration of independent “Albania” in 1912, which was followed by its partition in 1913 by the Great Powers, remains the persistent grievance shaping Pan-Albanianism and its often conflicting goals: uniting nation and state or consolidating independent Albania (Austin 2004, 235–36; Kola 2003, 392). This partition—imposed from London (1912–13), reaffirmed at Versailles (1919), and reinforced after World War II (1945)—hardened the commitment to unification among Albanians outside independent Albania and manifested illegal movements from 1912 onward. Meanwhile their common Map 5.1. Yugoslavia and Albania after 1945. S E R B I A K O S O V O B U L G A R I A M A C E D O N I A A L B A N I A G R E E C E M O N T E N E G R O • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Vermosh Shkoder Vuthaj Tropoja Morina Plave Globoqica Jazhince Kryenik Tetova Debar Mat Tirana Durres Ulqin Breznca Karaceva Bujanovac Konculj Krushev Skopje Podgorica Pristina • • • • Albanians 159 experience of discrimination nourished belief that security and progress would be possible only if they were reunited politically. Independent Albania’s survival was threatened in the same negotiations by neighbors seeking territory , and by occupation in 1939. Constant insecurity restrained its official policy on unification, leading at times to abandonment. However, the 1948 sealing of Albania’s border with Yugoslavia, dividing nation, village, and family, cloaked independent Albania in an enduring mystical appeal. It anchored partition in a deep popular emotional trauma, reinforcing a shared sense of being Albanian that was rooted in overcoming separation. Pan-Albanianism adapted to Albanians’ internal partition between three Yugoslav Republics after 1945 and five states from 1989 to 2008. Initially Albanians defined their collective status in Yugoslavia as the first step toward unification. In the 1990s, however, Kosovo, which was central to this objective , became an international question in a diplomatic context demanding no border changes, making the excluded goal of independence the priority . By 1992 independent Albania, struggling with transition and putting first security in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), had disavowed unification. Albanians began to pursue seemingly distinct goals through passive resistance and participation and eventually through armed resistance in separate wars in Kosovo, Presheva (Serbia), and Macedonia. With Albania’s categorical reaffirmation of opposition to unification in 2001, Pan-Albanianism appeared fragmented, and unification became taboo in political discourse. Analysts argued that aspirations might be satisfied by Kosovo’s independence, while the promise of EU accession could provide an alternative semi-unification based on informal borders, guaranteeing minority rights and constraining Kosovo and Albania. This study suggests that the EU alternative has not yet overcome the enduring nature of the partition grievance and its centrality to Albanian national identity. While the promise of freedom of movement is extremely important for Albanians, it is not perceived as a sufficient replacement for unification. The limited implementation of minority reforms has not reduced the resilience of alienation, exacerbated by the asymmetry of rights granted through international negotiations to Kosovo’s Serb minority. Continuing uncertainty over Kosovo’s supervised and conditioned independence has stimulated Pan-Albanian mobilization. Civil society has begun stressing the regenerative power of national unification and its achievability, peacefully. Political elites remain cautious; however, no longer so fearful of damaging 160 Chapter 5 Kosovo’s prospects and secure in NATO membership, Albania’s prime minister talks of spiritual, though not political, unity while pursuing economic and cultural integration as required by the EU. Rather...