Italy, located only about forty-five miles across the narrow Strait of Otranto, has attempted on several occasions to impose its hegemony over Albania. The extreme influence exercised on Albanian affairs by Italy between 1925 and 1939 that culminated in a military invasion in April of 1939 has been a source of great resentment by the Albanian people.
The Communist Party of Albania assumed control of the country in 1944. The fact that the Communist regime installed itself in the capital city of Tirana on November 28, Albania's traditional Independence Day, was an indication that originally it did not intend to cut off all ties with the past, although its declared intention was to create a new social order. A year later, however, on November 29, the regime proclaimed a new national holiday, which it called Liberation Day. Until about 1960 the traditional Independence Day was mentioned only in passing, whereas Liberation Day was celebrated with considerable publicity.
A basic change of attitude, however, occurred when the regime broke with the Soviet Union in the 1960-61 period. The ruling elite, apparently feeling insecure both for their personal safety and for the future of the country, launched an intensive campaign to win popular support by appealing to the people's nationalist and patriotic sentiments. The country's major patriots who were responsible for the national awakening in the second half of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries had been forgotten after the Communist seizure of power. In 1961 and 1962, however, books and pamphlets began to be published praising nearly all those, irrespective of their social backgrounds, who had played a role in the national awakening and in the declaration of the country's independence in 1912.
Intensive preparations were made in 1962 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the country's independence, and on November 28, 1962, all the top leaders of the party and government went to Vlore, where independence had been declared, to stage one of the biggest patriotic celebrations in the country's modern history. Among the many books and documents published on this occasion to glorify the country's past was one entitled Rilindja Kombetare Shqipetare (Albanian National Awakening), which included photographs of most patriots who had taken part in winning the country's independence, even those of the landed aristocracy (beys—see Glossary), whom the regime had previously branded as the "blood-suckers" of the peasants.
This appeal to the past was also accentuated in 1968 in connection with the 500th anniversary of the death of the country's national hero, Skanderbeg. The regime sent a number of scholars and historians to search for historical documents in Vienna and Rome in preparation for the celebration.
With the exception of these efforts to resurrect the past after a hiatus of fifteen years, the primary function of the country's historians, all under the control of the Party, is to glorify the country's achievements in the period under communism. The Party is given credit for all that has been done in the economic development of the country, in improvements in the people's health, and in expansion of educational and cultural facilities, all of which have been considerable. In 1970 Enver Hoxha, first secretary of the Party, like Stalin in his day and Mao Tse-tung in 1970, was daily quoted and glorified.
ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES
The modern Albanians call their country Shqiperia and themselves Shqipetare. In antiquity the Albanians were known as Illyrians, and in the Middle Ages they came to be called Arbereshe or Arbeneshe, and their country Arberia or Arbenia. The present European forms, Albania and Albanians, are derived from the names Arbanoi and Albanoi or Arbaniti, which appeared in the eleventh century.
In antiquity the Albanians formed part of the Thraco-Illyrian and Epirot tribes that inhabited the whole of the peninsula between the Danube River and the Aegean Sea. Until 168 B.C. the northern and central part of present-day Albania comprised parts of the Kingdom of Illyria, whose capital was Shkoder. The Illyrian Kingdom was conquered by the Romans in 168-167 B.C., and thereafter it was a Roman colony until A.D. 395, when the Roman Empire was split into East and West, Albania becoming part of the Byzantine Empire.
Under the Roman Empire, Albania served as a key recruiting area for the Roman legions and a main outlet to the East. The present port of Durres (the ancient Durrachium) became the western terminum of Via Egnatia, an actual extension of Via Appia, by which the Roman legions marched to the East. It was during the Roman rule that Christianity was introduced into Albania.