AREA HANDBOOK

for

ALBANIA

Co-Authors
Eugene K. Keefe
Sarah Jane Elpern
William Giloane
James M. Moore, Jr.
Stephen Peters
Eston T. White

Research and writing were completed on
July 17, 1970
Published
January 1971

DA PAM 550-98

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 73-609651

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C. 20402—Price $2.50

FOREWORD

This volume is one of a series of handbooks prepared by Foreign Area Studies (FAS) of The American University, designed to be useful to military and other personnel who need a convenient compilation of basic facts about the social, economic, political, and military institutions and practices of various countries. The emphasis is on objective description of the nation's present society and the kinds of possible or probable changes that might be expected in the future. The handbook seeks to present as full and as balanced an integrated exposition as limitations on space and research time permit. It was compiled from information available in openly published material. An extensive bibliography is provided to permit recourse to other published sources for more detailed information. There has been no attempt to express any specific point of view or to make policy recommendations. The contents of the handbook represent the work of the authors and FAS and do not represent the official view of the United States government.

An effort has been made to make the handbook as comprehensive as possible. It can be expected, however, that the material, interpretations, and conclusions are subject to modification in the light of new information and developments. Such corrections, additions, and suggestions for factual, interpretive, or other change as readers may have will be welcomed for use in future revisions. Comments may be addressed to:

The Director
Foreign Area Studies
The American University
5010 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20016

PREFACE

Albania, or, as it proclaimed itself in 1946, the People's Republic of Albania, emerged from World War II under the control of the local Communist movement, which later adopted the name Albanian Workers' Party. The most remarkable feature of Albanian life during the 1960s was the rigid alignment with Communist China in that country's ideological struggle with the Soviet Union. In mid-1970 the country continued to be Communist China's only European ally and its mouthpiece in the United Nations. Propaganda broadcasts in several languages, extensive for such a small, undeveloped country, continued to emanate from the capital city of Tirana, constantly reiterating the Chinese Communist line and making Radio Tirana sound like an extension of Radio Peking.

Albania's most notable tradition from ancient times has been one of foreign domination. Brief periods of independence have been overshadowed by long centuries of subjection to alien rule. Foreign rulers never seemed able or willing to subject the Albanian peasants to the complete authority of a central government. Throughout their history Albanians, protected by the remoteness of their mountain villages, often enjoyed a measure of autonomy even though they lacked national independence. The foreign domination plus the limited autonomy developed in the people a spirit of fierce independence and a suspicion of neighboring states that might have designs on their territorial integrity.

Militarily undeveloped but unwilling to submit to partition by its neighbors, Albania has held on precariously to autonomy since World War II by becoming a client state—first to Yugoslavia, then to the Soviet Union, and then to Communist China. In all three relationships Albania has maintained its independence but it has not been able to establish itself as a viable economic entity.

The Area Handbook for Albania seeks to present an overview of the various social, political, and economic aspects of the country as they appeared in 1970. The leaders of the Communist Party have gone to extremes to maintain an aura of secrecy about their nation and their efforts to govern it. Material on Albania is scanty and some that is available is not reliable but, using their own judgments on sources, the authors have striven for objectivity in this effort to depict Albanian society in 1970.

The spelling of place names conforms to the rulings of the United States Board on Geographic Names, with the exception that no diacritical marks have been used in this volume. The metric system has been used only for tonnages.

COUNTRY SUMMARY

1. COUNTRY: People's Republic of Albania (Albania). Called Shqiperia by Albanians. A national state since 1912. Under Communist control after 1944.

2. GOVERNMENT: Functions much like Party-state model of Soviet Union. Constitution designates People's Assembly as highest state organ; its Presidium conducts state affairs between Assembly sessions. People's Council highest organ at district and lower echelons. Communist Party (officially, the Albanian Workers' Party) organizations parallel government organizations and control them from national to local levels. Party members hold all key positions in government.

3. SIZE AND LOCATION: Area, 11,100 square miles; smallest of the European Communist states. Extends 210 miles from southern to northern extremities; 90 miles on longest east-west axis. Bordered on north and east by Yugoslavia; on southeast and south by Greece; and on west by Adriatic and Ionian seas.

4. TOPOGRAPHY: A narrow strip of lowland borders Adriatic Sea; remainder of country is mountainous and hilly, intersected by streams that flow in westerly or northwesterly direction. Terrain is generally rugged.

5. CLIMATE: Unusually varied. Coastal lowlands have Mediterranean-type climate. Inland fluctuations common, but continental influences predominate. Annual precipitation is 40 to 100 inches according to area; highly seasonal; summer droughts common. Temperatures vary widely because of differences in elevation and the changes in prevailing Mediterranean and continental air currents.

6. ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS: Twenty-six districts. Economic and social factors played important role in shaping delineations. Control and direction is from Tirana.

7. POPULATION: Estimated 2.1 million in January 1970. Growth unusually rapid; at 1970 rate, would double in twenty-six years. Two-thirds live in rural areas. Inhabitants are 97-percent ethnic Albanian. About 106 males per 100 females.

8. LABOR: In 1967 the working-age population numbered about 932,000, of which approximately 745,000 were employed. About 66.7 percent were in agriculture; 14.1 percent in industry; 5.4 percent in construction; and 13.8 percent in trade, education, health, and others.

9. LANGUAGE: Albanian spoken by everyone. Some of the 3-percent minority use tongue of country of family origin as a second language.

10. EDUCATION: Nearly all persons under age forty are literate, according to Albanian statistics. Communist ideas and principles emphasized with strict controls by centralized authority. Production of capabilities and skills required for modernization and industrialization considered to be a major goal.

11. RELIGION: Organized religion destroyed by government action in 1967. Party-directed antireligious campaign aims to eliminate religious thought and belief. Pre-World War II data indicated population to be 70-percent Muslim, 20-percent Eastern Orthodox, and 10-percent Roman Catholic.

12. HEALTH: Many diseases, but reportedly greatly reduced or eliminated. Health improved substantially after 1950, as reflected in Albanian reports. Malnutrition, poor sanitary-hygienic conditions, and lack of trained personnel are continuing problems.

13. JUSTICE: System of people's courts from national to village level; purportedly independent of administrative system but guided by Party policy. Supreme Court elected by the People's Assembly. District judges popularly elected from among Party-approved candidates. Jury system not used. Persons are subject to military law and tried in military courts.

14. ECONOMY: Government controlled. Follows planning model of Soviet Union. Per capita gross national product lowest in Europe. Lack of accessible resources, arable land, and trained work force make for slow growth.

15. INDUSTRY: Poorly developed despite heavy emphasis since 1950s, with priority to means of production. Extractive industries most productive. Growth rates high in 1950s, slowed in 1960s.

16. AGRICULTURE: Production low because of lack of arable land and inefficient methods. Cereal crops for domestic use and exportable items, such as tobacco, fruits, and vegetables, most important.

17. IMPORTS: Largely items for industrial development and unfinished materials for processing. Some food, but quantity decreasing.

18. EXPORTS: Mostly at the expense of domestic needs, except for some metals and minerals. Low in proportion to imports, but increasing.

19. FINANCE: Currency: The lek is standard unit; lacks solid backing. Banks are state owned and operated. National income consistently less than expenditures, requiring supplement from foreign sources.

20. COMMUNICATIONS: Government owned and controlled. Press and radio as instruments to indoctrinate effectively reach the masses. Other media poorly developed.

21. RAILROADS: Approximately 135 miles standard-gauge. None cross international borders.

22. ROADS: Approximately 3,000 miles have improved surface. Rugged terrain makes travel difficult on others. None part of important international routes.

23. PORTS: Durres, largest and most important, alone links with hinterland. Vlore only other major port.

24. AIR TRANSPORTATION: Extremely limited within country and with foreign cities. Long-distance international flights require connections through intermediate points. Facilities for all but small aircraft limited to Tirana area.

25. INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS AND TREATIES: Member, United Nations after 1955. Member, Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) and Warsaw Treaty Organization, 1955-68; participation all but ceased after 1961 split with Soviet Union.

26. AID PROGRAMS: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) 1945-46; Yugoslavia 1947-48, as an integrated economy; Soviet Union 1948-61; and Communist China after 1961.

27. SECURITY: Party-controlled agencies closely watch people's activities and secure borders. Security forces total approximately 12,500.

28. ARMED FORCES: The People's Army, approximately 40,000, includes army, navy, and air elements. Most conscripts serve two years. Cost, about 10 percent of total budget.

PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF ALBANIA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF TABLES

Figure 1. Transportation Systems in Albania

CHAPTER 1

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE SOCIETY

The People's Republic of Albania was, in 1970, the smallest and economically most backward of the European Communist nations, with an area of 11,100 square miles located between Yugoslavia and Greece along the central west coast of the Balkan Peninsula. Its population of approximately 2.1 million was considered to be 97-percent ethnic Albanian, with a smattering of Greeks, Vlachs, Bulgars, Serbs, and Gypsies. Practically the entire population used Albanian as the principal language.

The country officially became a Communist "people's republic" in 1946 after one-party elections were held. Actually, the Communist-dominated National Liberation Front had been the leading political power since 1944, after successfully conducting civil war operations against non-Communist forces while concurrently fighting against Italian and German armies of occupation. The Communist regime operated first under the mask of the Democratic Front from 1944 to 1948 and, subsequently, through the Albanian Workers' Party; it asserted that it was a dictatorship of the proletariat—the workers and the peasants—and that it ruled according to the Leninist principle of democratic centralism. In practice, a small, carefully selected Party group, which in 1970 was still under the control of Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu, the partisan leaders of the World War II period, made all important policy and operational decisions ([see ch. 6], Government Structure and Political System).

In order to gain broad support for its programs the Party utilized mass social organizations. These included the Democratic Front, the successor in 1945 to the National Liberation Front; the Union of Albanian Working Youth; the United Trade Unions; and others. Direct election of governmental bodies, from the people's councils in villages to the People's Assembly at the national level, gave the appearance of representative institutions. While seemingly democratic, these assemblies met infrequently and for short periods and had no real power.

The average citizen has never had any influence in national politics. During the 1920-39 period vested interests, mostly landowners and clan chiefs, were the predominant influence. A middle class was lacking, and the great bulk of the population, the rural peasantry, was held in a state of subservience by local leaders. Under Communist rule political power has been concentrated completely in the Party leadership ([see ch. 2], Historical Setting; [ch. 6], Government Structure and Political System).

The system of controls circumscribed individual freedoms and reached nearly every facet of day-to-day life. The Communist regime, by its totalitarian rule, extended and increased obedience to, and fear of, centralized authority. A new ruling elite, that of the Party, was substituted for the beys (see Glossary) and pashas (see Glossary) of pre-Communist times ([see ch. 6], Government Structure and Political System).

The goals of the Communist regime as revealed during the 1944-70 period were to strengthen and perpetuate the Party's hold on the reins of government, to maintain Albanian independence, and to modernize society according to the Leninist-Stalinist model. By capitalizing on the divisions among the Communist nations and by eliminating or rendering harmless internal opposition, the Party had a firm grip on the instruments of control, and by 1961 independence was reasonably well secured. Only modest progress had been made by 1970 toward modernization. The lack of extensive natural resources and continued reliance on foreign aid caused much strain and required sacrifices by the ordinary citizen ([see ch. 2], Historical Setting; [ch. 9], Internal and External Security).

Albania tended to be highly aggressive and partisan in the ideological struggles between the Communist and Western democratic states and those between the Communist nations. The successive close relationships with Yugoslavia (1944-48), the Soviet Union (1949-60), and China after 1961 reflected the inherent insecurity of a weak state. Although these coalitions frequently seemed to place Albania in a subservient role, the ultimate goals of the Hoxha-Shehu regime were to develop political autonomy and economic self-sufficiency, thus reducing dependence on foreign aid to a point where Albania could be truly independent ([see ch. 6], Government Structure and Political System).

In many respects Albania was a closed society. Government controls over all internal communications media ensured that only Party-approved information was disseminated; however, foreign transmissions were not jammed, probably because funds were not available. The individual's activities were closely watched by security police or other Party watchdogs. Travel into and out of the country was restricted and closely controlled ([see ch. 7], Communications and Cultural Development; [ch. 9], Internal and External Security).

Pre-Communist Albania gained independence in 1912 after 4-1/2 centuries of rule by the Ottoman Turks. The movement toward nationhood during the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth took advantage of the disintegration of Turkish power and the rivalry between European nations vying for control over the Balkans. The opportunity for independence came when a group of Balkan nations attacked Turkey and proclaimed their intention of seizing the European part of the Ottoman Empire. A group of Albanian patriots, under the leadership of Ismail Qemal bey Vlora, thwarted the desires of Albania's neighbors to partition the country by declaring independence on November 28, 1912. The new nation sought and received backing from the great powers of Europe, thus forcing the weaker Balkan nations to give up their plans for the annexation of Albanian territory.

Under the cruel, corrupt, and inefficient Ottoman rule, institutions and capabilities for self-government were not allowed to develop, and the country was ill prepared for statehood when it arrived. Development had hardly begun when World War I brought chaos to the country as the opposing powers used it as a battleground. After the war, as Albania struggled to assert itself as a national entity, the lack of natural resources and a poorly developed economy created a heavy requirement for foreign aid. Excessive reliance on Fascist Italy during the 1920s and 1930s eventually led to annexation by that expansionist power.

After regaining its independence during World War II, Albania again compromised its sovereignty by excessive reliance on outside powers: first on Yugoslavia, which was heavily involved in the establishment of the Communist Party in Albania, and then on the Soviet Union. Catastrophe was averted in each instance by a split between Communist nations. When Joseph Stalin expelled Yugoslavia from the Communist bloc of nations in 1948, Enver Hoxha switched his allegiance to the Soviet Union and ended his country's economic reliance on Yugoslavia, which had all but incorporated Albania into its federation. For the next several years Albania was a Soviet satellite but, as the rift between the Soviet Union and Communist China widened, Hoxha continually sided with the Chinese and, when the break came in 1961, Albania severed its Soviet ties and became an ally of Communist China.

The lack of resources and an undeveloped economy, the same economic problems that had plagued newly independent Albania in the 1920s, continued to be problems in 1970, and foreign aid was still a necessity. Communist China provided an undetermined amount of assistance during the 1960s and into 1970 but, from the Albanian point of view, the danger of loss of sovereignty to distant China was much less than it had been during the periods when the country was a client state of nearby Italy, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union.

The lack of easily defended national boundaries was an additional concern in the maintenance of territorial integrity. Although the boundaries originally established in 1913 remained relatively unchanged and were not officially disputed in 1970, they were not considered satisfactory in some sectors. About 1 million Albanians lived in adjacent areas of Yugoslavia, mostly in the Kosovo region, and Albania revealed her dissatisfaction that they were not included within its territory. Neither Albania nor Greece was content with the demarcation along the two most southerly districts of Albania. The lack of sharply defined terrain features in most places along the northern and eastern borders with Yugoslavia and the southeastern and southern delineation between Albania and Greece increased the potential for dispute ([see ch. 2], Historical Setting; [ch. 3], Physical Environment).

The topography of the land is generally rugged, and access to inland areas is difficult. Except for the narrow strip of lowlands along the Adriatic coast, the country is made up of mountains and hills, intermittently intersected by streams that flow in a generally westerly or northwesterly direction. Valleys in the hinterland are narrow, and slopes of mountains and hills tend to be steep ([see ch. 3], Physical Environment).

Considering Albania's small area, climatic conditions are quite varied. Along the coastal lowlands Mediterranean-type weather prevails. In the interior there are rapid fluctuations in many areas, but continental influences predominate. Despite annual precipitation ranging from 40 to 100 inches, droughts are common because rainfall is unevenly distributed ([see ch. 3], Physical Environment).

Few places offer good conditions for large-scale settlement. Localities with good soil and a dependable water supply are small and scattered. The coastal lowlands, inundated or desert-like according to the season, are lightly populated. The region generally bounded by Durres, Tirana, Elbasan, and Fier grew most rapidly and had the highest population density in the late 1960s. Inland, the mountain and upland basins offer the best conditions for settlement ([see ch. 3], Physical Environment; [ch. 4], The People).

The extensive networks of rivers are of little value for transportation because waterflow fluctuates, currents tend to be violent, and estuaries are heavily sedimented. Road and railroad construction is difficult because of the uneven character of the terrain. Improved land transportation routes are exceedingly limited. Mountain homesteads and villages frequently have only a footpath to connect them with the outside world. The lack of communications routes results in isolation for many areas and helps to place Albania on a byway of international travel ([see ch. 3], Physical Environment; [ch. 4], The People).

Remote and isolated areas had a significant influence in shaping Albanian society. During the long period of Turkish rule they provided sanctuaries for the preservation of ethnic identity. After 1912 the people in these areas were the primary residuary for antiquated customs and attitudes. Communist leaders made a major effort in the 1960s to eliminate old customs and other vestiges of the past that detracted from the collectivization and modernization of society. Comments of high officials in early 1970 indicated that their efforts still had not been entirely successful ([see ch. 2], Historical Setting; [ch. 4], The People).

The Albanians are descendants of the Illyrians, an Indo-European people who lived in the Balkans in antiquity. Their history before the eleventh century is linked with, and not easily separated from, that of the other Illyrian tribes. The written language did not develop until the fifteenth century, and then for more than four centuries under Turkish rule it was forbidden. Although Albanians distinguished themselves as soldiers under Turkish suzerainty and some held high office in the Ottoman ruling hierarchy, they were little known as a people before the nineteenth century. As members of clans or feudal estates they lived an outmoded life style and were relatively untouched by the forces of industrialization and democratization that changed much of western and southern Europe in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ([see ch. 2], Historical Setting).

For centuries after the death in 1468 of Skanderbeg, the Albanian national hero and symbol of resistance to Turkish rule, many Albanian mountain communities lived unto themselves. Local control rested with pashas and beys, and some became virtually independent of Turkish rule. About two-thirds of the people accepted, or were forcibly converted to, the Muslim faith under the Turks. Since eligibility to participate in political life rested on religious affiliation, some Albanians thus became a part of the ruling hierarchy of the Ottoman Empire, but the masses were indifferent politically. Activities or attitudes that would tend to strengthen nationalism were suppressed. When considered in its entirety the heritage from Ottoman rule contributed almost nothing toward the development of capabilities required for a viable government and a modernized society ([see ch. 2], Historical Setting).

Kinship, customs, and attitudes related to family life, and strong attachments to community and language were strong influences in the preservation of ethnic identity through the many centuries of foreign domination. The Albanians are divided into two major subgroups—the Gegs, who occupy the area north of the Shkumbin River, and the Tosks, who inhabit the territory to the south. Differences in physical appearance persist, but the breakup of clans and moves toward collectivization of society after World War II diminished the most distinguishing feature, their social system. Antiquated customs and blood feuds that were frequently initiated by offenses against women were more prevalent among the Gegs than the Tosks before the Communist takeover ([see ch. 4], The People).

The family continued to be a strong social force in 1970. It was the primary residuary of customs, practices, and attitudes that detracted from Communist programs to create a monolithic and modernized society. Older persons, particularly males, who traditionally held positions of authority in the family, were considered to be the strongest force against change. In their efforts to eliminate outmoded customs, Party and government leaders placed special emphasis on youth and women, the latter having suffered much discrimination under the clan system. Large extended families, which sometimes numbered sixty or more persons and included several generations, were in most cases broken up under Communist rule as a means to decrease family influence ([see ch. 5], Social System).

Party leaders, realizing the importance of education in developing attitudes and loyalties favorable to communism and in training the work force required for a modern industrial economy, placed heavy emphasis on school programs. By 1970 the level of schooling completed by the people had been significantly increased over the 1946 level, but the pool of scientific and skilled personnel fell far short of requirements ([see ch. 5], Social System).

The most noteworthy improvement in the people's welfare, as reflected by Albanian data, was in the area of health. The incidence of disease was greatly reduced; the death rate decreased; and life expectancy increased by approximately 12.5 years between 1950 and 1966 ([see ch. 4], The People).

Albanian art, literature, and music have gained little recognition among world cultures. After 1944 the Communist regime instituted mass participation in education and social and cultural activities to instill ideals of socialism and Communist morality and gain the capabilities required for modernization of the economy. Illiteracy, once prevalent among all age groups, was reportedly eliminated among persons under the age of forty and some, but not nearly all, of the skilled work force required has been produced. Despite these efforts Albania's cultural heritage was still meager in the late 1960s ([see ch. 5], Social System; [ch. 7], Communications and Cultural Development).

Albanians as individuals tended to take religion lightly, and the Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholic religions that had been brought by conquerors did not play major roles in shaping national traditions or in strengthening national unity. In 1967, after the government's withdrawal of approval for religious bodies to function, an accelerated campaign was undertaken to eradicate religious thoughts and beliefs. The fact that the campaign was continuing in early 1970 indicated that it had not entirely succeeded ([see ch. 5], Social System).

The major economic objective is to develop a modern economy with a strong industrial base. Before World War II there was practically no industry, and the system of agriculture was primitive and inefficient. Substantial aid from the Soviet Union during the 1950s resulted in modest growth of the economy, with rapid rates of industrial growth and improvements in education and health. Chinese aid on a lesser scale and heavy sacrifices by the masses sustained the growth trend in industry during the 1960s but at a slower pace.

The major source of national income changed from agriculture to industry during the early 1960s, but the country was still by all appearances predominantly rural and agricultural. Two-thirds of the people lived in rural areas, and more than half were engaged in agriculture. Socialization of the economy, which began in 1944, was completed in the late 1960s. The model of planning borrowed from the Soviet Union that was adopted in the late 1940s continued in use with only slight modifications. The trend was toward greater centralization and governmental control ([see ch. 8], Economic System).

The provision of adequate and proper food, clothing, and housing was a constant major problem. Little improvement was made in the standard of living between 1950 and 1970, largely because of sustained rapid population growth and priority to the means of production sector of industry in the allocation of resources ([see ch. 4], The People; [ch. 8], Economic System).

CHAPTER 2

HISTORICAL SETTING

Historical works and official documents published in Tirana as late as 1970 stressed two major themes: the importance of patriotism and nationalism and the achievements, real or fancied, of the Communist regime since it assumed control of the country in November 1944. The appeal to nationalism always strikes a responsive chord among the Albanians not only because their history is replete with humiliations and injustices heaped upon them by long domination of foreign powers but also, and especially, because of the territorial aspirations and claims of its neighbors—Italy, Yugoslavia, and Greece. The political scene in Albania since it formally won an independent existence from Turkey in 1912 has indeed been dominated by attempts of one, or a combination, of its neighbors to dismember it.

The boundaries of Albania in 1970 were essentially the same as those delineated by representatives of the Great Powers after Albania had declared its independence. Ethnic problems raised by the drawing of the boundaries have never been solved to the satisfaction of the countries involved. The Albanians hold that in 1913 about 40 percent of their territory, with a population at that time of about 600,000 ethnic Albanians, was unjustly assigned to Serbia. The area has been a continuing source of friction between Albania and Yugoslavia.

A source of tension between Albania and Greece has been the status of Albania's two southernmost districts. Known to the Greeks as Northern Epirus, this region was awarded to Albania by the boundary delineations of 1913, but the Greeks have never relinquished their claims to the area.

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.

From the fifth century to the advent of the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans in the fourteenth century, invasions from the north and east, especially by the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Slavs, thinned the indigenous Illyrian population and drove it along the mountainous Adriatic coastal regions. During the crusades in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Albania became a thoroughfare for the crusading armies, which used the port of Durres as a bridgehead. By this time the Venetian Republic had obtained commercial privileges in Albanian towns and, after the Fourth Crusade (1204), it received nominal control over Albania and Epirus and took actual possession of Durres and the surrounding areas. In the middle of the thirteenth century Albania fell under the domination of the kings of Naples, and in 1272 armies of Charles I of Anjou crossed the Adriatic and occupied Durres. Thereupon, Charles I issued a decree calling himself Rex Albaniae and creating Regnum Albaniae (the Kingdom of Albania), which lasted for nearly a century.

OTTOMAN TURK RULE

In the period after the defeat of the Serbs by the Ottoman Turks in 1389 in the battle of Kosovo, most of Albania was divided into a number of principalities under the control of native tribal chieftains, most of whom were subsequently forced into submission by the invading Turks. Some of these chieftains, however, were allowed their independence under Turkish suzerainty. One of the most noted of these was John Kastrioti of Kruje, a region northeast of Tirana, whose four sons were taken hostage by the sultan to be trained in the Ottoman service. The youngest of these, Gjergj, was destined to win fame throughout Europe and to be immortalized as the national hero of his country. Gjergj (b. 1403) soon won the sultan's favor, distinguished himself in the Turkish army, converted to Islam, and was bestowed the title of Skander Bey (Lord Alexander), which, in Albanian, became Skanderbeg or Skenderbey.

In 1443 Hungarian King Hunyadi routed at Nish the sultan's armies, in which Skanderbeg held command; Skanderbeg fled to his native land and seized from the Turks his father's fortress at Kruje. His defection and reconversion to Christianity and the creation in 1444 of the League of Albanian Princes, with himself as its head, enraged the Ottomans, who began a series of intense campaigns that lasted until Skanderbeg's natural death in 1468. In his wars against the Turks, Skanderbeg was aided by the kings of Naples and the popes, one of whom, Pope Nicholas V, named him Champion of Christendom.

Skanderbeg's death did not end Albania's resistance to the Turks; however, they gradually extended their conquests in Albania and in time defeated both the local chieftains and the Venetians, who controlled some of the coastal towns. The Turkish occupation of the country resulted in a great exodus of Albanians to southern Italy and Sicily, where they preserved their language, customs, and Eastern Orthodox religion.

One of the most significant consequences of Ottoman rule of Albania was the conversion to Islam of over two-thirds of the population. As the political and economic basis of the Ottoman Empire was not nationality but religion, this conversion created a new group of Muslim Albanian bureaucrats, who not only ruled Albanian provinces for the sultans but also served in important posts as pashas (governors) in many parts of the empire. A number of them became viziers (prime ministers), and one, Mehmet Ali Pasha, at the beginning of the nineteenth century founded an Egyptian dynasty that lasted until the 1950s.

Some of the Albanian beys and pashas, especially in the lowlands, became almost independent rulers of their principalities. One of these, Ali Pasha Tepelena, known in history as the Lion of Yannina, whose principality at the beginning of the nineteenth century consisted of the whole area from the Gulf of Arta to Montenegro. By 1803 he had assumed absolute power and negotiated directly with Napoleon and the rulers of Great Britain and Russia. The sultan, however, becoming alarmed at the damage Ali Pasha was doing to the unity of the empire, sent his armies to surround him in Yannina, where he was captured and decapitated in 1822.

Under the Turks, Albania remained in complete stagnation and, when the Turks were expelled from the Balkans in 1912, they left it in about the same condition as they had found it. The Albanian highlanders, especially in the north, were never fully subjected, and their tribal organizations were left intact. Turkish suzerainty affected them only to the extent that it isolated them from the world. Thus, they preserved their medieval laws, traditions, and customs. As a result, Western civilization and development did not begin to penetrate Albania in any meaningful way until it became independent in 1912.

NATIONAL AWAKENING AND INDEPENDENCE

The Albanian national awakening made rapid strides after the Treaty of San Stefano in 1877, imposed on Turkey by the Russians, gave the Balkan Slavic nations large parts of Albania. The Western powers, refusing to accept Russia's diktat on Turkey, met in Berlin the following year to consider revision of the Treaty of San Stefano. Albanian leaders in the meantime convened at Prizren and founded the League for the Defense of the Rights of the Albanian Nation. Although the league was unable to bring sufficient pressure on the Congress of Berlin to save Albania from serious dismemberment, it set in motion a political movement that had tremendous influence on Albanian nationalist activity for decades to come.

Most of the league leaders held high positions in, or were influential members of, the ruling Turkish elite and were fully aware of the shaky position of the Ottoman Empire; they therefore demanded from the Turks administrative and cultural autonomy for all Albanian lands united in a principality. The Turkish government refused and in 1881 forced the dissolution of the league. Meanwhile, Russia, Italy, and Austria-Hungary began to take an active interest in Albania. Russia aimed at blocking expansion of Austrian influence in the Balkans and supported the territorial demands of Serbia and Montenegro. Italy and Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, concerned over Russia's influence extending to the Adriatic, attempted to influence developments in Albania.

The advent of the Young Turks regime (1908), in whose establishment Albanian officials in the service of the empire played a major role, encouraged the Albanians to found cultural and political clubs for the propagation of Albanian culture and the defense of Albanian rights. In 1908 a congress of intellectuals from all parts of Albania and the Albanian colonies abroad, especially the Italo-Albanian colonies in Italy, convened in Monastir (Bitolj) to decide on an Albanian alphabet; it adopted the Latin one as most suitable for the country. This decision marked a great advance toward Albanian unification and eventual statehood.

In the summer and fall of 1912, while Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, and Greece, prodded by Russia, were waging war against Turkey, the Albanians staged a series of revolts and began to agitate for the creation of an autonomous and neutral Albania. Accordingly, a group of Albanian patriots, led by Ismail Qemal bey Vlora, a member of the Turkish Parliament, proclaimed Albania's independence at Vlore on November 28, 1912, and organized an Albanian provisional government. Supported by Austria and Italy, Albania's independence was recognized on December 12, 1912, by the London Conference of Ambassadors, but its boundaries were to be determined later. In March 1913 agreement was reached on the northern frontiers, assigning Shkoder to Albania but giving Kosovo and Metohija (Kosmet), inhabited then chiefly by Albanians, to Serbia. This frontier demarcation was very similar to the frontiers between Yugoslavia and Albania as they existed in 1970.

The boundaries in the south were more difficult to delineate because Greece laid claim to most of southern Albania, which the Greeks call Northern Epirus. The Conference of Ambassadors appointed a special commission to draw the demarcation line on ethnographic bases and in December 1913 drafted the Protocol of Florence, which assigned the region to Albania. The 1913 boundaries in the south, like those in the north, were almost the same as those that existed between Greece and Albania in 1970. The Albania that emerged from the Conference of Ambassadors was a truncated one; as many Albanians were left out of the new state as were included in it.

The Conference of Ambassadors also drafted a constitution for the new state, which was proclaimed as an autonomous principality, sovereign, and under the guarantees of the Great Powers; created an International Control Commission to control the country's administration and budget; and selected as ruler the German Prince Wilhelm zu Wied. Prince Wied arrived in March 1914 but had to flee the country six months later because of the outbreak of World War I and the difficulties caused by the unruly feudal beys. As a consequence, Albania's independence came to an end, and for the next four years the country served as a battleground for the warring powers.

CREATION OF MODERN ALBANIA

At the end of World War I Albania was occupied by the Allied armies, mostly Italian and French. The Secret Treaty of London, concluded in 1915 and published by the Russian Bolsheviks after the October 1917 Revolution, provided for the partition of nearly all Albania among Italy, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece. Another accord, known as the Tittoni-Venizelos Agreement, concluded between Italy and Greece in 1919, also called for the dismemberment of Albania. At the 1919-20 Paris Peace Conference Greece laid claim to southern Albania; Serbia and Montenegro, to the northern part; and Italy, to the port of Vlore and surrounding areas. But President Woodrow Wilson's principle of self-determination and his personal insistence on the restoration of an independent Albania saved the country from partition. In the summer of 1920 an Albanian partisan army drove the Italians from Vlore, and the Italian government recognized Albania's independence.

In the meantime, in January 1920 a congress of representatives met in Lushnje, in central Albania, and created a government and a Council of Regency composed of representatives of the four religious denominations prevailing in Albania: the two Muslim sects (Sunni and Bektashi), Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox ([see ch. 5], Social System).

From 1920 to 1924 there was political freedom in the country along with extreme political strife. A group of statesmen and politicians, mostly from the old Turkish bureaucracy, attempted to lay the foundation of a modern state, but there was a bitter struggle between the old conservative landlords and Western educated or inspired liberals. The landowners, led by Ahmet Zogu, advocated the continuance of feudal tenure and opposed social and economic reforms, especially agrarian reforms. The liberals, led by Bishop Fan S. Noli, a Harvard University graduate who had founded the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Boston in 1908 and had returned to Albania in 1920, favored the establishment of a Western-type democracy. The country was torn by political struggles and rapid changes of government revealed considerable political instability.

In June 1924 the liberals staged a successful coup against the conservative landlords, forcing their leader, Ahmet Zogu, to flee to Yugoslavia, and formed a new government under Bishop Noli. But Noli was too radical to command the support of the disparate coalition that had ousted Zogu. Internally he proposed radical agrarian reforms, the purging and reduction of the bureaucracy, and the establishment of a truly democratic regime. In foreign affairs he extended recognition to the Soviet Union, a move that alienated some of his supporters at home and alarmed some neighboring states. As a consequence, Zogu, having secured foreign support, led an army from Yugoslavia and in December 1924 entered the capital city of Tirana and became ruler of the country. Bishop Noli and his closest supporters fled abroad; some eventually went to Moscow, and others fell under Communist influence in Western capitals.

Zogu's rule in the 1925-39 period, first as President Zogu and after September I, 1928, as Zog I, king of the Albanians, brought political stability and developed a national political consciousness that had been unprecedented in Albanian history. To secure his position both internally and externally, he concluded in 1926 and 1927 bilateral treaties with Italy, providing for mutual support in maintaining the territorial status quo and establishing a defensive alliance between the two countries. These two treaties, however, assured Italian penetration of Albania, particularly in the military and economic spheres.

King Zog ruled as a moderate dictator, his monarchy being a combination of despotism and reform. He prohibited political parties but was lenient to his opponents unless they actually threatened to overthrow his rule, as happened in 1932, 1935, and 1937. But even during these open revolts, he showed a good deal of leniency and executed only a few ringleaders. He effected some substantial reforms both in the administration and in society, particularly outlawing the traditional vendetta and carrying of arms, of which the Albanians were very fond. The most significant contribution of Zog's fourteen-year rule, the longest since the time of Skanderbeg, was the development of a truly national consciousness and an identity of the people with the state, although not necessarily with the monarchy, and the gradual breakdown of the traditional tribal and clan systems.

In April 1938 Zog married Geraldine Apponyi, a Hungarian countess with an American mother. Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano was the best man. On Ciano's return to Italy from the wedding, he proposed to his father-in-law, Benito Mussolini, Fascist dictator of Italy, the annexation of Albania. The following year, on April 7, 1939, Ciano's suggestion was consummated. Italian forces invaded Albania on that day, forcing Zog to flee the country, never to return. In the next few months rapid steps were taken to unite Albania with Italy under the crown of King Victor Emanuel III and to impose a regime similar to that of Fascist Italy. Albania as an independent state disappeared.

COMMUNIST SEIZURE AND CONSOLIDATION OF POWER

Resistance to the Italian invaders began soon after the invasion, but the few insignificant Communist groups that existed at that time did not join the fray until after Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941. These Communist groups, acting generally independently of each other, were composed chiefly of young intellectuals who had revolted against the country's medieval society. Educated mostly in the West, they felt that their country's economic development and their desire to use their Western education for their own and their country's advancement were frustrated by Zog's concept of personal rule, by the hostility of traditional chieftains and beys, and by the lack of opportunities in the country's underdeveloped society and economy.

The leaders of these disparate groups convened clandestinely in Tirana on November 8, 1941, and under the guidance of two emissaries from the Yugoslav Communist Party, Dusan Mugosha and Miladin Popovic, founded the Albanian Communist Party—known since 1948 as the Albanian Workers' Party. Enver Hoxha, a young schoolteacher who had studied in France and Belgium, was elected provisional and, subsequently, permanent secretary general. In 1970 he still held the same position, under the title of first secretary. From the outset the strategy of the Party was to conceal its true Marxist program and orientation and to stress nationalism and patriotism. To this end, the front technique, through the National Liberation Movement, was used.

The National Liberation Movement was created by the Conference of Peze that was convened, also clandestinely, on September 16, 1942, for the purpose of creating a militant organization to coordinate and intensify the activities of a number of guerrilla bands then active against the Italian occupiers. It was sponsored by the Party and attended by the Party leaders, who at that time paraded as patriots and vehemently denied in public that they were Communists, and by a number of nationalist resistance chieftains. The National Liberation Movement was dominated from the beginning by the Communists, as were its military formations, known as partisans.

The movement was further strengthened in July 1943 at the Conference of Labinot, when the General Staff of the Army of National Liberation of Albania was created, with Enver Hoxha as chief commissar. Thereafter, under the guise of the National Liberation Movement, the Communist leaders devoted all their energies to obtaining complete control of the partisan formations and to preparing the ground for a seizure of power as soon as the Axis powers should be defeated. Their prime objectives in the 1943-44 years were to immobilize the nationalist elements who were still in the movement by surrounding them with loyal commissars and, at the same time, to try to annihilate other nationalist groups that had refused from the outset to collaborate with the movement. There was a full-scale civil war in the country from September 1943 to November 1944.

The civil war was fought between the partisan formations and the two principal anti-Communist organizations—Balli Kombetar (National Front) and the Legality Movement. The Balli Kombetar emerged as an organization soon after the National Liberation Movement was founded; it was led by Midhat Frasheri, a veteran patriot who had formed a clandestine resistance movement during the early days of Italian occupation. The Balli Kombetar extolled the principles of freedom and social justice and championed the objective of an ethnic Albania; that is, the retention of the Yugoslav provinces of Kosovo and Metohija, which the Italians had annexed to Albania in 1941. For some time it made efforts to collaborate with the National Liberation Movement, but to no avail.

In July and August 1943 representatives of the two movements finally met at Mukaj, a village near Tirana, to try to work out an agreement of collaboration against the Axis forces. The chief obstacle to an accord was the disposition of Kosmet. The Balli Kombetar refused to consider collaboration unless the movement joined in the demand that Kosmet remain a part of Albania after the war. Finally an agreement was reached for collaboration, with the provision that the question of Kosmet be resolved after the war.

The emissaries of the Yugoslav Communist Party interpreted the agreement as a victory for the nationalists and demanded that the Albanian Communist Party not only denounce the agreement but also launch a full-scale attack on the Balli Kombetar. The Albanian Communists bowed to this demand and, in September 1943, launched the attack against Balli Kombetar and subsequently against the Legality Movement. This movement was founded in November 1943 by Abas Kupi, who until August 1943 had been a member of the Central Council of the National Liberation Movement but broke away from it after the Mukaj agreement was denounced.

In May 1944 the National Liberation Front, as the movement was by then called, sponsored the Congress of Permet for the purpose of creating the necessary machinery to seize power. The Congress appointed Hoxha commander in chief of the Army of National Liberation and elected the Albanian Anti-Fascist Liberation Council, which in turn created the Albanian Anti-Fascist Committee, under the presidency of Hoxha, as the executive branch of the council. The Congress of Berat, convened by the front in October of the same year, converted the committee into a coalition provisional "democratic" government, which in the following month seized control of the whole country and on November 28, Albania's traditional Independence Day, installed itself in Tirana.

In many respects the 1943-44 civil war in Albania followed a course similar to that which took place between the partisan forces (Communist) of Josip Broz (Tito) and General Mihailovich's Chetniks (loyalist) in Yugoslavia. The Communist operations and final seizure of power in Yugoslavia played a major role in the Communist takeover in Albania. Albania was the only European Communist country that was freed from the Axis invaders without the actual presence of Soviet forces and without direct military assistance from the Soviet Union. Political direction was supplied by the emissaries of the Yugoslav Communist Party attached permanently to the Albanian Communist Party after its founding in 1941. The Anglo-American command in Italy supplied most of the war material to the Albanian partisan forces.

Albania's future was never specifically discussed by the Big Three—Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States—at either the Teheran or the Yalta conferences. Nor did Albania figure in the discussions in Moscow in October 1944 between Churchill and Stalin, when they informally agreed to divide Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, at least for the duration of the war. Accordingly, when the last German troops were driven out of Albania, there was a kind of political vacuum that the Communists, with superior political organizations and substantial armed partisan groups, were able to fill.

In August 1945 the first congress of the National Liberation Front was held, and the name of the organization was changed to the Democratic Front in an effort to make it more palatable to the public. Contending that the Democratic Front represented the majority of the population because all political opinions and groups except Fascists were included in it, the Communist rulers allowed only Democratic Front Candidates for the first postwar national elections held in December 1945.

The Constituent Assembly elected at this polling was originally composed of both party members and some nationalist elements. The latter apparently continued to feel that cooperation with the Communists was possible but, within a year after the elections, they were summarily purged from the Assembly, and subsequently a number of them were tried and executed on charges of being "enemies of the people." All national and local elections since 1945 have been held under the aegis of the Democratic Front.

Even after the "liberation," the Party continued its conspiratorial nature and did not come into the open until the First Party Congress was held in November 1948. Before that time all its meetings were held in closest secrecy, and no statements, communiques, or resolutions were published in its name. The Party thus continued to use the front technique effectively even after it became the undisputed ruler of the country.

THE COMMUNIST PERIOD

The Constituent Assembly, elected on December 2, 1945, proclaimed on January 11, 1946, the People's Republic of Albania; and on March 14 it approved the first Albanian Constitution, based largely on the Yugoslav Communist Constitution. In this first Constitution no mention of any kind was made of the role played by the Party or any other political organizations. The Constitution was, however, amended after the break with Yugoslavia in 1948, and revisions of the Constitution published since 1951 have cited in Article 12 the Albanian Workers' Party as the "vanguard organization of the working class."

The Communist regime quickly consolidated its power through a ruthless application of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The first measures were both political and economic. In the political field a large number of nationalist leaders who had chosen to remain in the country when the Communists seized power rather than flee to the West, as many of them did, were arrested, tried as "war criminals" or "enemies of the people," and were either executed or given long-term sentences at hard labor. All families considered potentially dangerous to the new regime, especially families of the landed aristocracy and the tribal chieftains, were herded into concentration or labor camps, in which most of them perished from exposure, malnutrition, and lack of health facilities. Some of these camps were still in existence in 1970.

In the economic field a special war-profits tax was levied, which amounted to a confiscation of the wealth and private property of the well-to-do classes. A large number of those who could not pay the tax, because it was higher than their cash and property assets, were sent to labor camps. All industrial plants and mines were nationalized without compensation, and a radical agrarian reform law was passed providing for the seizure of land belonging to the beys and other large landowners and its distribution to the landless peasants.

The 1944-48 period was characterized by an increase of power and influence of the Yugoslavs over the Party and the government. This in turn engendered resentment even among some top Party Leaders, who were kept in check or purged by Koci Xoxe, minister of interior and head of the secret police. Backed by the Yugoslavs, he had become the most powerful man in the Party and government but was tried in the spring of 1949 as a Titoist and executed. By the beginning of 1948 preparations had been completed to merge Albania with Yugoslavia, but the plan was not consummated because of the Stalin-Tito conflict, which resulted in Tito's expulsion from the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform—see Glossary) on June 28, 1948.

The Stalin-Tito rupture offered Enver Hoxha and his closest colleagues in the Albanian Party Political Bureau (Politburo) the opportunity to rid themselves of both their internal enemies, such as Koci Xoxe, and of Yugoslav domination. A few days after the Cominform resolution against Tito, the Albanian rulers expelled all Yugoslav experts and advisers and denounced most of the political, military, and economic agreements. Albania immediately established close relations with Moscow, although Stalin never signed a mutual assistance pact with Tirana, as he had done with all the other European Communist countries. The Party leadership was now concentrated in the hands of Enver Hoxha and Mehmet Shehu. Shehu had been dismissed in January 1948 as Chief of Staff of the Albanian People's Army, because he had opposed the integration of the Yugoslav and Albanian armed forces and the stationing of two Yugoslav divisions on Albanian soil. He was rehabilitated immediately after the break with Yugoslavia.

The period of direct Soviet influence in Albania began in September 1948, when the first joint economic agreement was signed. After the establishment of the Council for Economic Mutual Assistance (CEMA) in February 1949, of which Albania became a member, the other Soviet bloc countries began to extend economic aid. As a result, an intensified program of economic development began. From 1951 to 1955 industrial and agricultural production increased rapidly, and the basis was laid for transforming Albania from a backward agricultural economy to a more balanced agricultural-industrial one.

The de-Stalinization campaign in the Soviet Union had serious repercussions in the internal situation in Albania. Although Hoxha vetoed any relaxation of police controls and stamped out any dissenting voice within the Party after Stalin's death, by 1956 there was a significant minority in the Party elite that hoped to profit by de-Stalinization. The opposition reached its peak at a Party conference in Tirana in April 1956, held in the aftermath of the Soviet Twentieth Party Congress. Some of the delegates, including Central Committee members, criticized openly the conditions in the Party and requested that the topics of discussion be concerned with such topics as the cult of personality, the rehabilitation of Koci Xoxe and other top Party leaders purged since 1948, Party democracy, and the people's standard of living.

Hoxha silenced the dissident elements, however, and had most of them expelled from the Party or arrested. Some were subsequently executed. Among those executed were Lira Gega, formerly a member of the Politburo, and her husband, Dalli Ndreu, a general in the Albanian People's Army. Soviet Premier Khrushchev charged at the Soviet Twenty-second Congress that Gega was pregnant when she was executed.

Workers' riots in Poland and full-scale revolt in Hungary in late 1956, followed by general uneasiness throughout Communist East Europe, gave Hoxha additional reasons to increase his control over the Party apparatus and to sidestep all pressures from Khrushchev for reconciliation with Tito. Indeed, in an article published in the November 8, 1956, issue of the Soviet newspaper Pravda (Truth), Hoxha accused Yugoslavia of being at the root of the Hungarian Revolution and implied that the relaxation of internal tensions in some of the Soviet-bloc countries had endangered the existing regimes. In a speech to the Party's Central Committee in February 1957 he came openly to the defense of Stalin and lashed out against "those who attempt to discount the entire positive revolutionary side of Stalin."

Hoxha did, however, pay lip service to the collective leadership principle enunciated in Moscow after Stalin's death. In July 1954 he relinquished the premiership to Mehmet Shehu, keeping for himself the more important post of first secretary of the Party. But aside from this he made no changes in his Stalinist method of rule. He demonstrated this after the Party conference in Tirana in April 1956, when he suppressed ruthlessly all those demanding the elimination of personal rule.

Hoxha showed the same determination in the summer of 1961, when Khrushchev apparently enlisted a number of Albanian leaders, including Teme Sejko, a rear admiral and commander of the navy who had been trained in the Soviet Union to overthrow the Hoxha-Shehu duumvirate and replace it with a pro-Moscow group. Sejko and his colleagues were arrested, and he and two others were later executed.

In September of the same year Hoxha arrested a number of other top Party leaders who were suspected of pro-Moscow sympathies. Among these were Liri Belishova, a member of the Politburo, and Koco Tashko, head of the Party's Auditing Commission; these two were also cited by Khrushchev as examples of the alleged reign of terror that prevailed in Albania.

After the break with Moscow, Albania remained nominally a member of both the CEMA and the Warsaw Pact. It did not, however, attend any meetings, and it withdrew officially from the Warsaw Pact after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Unlike Albania's relations with the Communist world, which have been varied and fluctuating, those with the Western countries have been, with minor exceptions, static and rigid, particularly toward the United States. Only two major Western powers, France and Italy, initially recognized the Communist regime and established diplomatic relations with it. Proposals made in November 1945 by the American and British governments to normalize relations with the Tirana regime were never consummated, chiefly because of the regime's consistent inimical attitude toward them.

There have been three distinct periods in the history of the country under Communist rule. The first, from 1944 to 1948, was characterized by Yugoslav domination. The country's rulers, however, had no difficulty extricating themselves from this domination once Stalin broke with Tito.

In the second period, 1948 to 1961, Soviet predominance was evident everywhere in the country. All the armed and security forces wore Soviet-type uniforms. The regime copied much of the Soviet governmental system. The same kind of bureaucracy and the same secret police, functioning with the same supervision as in the Stalinist era in the Soviet Union, prevailed. In major branches of the government, the military, and the security forces, there were Soviet advisers and experts. The economic and cultural fields were also patterned after those of the Soviet Union. But despite this widespread penetration, the Soviets were in the last analysis unable to impose their will on the Albanian rulers, and in 1961 they withdrew completely from that country.

The third period, begun in 1961, saw the penetration of Communist Chinese influence in many aspects of political, military, and economic life. Like the Yugoslavs and Soviets before them, the Chinese introduced their advisers and experts in various governmental organs and economic enterprises, and probably in the military and security forces as well, but they were there at the invitation of the Albanian regime ([see ch. 6], Government Structure and Political System).

CHAPTER 3

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Albania has land borders on the north and east with Yugoslavia and on the south and southeast with Greece. Tirana, the capital, is less than an hour by aircraft from eight other European capitals and barely more than two hours from the most distant of them. The coastline is adjacent to shipping lanes that have been important since early Greek and Roman times. Nevertheless, partly because of its rugged terrain and partly because of its political orientation, the country remains remote and isolated from its European neighbors ([see ch. 6], Government Structure and Political System).

The large expanses of rugged and generally inaccessible terrain provided refuge for the Albanian ethnic group and permitted its distinctive identity to survive throughout the centuries. Although the country was almost always under foreign domination, it was never extensively colonized because of the lack of arable land, easily exploitable resources, and natural inland transportation routes. It has been, and continues to be, poorly developed. Agricultural and pastoral pursuits have been the primary means of livelihood, and only after 1950 did industry begin to be developed to any appreciable degree.

Until recently, the coastal lowlands supported few people and did not provide easy access to the interior. The mountains that constitute 70 percent of the country's area are difficult to traverse and generally inhospitable. Rivers are almost entirely unnavigable, and only in the south are there valleys wide enough to link the coast with the interior. By 1970 no railway and only three good roads crossed the national borders.

The physical characteristics of the land have contributed to differing living conditions and social relationships in the various sectors of the country. Before independence in 1912, the area of modern Albania had never been politically integrated, nor had it ever been an economically viable unit. It owes its existence as a state to the ethnic factor, and survival of the ethnic group is attributable to the natural isolation of the country.

The area is 11,100 square miles. The boundaries, established in principle in 1913 and demarcated in 1923, were essentially unchanged in 1970, although Greece had not dropped its claim to a large part of southern Albania. The eastern boundary divides the Macedonian lake district among three states—Albania, Greece, and Yugoslavia—that have ethnic populations in the area and follows high mountain ridges wherever possible to the north and south of the lakes. The northern and southern borders were drawn to achieve a separation between the Albanians and neighboring nationalities, although there is a large group of Albanians in the Kosovo area of Yugoslavia across the northeastern border, and Greeks and Albanians intermingle in the southeast (see fig. 1).

Resources are insufficient to make the country wealthy, and some that are available have not been thoroughly exploited. Interior regions have been inaccessible. Agricultural land has been inefficiently used for centuries because people having large landholdings preferred to maintain more profitable livestock herds rather than cultivate the earth for foodstuff production. Malaria, until the 1930s, prevented development or reclamation of the coastal lowlands. Lacking the capital investment necessary, extensive development projects had not been undertaken by 1970.

The lowlands and the lower mountains of the south have a Mediterranean climate; weather in the northern and eastern highlands is dominated by the continental air masses that persist over central and Eastern Europe. Overall rainfall is plentiful throughout the country, but most areas receive it seasonally.

Apart from the bare rock mountains and portions of the alluvial lowlands that are alternately parched and inundated, most of the land encourages a wide variety of wild vegetation. Areas suitable for cultivation, however, are small. There are good soils on about 5 percent of the land surface, but land three or four times that percentage is considered arable. Forests cover nearly one-half of the land. About one-fourth is suitable for grazing animals.

The citizen relates closely to the land. Although he has been nationally independent for only a few years in the twentieth century and very seldom earlier, his property has been so difficult to reach that occupying powers have often left him alone. The land has had beauty that has fostered pride and loyalty, and a hardy breed has survived the constant struggle to derive an existence from it.

NATURAL REGIONS

The 70 percent of the country that is mountainous is rugged and often inaccessible. The remaining alluvial plain receives its precipitation seasonally, is poorly drained, is alternately arid or flooded, and much of it is devoid of fertility. Far from offering a relief from the difficult interior terrain, it is often as inhospitable to its inhabitants as are the mountains. Good soil and dependable precipitation occur, however, in river basins within the mountains, in the lake district on the eastern border, and in a narrow band of slightly elevated land between the coastal plains and the higher interior mountains (see fig. 2).

North Albanian Alps

The mountains of the far north of Albania are an extension of the Dinaric Alpine chain and, more specifically, the Montenegrin limestone (karst) plateau. They are, however, more folded and rugged than the more typical portions of the plateau. The rivers have deep valleys with steep sides and do not furnish arable valley floors; most of the grazing and farming are done on the flatter mountaintops. The rivers provide little access into the area and are barriers to communication within it. Roads are few and poor. Lacking internal communications and external contacts, a tribal society flourished within this Alpine region for centuries. Only after World War II were serious efforts made to incorporate the people of the region into the remainder of the country.

Southern Mountains

The extent of the region occupied by the southern mountains is not settled to the satisfaction of all authorities. Some include all of the area in a large diamond shape roughly encompassing all the uplands of southern Albania beneath lines connecting Vlore, Elbasan, and Korce. Although this area has trend lines of the same type and orientation, it includes mountains that are associated more closely with the systems in the central part of the country. Other authorities confine the area to the mountains that are east of Vlore and south of the Vijose River. These have features generally common to southern Albania and the adjacent Greek Epirus. This demarcation is considered preferable because it more nearly defined a traditional area that tends to lose some of the more purely national character of the lands north of it.

The southern ranges revert again to the northwest to southeast trend lines characteristic of the Dinaric Alps. They are, however, more gentle and accessible than the serpentine zone, the eastern highlands, or the North Albanian Alps. Transition to the lowlands is less abrupt, and arable valley floors are wider. Limestone is predominant, contributing to the cliffs and clear water along the Albanian Riviera. An intermixture of softer rocks has eroded and become the basis for the sedimentation that has resulted in wider valleys between the ridges than are common in the remainder of the country. This terrain encouraged the development of larger landholdings, thus influencing the social structure of the area ([see ch. 5], Social System).

Source: Adapted from Norman J. G. Pounds, Eastern Europe, Chicago, 1969, p. 824.

Figure 2. Landform Regions in Albania

Lowlands

A low coastal belt extends from the northern boundary southward to about Vlore. It averages less than ten miles deep but widens to about thirty miles in the Elbasan area. In its natural state it is characterized by low scrub vegetation, varying from barren to dense. There are large areas of marshland and other areas of bare eroded badlands. Where elevations rise slightly and precipitation is regular—in the foothills of the central uplands, for example—the land is excellent. Marginal land is being reclaimed wherever irrigation is possible.

The land itself is of recent geological origin. It has been, and is being, created by sediments from the many torrents that erode the interior mountains. New alluvial deposits tend to be gravelly, without humus, and require many years before sufficient vegetation to make them fertile can be established. The sedimentation process, moreover, raises river channels above the level of the nearby terrain. Channels change frequently, devastating areas that have not been stabilized and creating marshes in others by blocking off the drainage. Road builders are confronted with difficult and constantly changing conditions.

Rainfall is heavy during the winter and is infrequent to nonexistent during nearly half the year. Mosquitoes thrive in the hot, humid, and marshy land. Only since about 1930 have there been effective measures to control malaria. Before then no extensive working of areas near the marshes could be seriously considered. For these reasons the coastal zone, in addition to supporting few people, has until relatively recently acted as a barrier, hindering, rather than encouraging, contact with the interior.

Coastal hills descend abruptly to Ionian Sea beaches along the Albanian Riviera from Vlore Bay southward to about Sarande. The 500- and 1,000-foot contour lines are within a mile or so of the water along nearly the entire distance. In the northern portion a 4,000-foot ridge is frequently only two to three miles inland. South of Sarande is another small area of coastal lowlands fronting on the Ionian Sea and separated from the Greek island of Corfu (Kerkira) by a mile-wide channel. Climate and soil conditions permit the cultivation of citrus fruits in this southernmost area of Albania.

Central Uplands

The central uplands region extends south from the Drin River valley, which marks the southern boundary of the North Albanian Alpine area, to the southern mountains. It is an area of generally lower mountain terrain immediately east of the lowlands. In the north, from the Drin River to the vicinity of Elbasan, it constitutes an area about twenty miles wide. It narrows to practically nothing in the vicinity of Elbasan, then widens into a broader triangular shape with its base against the southern mountains. Earth shifting along the faultline that roughly defines the western edge of the central uplands causes frequent and occasionally severe earthquakes. Major damage occurred over wide areas in 1967 and 1969.

Softer rocks predominate in the uplands. The most extensive are flysch, a soft crumbly rock that is usually sandstone but frequently contains shales, sandy limestones, and marl. This type of formation erodes rapidly and is the basis of much of the poor alluvial lowland soil. The ridges of the uplands are extensions of the Dalmatian coastal range that enters Albania from Yugoslavia. Elevations are generally moderate, between 1,000 and 3,000 feet with a few reaching above 5,000 feet.

Serpentine Zone

Although there are rugged terrain and high points in the central uplands, the first major mountain range inland from the Adriatic is an area of predominantly serpentine rock. The serpentine zone extends nearly the length of the country, from the North Albanian Alps to the Greek border south of Korce, an area 10 to 20 miles wide and over 125 miles in length lying generally between the central uplands and the eastern highlands. At Elbasan, however, it makes nearly direct contact with the coastal plain, and it reaches the eastern border for nearly 50 miles in, and north of, the lake region. Within its zone there are many areas in which sharp limestone and sandstone outcroppings predominate over the serpentine, although the ranges as a whole are characterized by rounded mountain features.

The serpentine rock derives its name from its dull green color and often mottled or spotted appearance. It can occur in several states. Iron, nickel, or other metals can substitute in its chemical formula for the more prevalent magnesium and will cause color variations.

Eastern Highlands

The mountains east of the serpentine zone are the highest in the country and are the basis for part of the eastern boundary. They occupy a narrow strip south of Lakes Ohrid and Prespa, and a similar one, also running north and south, lies between the White Drin River and the Yugoslav city of Debar. A peak in the Korab range, on the border north of Debar, exceeds 9,000 feet. The ranges have north-south trend lines. Geologically young and composed largely of hard limestone rocks, the eastern highlands, together with the North Albanian Alps and the serpentine zone, are the most rugged and inaccessible of any terrain on the Balkan Peninsula.

Lake Region

The three lakes of easternmost Albania are part of the Macedonian lake district. The Yugoslav border passes through Lake Ohrid; all but a small tip of Little Lake Prespa is in Greece; and the point at which the boundaries of all three states meet is in Lake Prespa. The two larger lakes have areas of about 100 square miles each, and Little Lake Prespa is about one-fifth as large. These are total surface areas, including the portions on both sides of the national boundary lines. The surface elevation is about 2,285 feet for Lake Ohrid and about 2,800 feet for the other two. The lakes are remote and picturesque. Lake Ohrid is fed primarily from underground springs and is blue and very clear. At times its transparency can approach 70 feet. A good percentage of the terrain in the vicinity of the lakes is not overly steep, and it supports a larger population than any other inland portion of the country.

NATIONAL BOUNDARIES

The distinct ethnic character of the people and their isolation within a fairly restricted and definable area brought support for their demands for independence in the early twentieth century. There were places where different ethnic populations intermingled, and there were other pressures that affected the definition of the borders. The Kosovo area across the northeastern border is a part of modern Yugoslavia, but it contains a substantial Albanian population. There are Greeks and Albanians in the mountains on both sides of the southeastern boundary. Albania is not content with the Kosovo situation, and neither Greece nor Albania is satisfied with the division effected by their mutual border.

The country is the smallest in Eastern Europe and has a perimeter of only 750 miles. The border shared with Yugoslavia runs northward from Lake Prespa, around northern Albania, to the Adriatic Sea for a total of just under 300 miles. Forty miles of this border follows river courses, and an almost equal distance is within lakes. The Greek border from the common point in Lake Prespa southwest to the Ionian Sea is about 160 miles long. Twelve miles of this border are within lakes but, because it crosses the trend lines of the southern mountain ranges, only four miles are along rivers.

The Adriatic and Ionian coastline is just under 300 miles long. The lowlands of the west face the Adriatic Sea and the Strait of Otranto, which is a mere 47 miles from the heel of the Italian boot. The Albanian Riviera, the coastline that runs southeast from Vlore, is on the Ionian Sea.

With the exception of the coastline, all Albanian borders are artificial. They were established in principle at the 1913 Conference of Ambassadors in London. The country was occupied by the warring powers during World War I, but the 1913 boundaries were reaffirmed at Versailles in 1921. Finally demarcated in 1923, they were confirmed by the Paris Agreement of 1926 and were essentially unchanged in 1970. The original principle was to define the borders in accordance with the best interests of the Albanian ethnic group and the nationalities in adjacent areas. The northern and eastern borders were intended, insofar as possible, to separate the Albanians from the Serbian and Montenegrin peoples; the southeast border was to separate Albanians and Greeks; and the valuable western Macedonia lake district was to be divided among the states whose populations shared the area.

When there was no compromise involving other factors, borderlines were chosen to make the best possible separation of national groups, connecting the best marked physical features available. Allowance was made for local economic situations, to keep from separating a village from its animals' grazing areas or from the markets for its produce. Political pressures also were a factor in the negotiations, but the negotiations were subject to approval by powers having relatively remote interests, most of which involved the balance of power rather than economic ambitions.

Division of the lake district among three states required that each of them have a share of the lowlands in the vicinity. Such a distribution was artificial but, once made, necessarily influenced the borderlines to the north and south. The border that runs generally north from the lakes, although it follows the ridges of the eastern highlands, stays some ten to twenty miles west of the watershed divide.

Proceeding counterclockwise around northern Albania, the watershed divide was abandoned altogether along the northeast boundary. In the process a large Albanian population in Kosovo was incorporated into Yugoslavia.

In the extreme north and the northeastern mountainous sections, the border with Yugoslavia connects high points and follows mountain ridges through the North Albanian Alps where there is little movement of the people. There is no natural topographic dividing line from the highlands, through Lake Scutari, to the Adriatic, but the lake and a portion of the Buene River south of it were used. From the lake district south and southwest to the Ionian Sea, the boundary runs perpendicular to the terrain trend lines and crosses a number of ridges instead of following them.

LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE AREAS

The twenty-six districts that are the primary administrative subdivisions of the country have evolved from divisions that have existed for many years or have developed over a period of time (see fig. 3). In the northern third of the country, district lines were based on the territory occupied by tribal groups. In the part of the country south from about Tirana, they were based on the large landholdings controlled by those who in earlier years had governed the areas for the Ottomans.

Upon independence most of the old local boundaries, long understood if not always precisely defined, were retained, and the areas became prefectures. Before World War II there were ten prefectures, which in turn were divided into about forty subprefectures. The Communist regime did not abandon the prefectures immediately but eventually replaced them with districts that were, generally, based on the old subprefectures. In a series of changes, the latest of which were made in December 1967, the districts were consolidated into the twenty-six that existed in 1970. The districts are much the same size. Sixteen of them have areas ranging between 300 and 600 square miles. The largest, Shkoder, has about 980 square miles; the smallest, Lezhe, has about 180.

Changes in the areas and boundaries of the districts made during the 1960s were based chiefly on economic considerations, although political and security considerations also played a part. A major factor has been the collectivization of agriculture. In 1968 and 1969, for example, when the government decided to enlarge the collective farms, district lines were shifted in order to keep all of the land in a collective within the same district ([see ch. 6], Government Structure and Political System).

Source: Adapted from Vjetari Statistikor i R. P. Sh., 1967-1968, Tirana, 1968, frontispiece.

Figure 3. Administrative Districts in Albania

Although there are natural barriers to almost all movement in the country, there are few, if any, that contribute to the boundaries of the districts. Eight districts border on the seashore, but only three of them have more lowland than mountainous terrain. The Shkoder District, for example, has all of the lowlands in the vicinity of the city and almost half of the most mountainous portion of the North Albanian Alps. In a few instances the borders of interior districts follow the river valleys, but it is more usual for them to contain segments of the rivers and, when this is the case, their boundary lines stay in the higher regions.

CLIMATE

With its coastline oriented westward onto the Adriatic and Ionian seas, its highlands backed upon the elevated Balkan landmass, and the entire country lying at a latitude that receives different patterns of weather systems during the winter and summer seasons, Albania has a number of climatic regions highly unusual for so small an area. The coastal lowlands have typically Mediterranean weather; the highlands have a so-called Mediterranean continental climate. Both the lowland and interior weather change markedly from north to south.

The lowlands have mild winters, averaging about 45°F. Summer temperatures average 75°F., humidity is high, and the season tends to be oppressively uncomfortable. The southern lowlands are warmer, averaging about five degrees higher throughout the year. The difference is greater than five degrees during the summer and somewhat less during the winter.

Inland temperatures vary more widely with differences in elevation than with latitude or any other factor. Cold winter temperatures in the mountains result from the continental air masses that predominate over Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Northerly and northeasterly winds blow much of the time. Average summer temperatures are lower than in the coastal areas and much lower at high elevations, but daily fluctuations are greater. Daytime maximum temperatures in the interior basins and river valleys are very high, but the nights are almost always cool (see table 1).

The average precipitation over the country is high resulting from the convergence of the prevailing airflow from the Mediterranean with the continental air mass. They usually meet at the point where the terrain rises. Arriving at that line, the Mediterranean air meets increasing ground elevations that force it to rise and an air mass that tends to resist its further progress. This causes the heaviest rainfall in the central uplands. Vertical currents initiated when the Mediterranean air is uplifted also result in frequent thunderstorms. Many of them in this area are violent and are accompanied by high local winds and torrential downpours.

Table 1. Temperature and Precipitation Averages for Selected Locations in Albania

When the continental system is weak, Mediterranean winds drop their moisture farther inland. When there is a dominant continental air mass, it spills cold air onto the lowland areas. This occurs most frequently in the winter season. Since the season's lower temperatures damage olive trees and citrus fruits, their groves and orchards are restricted to sheltered places with southern and western exposures, even in areas that have seemingly high average winter temperatures.

Lowland rainfall averages from forty to nearly sixty inches annually, increasing between those extremes from south to north. Nearly 95 percent of the rain falls during the rainy season.

Rainfall in the upland mountain ranges is higher. Adequate records are not available, and estimates vary widely, but annual averages are probably about 70 inches and are as high as 100 inches in some northern areas. The seasonal variation is not quite as great as in the coastal area, with the most nearly even distribution in the north, largely because of summer thunderstorms.

The higher inland mountains receive less precipitation than the intermediate uplands. Terrain differences cause wide local variations, but the seasonal distribution is the most consistent of any area. In the northern mountains, for example, the months that usually have the highest averages are November and June.

DRAINAGE

All but a very small portion of the precipitation drains through the rivers to the coastline without leaving the country. With the exception of a few insignificant trickles, only one small stream in the northern part of the country escapes Albania. In the south an even smaller rivulet drains into Greece. As the divide is on the eastern side of the borders with Yugoslavia and Greece, however, a considerable amount of water from those countries drains through Albania. A quite extensive portion of the White Drin River basin is in the Kosovo area across the northeastern Yugoslav border. The three lakes shared with Yugoslavia and Greece, as well as all the streams that flow into them, drain into the Drin River. The watershed divide in the south also dips nearly forty miles into Greece at one point. Several tributaries of the Vijose River rise in that area (see fig. 4).

Figure 4. Rivers and Lakes in Albania

With the exception of the Drin River, which flows northward and drains nearly the entire eastern border region before it turns westward to the sea, most of the rivers in the northern and central parts of the country flow much more directly westward to the sea. In the process they cut through the ridges rather than flowing around them. This apparent impossibility came about because the highlands were originally lifted without much folding. The streams came into existence at that time and antedate the ridges because the compression and folding of the plateau occurred later. The folding process was rapid enough in many instances to block the rivers temporarily, forming lakes that existed until the downstream channel was cut sufficiently to drain them. This sequence created the many interior basins that are typically a part of the landforms. During the lifetimes of the temporary lakes enough sediment was deposited in them to form the basis for fertile soils. Folding was only infrequently rapid enough to force the streams to radically different channels.

The precipitous fall from higher elevations and the highly irregular seasonal flow patterns that are characteristic of nearly all streams in the country reduce the immediate value of the streams. They erode the mountains and deposit the sediment that created, and continues to add to, the lowlands, but the rivers flood during the seasons when there is local rainfall. When the lands are parched and need irrigation, the rivers are usually dry. Their violence makes them difficult to control, and they are unnavigable. The Buene is an exception. It is dredged between Shkoder and the Adriatic and is navigable for small ships. In contrast to their histories of holding fast to their courses in the mountains, the rivers have constantly changed channels on the lower plains, making wastes of much of the land they have created.

The Drin River is the largest and most constant stream (see table 2). Fed by melting snows from the northern and eastern mountains and by the more evenly distributed seasonal precipitation of that area, its flow does not have the extreme variations characteristic of nearly all other rivers in the country. Its normal flow varies seasonally by only about one-third. Along its length of about 175 miles it drains nearly 2,300 square miles within Albania. As it also collects from the Adriatic portion of the Kosovo watershed and the three border lakes (Lake Prespa drains to Lake Ohrid via an underground stream), its total basin is around 6,000 square miles.

The Seman and Vijose are the only other rivers that are more than 100 miles in length and have basins larger than 1,000 square miles. These rivers drain the southern regions and, reflecting the seasonal distribution of rainfall, are torrents in winter and nearly dry in the summer, in spite of their relatively long lengths. This is also the case with the many shorter streams. In the summer most of them carry less than a tenth of their winter averages, if they are not altogether dry.

Table 2. Drainage Basins in Albania

The sediment carried by the mountain torrents continues to be deposited but, having created the lowlands, new deposits delay their exploitation. Stream channels rise as silt is deposited in them and eventually become higher than the surrounding terrain. Changing channels frustrate development in many areas. Old channels become barriers to proper drainage and create swamps or marshlands. It has been difficult to build roads or railroads across the lowlands or to use the land.

Irrigation has been accomplished ingeniously by Albanian peasants for many years, to the degree that they and their expertise have been sought after throughout Europe. Projects required to irrigate or to reclaim large areas of the lowlands, however, are on a scale that probably cannot be accomplished without financial assistance from outside the country.

Although water is available in quantities adequate for irrigation and it has the amount of fall necessary for hydroelectric power production, terrain and seasonal factors are such that major capital investment would be required for both irrigation and power projects. Snow stabilizes drainage of the higher northern and eastern mountains but, unfortunately, the only major snow accumulations are in the Drin basin, influencing only the one river system.

NATURAL RESOURCES

Soils

Soil resources are small. Arable land figures notwithstanding, good agricultural land amounts to only about 5 percent of the country's area. Soils over limestone are thin or altogether lacking. Serpentine rock erodes slowly and produces clays of little agricultural value. The softer rocks of the intermediate mountains crumble easily into course and infertile sands and gravels that take many years to acquire humus. The alluvial soil of the lowland plains, therefore, tends to be sterile in addition to receiving its precipitation seasonally and being poorly drained. There is little land along the narrow valley floors. The best soils, those within the inland basins, are excellent. The narrow margin of slightly elevated land between the coastal plains and the mountains also provides excellent arable fields.

Vegetation

Western sources have estimated that, in 1969, 11 percent of the land area was arable, of which nearly one-half was in use as vineyards and olive groves. Forests covered just over one-third of the land, and pastures just under one-third. About 22 percent of the land was unproductive, but one-half of the unproductive areas had a potential for development. Albanian government pronouncements have stated that about 20 percent of the land was arable in 1968 and that this figure would be increased to 22 percent in 1970. The discrepancies in land use statistics arise from varying interpretations as to the amount of pastureland that is arable. Much that Albanian sources have claimed as newly arable almost certainly is marginally so.

Dependence upon corn as the primary staple crop in much of the country and limited amounts of arable land tended, until about 1950, to prevent proper crop rotation. The government is attempting to introduce more scientific agricultural practices and has claimed improved crop yields.

Although the amount of land that can be cultivated for the production of foodstuffs is meager, the remoteness of the interior has allowed natural flora to exist over fairly extensive areas with little disturbance. A large variety of species flourishes, and an unusual number of them are found in that vicinity only. Of some 2,300 seed-bearing plants, over 300 appear in the Balkans alone, and more than 50 occur only in Albania.

The land considered forest includes areas that contain little more than scrub ground cover and others that have been ravaged by unsystematic cutting. More than half of the forests, however, contain mature trees and, owing largely to their inaccessibility, have escaped the reckless harvesting that destroyed many lower elevation forests during the first years of the country's independence.

Maquis, a Mediterranean scrub tree, grows to about fifteen or twenty feet, can be extremely dense, and is the most frequent ground cover at low elevations. It withstands dry weather and, although it is of little value as a tree and does not of itself build a rich soil, it stabilizes the alluvial lowlands and provides cover for better humus-producing vegetation. Maquis can survive at slightly higher elevations in sheltered conditions, but it is usually found below 1,000 or 1,300 feet. Most maquis species are evergreen. Deciduous scrub, usually Christ's-thorn, or shiblijak, is also common in the lowlands, but it occurs much less frequently than maquis.

The oaks are the most important of trees. Oak forests have never reattained the majesty they had during the days of Venice's power when they could be called upon to furnish 400 shiploads of straight oak stems for Venetian fleets, but in 1970 they still constituted nearly half of all forests. The oaks are valuable not only for their economic worth as fuel and lumber but also because the leaves of deciduous varieties and the undergrowth encouraged beneath them are excellent soil builders. Occurring at moderate elevations, however, they have been accessible and overexploited. Lowland oak forests contain poorer species that rarely grow in excess of thirty feet tall, but the thick undergrowth they usually allow provides stability and improves the alluvial soil. The finer and more valuable species occur at middle and higher elevations. Oak forests predominate between 1,000- and 3,000-foot elevations but occur up to about 4,000 feet.

Beech trees appear at all elevations between 3,000 feet and the timberline. They predominate in northern areas between about 3,500 and 6,000 feet. In the south they flourish at the same elevations but are usually outnumbered by conifers. Beech is excellent hard wood, and its leaves are among the best of soil builders. The trees generate most of the humus themselves, as their canopies interlace tightly in mature forests, permitting relatively little undergrowth to flourish on the forest floors beneath them. Mature forests have survived in many of the remote, inaccessible areas that beech species prefer. The most copious forests are in cloud forest regions where cloud cover is almost constant, rainfall is frequent, and temperatures do not usually reach the extreme highs.

The better conifers, usually including several pine species in the north and fir, with lesser numbers of pine and spruce, in the south, coexist with beech but tolerate poorer soils and tend to predominate at the highest elevations. Although they tend to have less continuous canopies than beech forests, they do not encourage undergrowth. Their needles, along with rapid decay of their softer dead wood, however, can create deep humus. The poorer quality lowland pines do well at elevations down to sea level and will tolerate certain conditions, although not overly poor drainage, in which the oak will not survive. Its woods usually have discontinuous canopies and allow dense maquis and other lower shrubs to flourish beneath them.

True mixed woods, sometimes referred to as karst woods, occur at medium elevations. They are usually almost entirely deciduous but have wide varieties of species. The larger trees include maple, ash, beech, and oak, but these are vastly outnumbered. Intermediate varieties of hawthorne, dogwood, hazel, and cherry flourish among the larger trees, and hundreds of smaller plants, ranging from bushes, shrubs, and ferns to grasses and moss, provide ground cover. With a profusion of varieties in constant competition for available space and soil, those that do best in a particular soil mixture prosper in a given locality. Because the soil in the uplands relates closely to the base rock and the mountains were created by geologically recent folding that has exposed the edges of layered rock formations, there are abrupt changes in the basic surface rock. This is reflected immediately in mixed woods by equally abrupt changes in the species that appear.

Of the more abundant smaller flora families, the daisy, pea, grass, pink, nettle, mustard, parsley, figwort, rose, buttercup, and lily groups has more than fifty species that can be found within Albania. Flowering plants flourish especially well in limestone areas where there are masses of vividly colored wild flowers during the springtime. Must less brilliant colors appear on serpentine outcroppings and, as is the case with the mixed woods, the difference is abrupt where limestone and serpentine are the surface rocks in closely adjacent areas.

Wildlife

Summer livestock grazing in the mountains and uncontrolled hunting reduced wildlife to insignificance. Some deer, wild boar, and wolves remain in the more remote forests. Chamois were plentiful in the area but are now extremely rare. Wild fowl, however, are abundant in the lowland swamps and lower forests.

Minerals

Exploitation of the country's minerals generates the largest share of the gross industrial product and provides employment for the largest number of the industrial labor force. This does not indicate, however, that the country is rich in mineral resources, but it serves to underscore the still poorer state of its agricultural and industrial sectors and indicates that the country engages in relatively little international commerce.

There are considerable reserves in oil and natural gas. Oil can be extracted in quantity sufficient to meet domestic demands and to export. A pipeline from the oilfields at Stalin (formerly Kucove) transmits the oil to the port of Vlore. The crude oil, however, has a high sulfur content and is expensive to refine.

Chrome is the most important export commodity. Albania is the largest chrome source in Eastern Europe, and its mines have at times supplied about 2 percent of the world's total. Good-quality copper ore is also available in export quantities.

No hard coal veins are known, but lignite is plentiful and its deposits are accessible. Asphalt (bitumen) occurs in a concentrated deposit in one small area. This source has been actively worked for centuries. Some of it has been exported.

Iron, nickel, gold, and silver ores occur in less important deposits. Iron is plentiful, but the ores are of low grade. The other deposits are minor. Bauxite appears in quantity deposits in several areas. Sufficient year-round power sources, however, are not available to process it. Magnesite, arsenic, pyrites, and gypsum sources are worked. Clay and kaolin suitable for pottery are also extracted. Salt is abundant. Limestone is available throughout the country and quarried wherever it is needed.

TRANSPORTATION

Even when its territory sat astride a direct route between two points, Albania was usually bypassed because there was nearly always a longer way around that was easier and safer. As a result, its transportation links with the rest of the world are very few. Its internal systems are also inadequate for good communications within the country. All railways are short, internal routes, and the lines that were complete in 1970 connected only three of the major cities. Two primary roads, one of which was originally constructed by the Romans, cross into Greece, and a third crosses into Yugoslavia. Only a dozen more roads, all of them secondary, lead out of the country. There is little air traffic with the outside world; it usually involves connecting flights to major airlines in neighboring countries (see fig. 1).

Roads

Until the twentieth century only two major roads crossed what is now Albania. The Romans built the Via Egnatia, which makes an east-west transit from Durres (known as Dyrrhachium in Roman times), via the Shkumbin River valley, to the lake district. It continued eastward across the Balkan Peninsula to Thessaloniki and Constantinople (now Istanbul), and the Romans used it to move forces overland to the eastern portions of their empire. A north-south route, the Via Zenta, was built by Ragusan merchants during the period when Ragusa (now Dubrovnik) was a Balkan mercantile power and needed access to the interior of the peninsula. The road followed the Drin River valley. Both the Via Egnatia and the Via Zenta fell into disuse during the centuries of Ottoman control, but the basic course of the Roman road is followed by one of the few major highways that has been constructed in the twentieth century.

Independent Albania was slow to begin construction of roads that would better conform to the country's national requirements. During World War I Austrian forces built some 400 miles of strategic roads while they occupied the area. The Italians did the same during World War II. In both cases the objective was to improve communications with external points. There was no attempt to construct a network that would integrate the country.

The Hoxha regime has placed more emphasis on internal communications, and in 1969 it claimed that the principal road network had been expanded by three times over what it had been in 1938. Perhaps 3,000 miles could be classed as improved roads. These are considered all-weather roads, although those in the mountains may be closed by snows. Most of the surfaces are hardened with compacted stone or gravel, and a few have a tarry stabilizer. Better roads have asphalt surfaces. Road construction in almost all parts of the country is difficult, especially in bridge building, and some roads are construction masterpieces. Once built, however, routine maintenance has ordinarily not been properly accomplished, and surfaces have deteriorated.

Railways

The first standard-gauge railroad construction began in 1947. The Italians had started roadbeds during their World War II occupation but had abandoned their projects in 1943. By 1970 there were only about 135 miles of completed lines. These included basic lines between Durres and Tirana and between Durres and Elbasan. There is difficult terrain between Tirana and Elbasan and, although only about 20 miles apart, they are connected via Durres only.

The lines from Durres curve northward to Tirana and southward to approach Elbasan via the Shkumbin valley. A northern offshoot from the Durres-Tirana line is complete to Lac and will be extended to Shkoder. A southern offshoot from Rrogozhine on the Durres-Elbasan line is now in service to Fier and will be extended to Vlore. The combination of these two routes will constitute a coastal line from Shkoder to Vlore.

Construction was in progress in 1970 on a line that will connect Elbasan with Prrenjas, which is just over five miles from Lake Ohrid. This line follows the route of the old Roman Via Egnatia, and in later programs it will probably be extended to Lin, on the lake, and then southward to Korce. When these lines are completed, they and the road network will provide vastly improved internal communications, but many small areas within the North Albanian Alps and the higher central and eastern mountains will remain difficult to reach.

Pipeline

During the mid-1930s the Italian state-owned petroleum company constructed a forty-four-mile, eight-inch pipeline to connect the oilfields in the Stalin area with the port of Vlore. The line had a capacity of about 5,000 barrels a day and carried crude for transshipment to refineries in Italy. In the early 1950s the line was extended northward to the newly built refinery at Cerrik.

Airlines

In the early post-World War II period when Albania was practically a vassal state of Yugoslavia, regular air traffic was established between Belgrade and Tirana. After the estrangement of Yugoslavia from the Soviet Union, when Albania became a satellite of the Soviet Union, regular traffic was set up between Tirana and Moscow and, to a lesser degree, between Tirana and the capitals of the Eastern European Communist countries other than Belgrade. When Albania became aligned with Communist China, direct connections with almost all external points were severed. Even Peking flights were routed via intermediate stops in Italy, usually Bari or Rome.

Between 1967 and 1970 connections between Albania and most of the Eastern European countries, but not the Soviet Union, were gradually restored. Service is scheduled but infrequent. Weekly flights are typically connected through Belgrade. Traffic elsewhere is ordinarily routed via Italy. Albanian officials depart and reenter the country via Bari or Rome, connecting to Tirana on a scheduled Alitalia flight or by an Albanian flight. Internal air services are also limited. Those available are centered on Tirana.

Merchant Shipping

Because no railway leaves the country and border-crossing roads are inadequate, nearly all foreign trade is carried by sea. Durres and Vlore are the major ports. Durres has a first-class harbor, warehouses, petroleum storage tanks, a shipbuilding capability, and railway spurs to the docks. Vlore is a better natural port and is the terminus of the oil pipeline. It has fewer port facilities than Durres, however, and no rail connections with the rest of the country. Sarande, Shengjin, and Porte Palermo are less important ports.