Albania is a country in the southeastern Europe, extended in the Balkan Peninsula.

Its inhabitants, Albanians, are descendants of the ancient Illyrians, which culture is believed to have evolved from the Stone Age and to have manifested itself in the territory of Albania toward the beginning of the Bronze Age, about 2000 Bc. The Illyrians occupied lands extending from the Danube, Sava, and Morava rivers to the Adriatic Sea and the Sar Mountains.1 They were a conglomeration of many tribes, and the name of nowadays Albania is derived from the name of an Illyrian tribe called the Arber, or Arberesh, and later Albanoi, which lived near Durres. Because of their geographical position, the Illyrians carried on commerce with their neighbors, Macedonia and Greece. Around 8th-6th century BC the Greeks founded a string of colonies on Illyrian soil, Epidamus (modern Durres) and Apollonia (modern Fier). This presence of Greek colonies influenced the economic and political life of Illyria. With the perishing of these colonies in the 3rd century, Illyrian tribes began to evolve politically forming temporary alliance with one another for defensive purpose, transforming in federations and later in kingdoms.2 The most imported ones were those of Enkalayes, the Taulantes and the Ardianes from 5th to 2nd century. Because of the convenient geographical position, ancient Illyria had always been coveted by its neighbors. The expansionist Macedonian state in the 4th century, with Philip II and Alenxander the Great was a big threat for the Illyrian territory, but a biggest threat was the growing power of the Romans, which considered it as a bridgehead for conquest east of the Adriatic. 3 Hundreds of years passed and after knowing the conquest of Rome, Albania knew the dominion of Byzantium. The Ottoman occupation lasted almost five centuries. Albania had a glimpse of glory between 1443 and 1479 with the national hero Gjergj Kastrioti Skenderbej. Skanderbeg was born in 1405 to the noble Kastrioti family, in a village in Dibra. Sultan Murad II took him hostage in 1423 and he fought for the Ottoman Empire during next twenty years. In 1443, he deserted the Ottomans during the Battle of Ni and became the ruler of Kruj. In 1444, he organized local leaders into the League of Lezh, a federation aimed at uniting their forces for war against the Ottomans. Skanderbeg's first victory against the Ottomans, at the Battle of Torvioll in the same year marked the beginning of more than 20 years of war with the Ottomans. Skanderbeg's forces achieved more than 20 victories in the field and withstood three sieges of his capital, Kruj. He gathered together all the other Albanian chieftains and together managed successfully to keep Albania free for over a quarter of a century, beating and resisting the strongest army of the time, the Ottoman invasion.3

1 2

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/illyria/IllyriaAncient_Albanians.htm http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/283105/Illyria 3 http://www.thelosttruth.altervista.org/SitoEnglish/resuming_albania_english.html

After the death of Skenderbeg and the fall of Kruje, the Ottoman Empire gained control of the vast ethnic Albanian territories and many new changes began to take place. The whole territory of modern Albania was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1481 until 1912. Established their dominion over Albania, the Turks ruled for more than four centuries. Albanians rose in rebellion time and again against Ottoman occupation. In order to check the ravages of Albanian resistance--which was partly motivated by religious feelings, namely, defense of the Christian faith--as well as to bring Albania spiritually closer to Turkey, the Ottomans initiated a systematic drive toward the end of the 16th century to Islamize the population. This drive continued through the following century, by the end of which two-thirds of the people had converted to Islam. A major reason Albanians became Muslims was to escape Turkish violence and exploitation, an instance of which was a crushing tax that Christians would have to pay if they refused to convert. Islamization aggravated the religious fragmentation of Albanian society, and was later used Albania's neighbours in attempts to divide and denationalize the Albanian people. Hence leaders of the Albanian national movement in the 19th century used the rallying cry "The religion of Albanians is Albanianism" in order to overcome religious divisions and foster national unity. 4 The independency of 1912 came after the weakening of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Taking advantage of this weakening, the leaders of the Albanian national movement tried to awake the nation for full independency and defending Albanian and the Albanians through congresses and leagues. The most important one is the League of Prizren founded on 10 June 1878 in Prizren, in the Kosovo province (vilayet) of the Ottoman Empire. As a political organization the League of Prizren is considered the beginning of the long struggle for the countrys self-determination and independence. On 10 June 1878, delegates from all over Albania assembled in Prizren to work out a common political platform to counter the Treaty of San Stefano and the resolutions of the Congress of Berlin, which had ignored the Albanian wish for self-determination. The League of Prizren, Alb. Lidhja e Prizrenit, no doubt initially had the tacit support of the Ottoman government. Among the most prominent participants of the League of Prizren were Abdyl bey Frashri, Sulejman Vokshi and Ymer Prizreni. On 13 June 1878, the League submitted an eighteen-page memorandum to Benjamin Disraeli, the British representative at the Congress of Berlin, announcing: Just as we are not and do not want to be Turks, so we shall oppose with all our might anyone who would like to turn us into Slavs or Austrians or Greeks. We want to be Albanians. The Kararname, resolutions of the League of Prizren, were passed and signed by forty-seven Albanian beys on 18 June 1878. After this historic meeting, which served to promote the national awakening, Abdyl bey Frashri returned to southern Albania where he organized a League committee and began gathering troops to oppose the annexation of the south of the country by Greece. A key assembly of
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http://www.albanian.com/main/history/ottoman.html

Muslim and Christian landowners at the Bektashi monastery of his native village of Frashr adopted a program for autonomy, which was accepted by the League in Prizren on 27 November 1878.5 In 1879, Abdyl bey travelled to Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Rome with Mehmed Ali Vrioni to seek support for the Albanian cause and to submit a memorandum of Albanian demands to the Great Powers. In mid-1880, a programme for Albanian autonomy was passed by delegates of the national movement in Gjirokastra. By the end of April 1881, the Ottoman authorities had had enough and sent in troops to quell the uprising, and the League of Prizren was suppressed. The leaders formed the League to unite the country and develop the native language, literature, education and to adopt a new alphabet. The dream of Autonomy was the biggest issue for which the leaders always fought. The declaration of independence of 1912 was somewhat of an impromptu affair. The Ottoman Empire collapsed in the first Balkan War that began in October 1912 and the Albanians found themselves in an extremely awkward position. Their leaders were more concerned about the coalition of neighboring Christian forces (Montenegro, Serbia and Greece) than they were about the weakened Ottoman military presence in their country. What they wanted was to preserve the territorial integrity of Albania. Within two months, Ottoman forces had all but capitulated, and it was only in Shkodra and Janina that Turkish garrisons were able to maintain position. The very existence of the country was threatened.6 It was at this time that Ismail Kemal bey Vlora (1844-1919), also known in Albanian as Ismail Qemali, returned to Albania with Austro-Hungarian support and, at the head of a swiftlyconvened national assembly, declared Albanian independence in the town of Vlora on 28 November 1912. The declaration was more theoretical than practical because Vlora was the only town in the whole country under the delegates controlyet it proved to be effective in the vacuum of power. Though Albanian independence was recognised de facto on 17 December 1912 at the London Conference of Ambassadors, it was not until 29 July 1913, after the second Balkan War and the solving of the delicate problem of Shkodra, that the international community agreed to recognise Albania as a neutral, sovereign and hereditary principality. After this big victory for Albania come the same difficult period of the First World War and Second World War, where she still knew the occupation of bigger and more powerful countries than her. Between 1941 and 1944, communist partisans and nationalist guerrillas fought Italian and German occupation forces, and more often each other, in a brutal struggle to take control of Albania. Albania's communist movement attracted few adherents in the interwar period. In fact, the country had no fully fledged communist party before World War II. Enver Hoxha was the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of Labour of Albania. He was chairman of the Democratic Front of Albania and commander-in-chief of the armed forces from 1944 until his death. He served as Prime Minister of Albania from 1944 to 1954 and at various times served as foreign minister and
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http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts19_2/AH1878_2.html http://www.albanianhistory.net/texts20_1/AH1912_1.html

defense minister as well. Forty year period of Hoxha's rule was characterized by the elimination of the opposition, sentences to death or long prison terms of his political opponents and evictions from homes where their families lived and their internment in remote villages, where strictly controlled by police and State Security (secret police). Also his rule was characterized by Stalinist methods to destroy his associates, who threatened his own power. Hoxha's death on 11 April 1985 left Albania with a legacy of isolation and fear of the outside world. After his death Ramiz Alia took his place. His government didnt last too long. Throughout Europe the changes had already started and the fall of communism throughout south central Europe led to widespread changes within Albanian society. On March 22, 1992 the Communists were trumped by the Democratic Party in national elections.7 The change from dictatorship to democracy had many challenges that the Albanian government and society is trying to fulfill.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/12472/Albania/42656/Collapse-of-communism