Myth of a Leader: Enver Hoxha’s Role during the Second World War in Contemporary Albanian History Textbooks (original) (raw)

2017

Abstract

The end of the political and economic system of socialism in 1992, of a system that had controlled almost all aspects of life in Albania, naturally affected many domains of society. The humanities were affected by the dramatically changed circumstances as they had to a certain extent served the ideological needs of the ruling Communist Party. Historiography, as in other former socialist countries of South-Eastern Europe, had certainly been one of the most highly ideologized disciplines because of its use in legitimizing communist rule and thus the claim to historical truth. The need to re-write and re-teach history was a clear result of this new political juncture following the collapsed East-West front within Europe in 1989. In fact, this front, as Christina Koulouri asserts, was historiographical as well as historical. The fall of socialism was also reflected in the tertiary education and school sector, presented as the ‘communist legacy’ that was to be overcome. When communism ended in Albania, a re-examination of some of the foundational myths occurred, as well as the establishment of new historical agendas. This chapter analyzes the principal interpretations of the role of Enver Hoxha during the Second World War, and how his character is depicted in post-socialist history textbooks. Content analysis will therefore constitute the primary methodological approach, bearing in mind the process of de-mythologization in post-socialist Albanian historiography. I will begin by giving an overview of the general discourses on political and historical myth, focusing on the process of history revision and the core debates that are still ongoing in Albania. Further, the analysis will focus on how the figure of Enver Hoxha is portrayed in post-socialist Albanian school history textbooks, taking into account the role of Hoxha during the Second World War and his representation in socialist history textbooks as the most important leader of the anti-fascist and anti-nazi movements. During socialism, Hoxha’s role during the war was imbued with a mythical essence and deemed crucial for the political events to come in the aftermath of 1945, particularly the building of the new socialist Albania from 1945 to 1985, the year of Hoxha’s death. All this changed after the collapse of socialism, and the process of history revision began by de-ideologizing and de-mythologizing Hoxha’s character as leader, particularly his role during the war. This chapter will show that, although attempts to deconstruct the myth of Hoxha were especially intensive in the early years of transition, the old ethnocentric writing of history still prevails in the textbook, and Hoxha’s role during the Second World War alters according to the political stance of the textbook author(s). The school textbooks analyzed here are those of the fourth and ninth grades of primary school and twelfth grade of high school, 5 corresponding with the national history published between 2000 and 2010. In post-communist Albania, history textbooks were usually written by the same group of authors, who might occasionally revise and republish their texts, generally making only very few changes to the original content.

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