History of Albania

The kingdom of the Taulantii under Glaukias' rule was based in central Albania and dominated southern Illyrian affairs in the late 4th century BC, exerting great influence on the Epirote state through the close ties with the Molossian king Pyrrhus.

The city of Buthrotum (modern-day Butrint), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is probably more significant today than it was when Julius Caesar used it as a provisions depot for his troops during his campaigns in the 1st century BC.

[28] Since the 3rd and 4th century AD, Christianity had become the established religion in Byzantium, supplanting pagan polytheism and eclipsing for the most part the humanistic world outlook and institutions inherited from the Greek and Roman civilizations.

1216, when the ruler of Epirus, Michael I Komnenos Doukas, started an invasion northward into Albania and Macedonia, taking Kruja and ending the independence of the principality of Arbanon following the death of Dhimitër.

Charles signed a treaty with them and was proclaimed King of Albania "by common consent of the bishops, counts, barons, soldiers and citizens" promising to protect them and to honor the privileges they had from Byzantine Empire.

This alarmed the Byzantine Emperor, Michael VIII Palaiologos, who began sending letters to local Albanian nobles, trying to convince them to stop their support for Charles of Anjou and to switch sides.

The League was a military alliance of feudal lords in Albania forged in Lezhë on 2 March 1444, initiated and organised under Venetian patronage[41] with Skanderbeg as leader of the regional Albanian and Serbian chieftains united against the Ottoman Empire.

[51] Gibbon reports that the "Albanians, a martial race, were unanimous to live and die with their hereditary prince", and that "in the assembly of the states of Epirus, Skanderbeg was elected general of the Turkish war and each of the allies engaged to furnish his respective proportion of men and money".

Faced with growing international pressure "to pacify" the refractory Albanians, the sultan dispatched a large army under Dervish Turgut Pasha to suppress the League of Prizren and deliver Ulcinj to Montenegro.

[60] The unsuccessful uprising of 1910, 1911 and the successful and final Albanian revolt in 1912, as well as the Serbian and Greek occupation and attempts to incorporate the land into their respective countries, led to a proclamation of independence by Ismail Kemal in Vlorë on 28 November 1912.

Under the secret Treaty of London signed in April 1915, Triple Entente powers promised Italy that it would gain Vlorë (Valona) and nearby lands and a protectorate over Albania in exchange for entering the war against Austria-Hungary.

In January 1920, at the Paris Peace Conference, negotiators from France, Britain, and Greece agreed to allow Albania to fall under Yugoslav, Italian, and Greek spheres of influence as a diplomatic expedient aimed at finding a compromising solution to the territorial conflicts between Italy and Yugoslavia.

After Noli decided to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, a bitter enemy of the Serbian ruling family, Belgrade began making wild allegations that Albania was about to embrace Bolshevism.

The parliament quickly adopted a new constitution, proclaimed the first republic, and granted Zogu dictatorial powers that allowed him to appoint and dismiss ministers, veto legislation, and name all major administrative personnel and a third of the Senate.

The Straits of Otranto, which cross the Adriatic Sea and connect Albania and southern Italy by forty miles, have always operated as a bridge rather than a barrier, offering escape, cultural exchange, and an easy invasion path.

Led by Abaz Kupi, it largely consisted of Geg guerrillas, supplied mainly with weapons from the allies, who withdrew their support for the NLM after the communists renounced Albania's claims on Kosovo.

The NLF's strong links with Yugoslavia's communists, who also enjoyed British military and diplomatic support, guaranteed that Belgrade would play a key role in Albania's postwar order.

The Internal Affairs Minister, Koçi Xoxe, a pro-Yugoslav erstwhile tinsmith, presided over the trial and the execution of thousands of opposition politicians, clan chiefs, and members of former Albanian governments who were condemned as "war criminals."

Most communist leaders were middle-class Tosks, Vlachs and Orthodox, and the party drew most of its recruits from Tosk-inhabited areas, while the Ghegs, with their centuries-old tradition of opposing authority, distrusted the new Albanian rulers and their alien Marxist doctrines.

In 1949, Albania adopted the basic elements of the Soviet fiscal system, under which state enterprises paid direct contributions to the treasury from their profits and kept only a share authorized for self-financed investments and other purposes.

In 1951, the Albanian government launched its first five-year plan, which emphasized exploiting the country's oil, chromite, copper, nickel, asphalt, and coal resources; expanding electricity production and the power grid; increasing agricultural output; and improving transportation.

Stalin died in March 1953, and apparently fearing that the Soviet ruler's demise might encourage rivals within the Albanian party's ranks, neither Hoxha nor Shehu risked traveling to Moscow to attend his funeral.

In July 1953, Hoxha handed over the foreign affairs and defense portfolios to loyal followers, but he kept both the top party post and the premiership until 1954, when Shehu became Albania's prime minister.

Despite some initial expressions of enthusiasm, Hoxha and Shehu mistrusted Nikita Khrushchev's programs of "peaceful coexistence" and "different roads to socialism" because they appeared to pose the threat that Yugoslavia might again try to take control of Albania.

During the congress, the Albanian government announced the broad outlines of the country's Third Five-Year Plan from 1961 to 65, which allocated 54% of all investment to industry, thereby rejecting Khrushchev's wish to make Albania primarily an agricultural producer.

The Albanian-Chinese relations had stagnated by 1970, and when the Asian giant began to reemerge from isolation in the early 1970s, Mao Zedong and the other communist Chinese leaders reassessed their commitment to tiny Albania, starting the Sino-Albanian split.

[citation needed] The constitution enshrined in law the idea of autarky and prohibited the government from seeking financial aid or credits or from forming joint companies with partners from capitalist or communist countries perceived to be "revisionist".

[citation needed] Alia traveled extensively around Albania, standing in for Hoxha at major events and delivering addresses laying down new policies and intoning litanies to the enfeebled president.

[citation needed] In the early spring 1997, Italy led a multinational military and humanitarian intervention (Operation Alba),[119] authorized by the United Nations Security Council, to help stabilize the country.

[125] In April 2021 parliamentary election, ruling Socialist Party, led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, secured its third consecutive victory, winning nearly half of votes and enough seats in parliament to govern alone.