Sammendrag
The main question is guided by two sub-questions for the purpose of structuring and clarifying the thesis:
1. How and why have the nation-forming process and Albanian demands developed since the 1830s?
2. Where do Albanian demands for self-determination stand today after the introduction of democracy in the Albanian areas, and how can these be explained?
Miroslav Hroch's theory of nationalist mobilisation and nation-forming process is used to organize the analysis of the Albanian national development. Hroch gives a typology of how the process of nation-forming develops by use of three phases. These phases are then used on the Albanian nationalist development. The thesis will also demonstrate the inadequacy of using only one single theory and that a combination of several theories may be more fruitful. Therefore it will also elaborate on the theoretical contributions within nationalism.
The approach to the problem emphasises the complexity and non-structural character of the Albanian nationalist development and nation-forming process. To grasp this complexity one has to study the whole development. A complete view that encompasses the development towards an Albanian identity should consist of different sources. The thesis is therefore structured as a case-study where different forms of data are generated, e.g. qualitative method.
The thesis argues that the Albanians found themselves in Hroch s phase A scholarly interest at the beginning of the 1830s. This phase continued until 1860 when one finds examples of Hroch s phase B agitation. The phase of agitation continued until communism in 1945. This indicates that the establishment of the Albanian state in 1912 was premature in the sense that the Albanians had not developed a national identity. Hroch s phase C a mass movement and a national identity was however reached in a rather politicized way during the period of xenophobic communism in Albania, while the development stood at a standstill for the Albanians living outside Albania proper.
The Albanian political demands were initially not set on independence. Initially the Albanian only wanted the use of Albanian language and culture, and a wish to stay within the Ottoman Empire. But seeing the crumbling start of the Empire starting the Albanians opted for independence in 1912. The splitting up of the Albanians into several states wakened the Albanians further put no direct step was taken until the fall of communism to unite the areas in a Greater Albania.
In the question of Albanian self-determination today the analysis could find no support for a Greater Albania among the Albanian parties, neither in Albanian not in any of the other areas. The nationalist parties that advocate a greater Albanian received miniscule support among the electorate. Studying the Albanian self-determination I found that the Albanians seem to support a Greater Europe rather than a Greater Albania.