NGA PERIFERIA NË PERIFERI: SHPËRBËRJA E BASHKIMIT SOVJETIK DHE TRANZICIONI PERANDORAK NË SHQIPËRI E BALLKAN
FROM PERIPHERY TO PERIPHERY: THE DISSOLUTION OF THE SOVIET UNION AND THE IMPERIAL TRANSITION IN ALBANIA AND THE BALKANS

Summary/Abstract: Focusing on Albania, this paper argues that the post-Cold War era Balkans remain a space of imperial expansion and a hot spot of influences from different centers. In the 1990s, the EU expanded without much difficulty. Following the definition of Jan Zielonka concerning the European Union, which according to the Polish scholar is a new form of empire that expands by invitation and tries to bring under its control and order the outer neighborhoods of the western core, the last decade of the 20th century that coincided with the starkest socio-economic crises of the post-communist years, the EU was an unrivaled force along its eastern and southeastern frontier. However, by the early 21st century the situation changed significantly and Brussels faced new competitors in one of the most problematic regions, the Balkans. Long-standing national hatreds and unquenched rivalry had pushed local actors to pull in their conflicts the great powers, quite often using and manipulating the latter to their petty advantages. Still a peripheral and borderland, the southeastern peninsula of Europe is an arena where the interests of the EU clash with those of a resurgent, revanchist, and anti-hegemonic Russia and of a neo-Ottomanist Turkey that seeks to carve an alternative niche of hers in the Balkans. As regards to Albania, independently of their programs, all the political parties had shown staunch support for the EU and the inclusion of the country within the greater European framework. This is a significant rupture with the history of the country and marks the transformation of the political, economic, cultural, and ideological orientation of the country toward both the West and the changed mindset toward empires. Born out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, Albanian nationalism has been profoundly anti-imperialist, a feature it showed both during the interwar era and during the Cold War years. Preserving and reinforcing the country's independence and sovereignty was the paramount task, which both Zog and Hoxha truly believed and made their utmost to defend. At the closing of the 20th century and the triumph of neoliberal globalization, the country’s political elite, aware that national sovereignty could not be the central imperative of their policy gradually changed their approach. This was reflected as well in the nationalist discourse, which once reinvented, did not show hostility toward European integration but rather saw it as a destination. As a result, what can be discerned is not a new stance toward empires and an acceptance of imperialism but rather a selective process that accepts the EU, the “empire of good” that expands through invitation exactly for the benefits of modernity it offers to the societies that are included within its borders.

• Details
• Contents