Historic Background Of Albania

Among the first people to set up an empire in what is now modern Albania were the Illyrians, ancestors of present-day Albanians. The Illyrians occupied the area sometime during the 2nd millennium BC, but were partly displaced by the invading Greeks in the 7th century BC and later by the Romans in 228 BC. The Romans were able to hold on to their empire in the Balkans only for a short while; the Slavs, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths and the Huns soon tried to get a hold in the area. Many of the more powerful empires of the surrounding areas- in particular, those of the Byzantine empire, Bulgaria, Serbia and Venice- all invaded Illyria, but it was the Ottoman Turks who finally grabbed power in 1479 and held on till 1912. Increasing nationalism by the Illyrians finally resulted in the declaration of independence in 1912.

Independence was a short lived pleasure for the Albanians, though; Greece, Serbia, France, Italy and Austria-Hungary occupied Albania in succession, and the country only returned to self-rule in 1920. This state of affairs continued till 1939, when Italy, followed by the Nazis, invaded. The Albanians communists, headed by Enver Hoxha, organised the local resistance and threw out the Axis armies in 1944. A communist regime was set up in Albania hand-in-hand with the USSR. Relations between the two countries soon soured and by 1960, Albania had broken off ties with the USSR and allied itself with China, a phase which lasted till 1978. Hoxha’s death in 1985 introduced liberalisation in Albania and by 1990 communism was on the way out. Elections in 1992 brought a complete end to communism, but the country still faces a number of political problems, the most severe of them is the dilemma of Kosovo and the resultant spill over of ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo into Albania.