Status report Albania 100 years: symbolic nation-building completed?

On 28 November 2012 the Republic of Albania celebrated its centenary as an independent state. Much of this period has been through turmoil, wars, foreign occupation, authoritarianism, Communist dictatorship, and, most recently, contested democracy since 1991. In addition to its many political difficulties, Albania has also been haunted by social and economic problems. Today, the majority would leave the country if they could. Despite the failure to create a functioning welfare state which its citizens consider trustworthy, the Albanian nation-building project is nevertheless a huge success at the symbolic level. Across innumerable divergences and potential sources of tension, today’s Albanian citizens identify, fundamentally and enthusiastically, with the symbolic nation-building project, more than in any other state in the Balkans, apart from Kosovo. One hundred years of constructing, reinforcing, and maintaining a sense of national, language-based, secular unity in the Republic of Albania, with and without dictatorial methods, have resulted in a strong ‘imagined community’.