The idea of nation during the Albanian national movement (1878-1912)

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore the way the Albanian nationalist intellectuals of the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century articulated the existence of an Albanian nation. The existence of such a nation assumed the recognition of certain values and, therefore, the entitlement to enjoy certain rights. The thesis concentrates on the work of four leading Albanian intellectuals and Ottoman imperial statesmen. It is thus a contribution to the study of the intellectual history and political thought as regards to the development of nationalism as an idea and ideology. The study of the nation in the Albanian context is intended to enhance an understanding of the dynamics of nationalism in the context of the decaying Ottoman Empire at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The study also has a wider theoretical dimension. It employs Western ideas on nationalism to study the particular dynamics of the Albanian national movement. But ideas developed in the west do not always correspond to the particular circumstances of the emergent Albanian national movement. As such the thesis offers a critical examination of some of the main Western theories on nationalism and through an examination of the Albanian case poses the need for a rethinking of some of the basic conceptions as regards to the development of the nationalist movements, in the context of a decaying multi- national empire, and in the context of backwardness where the national idea had to be constructed, and in which the role played by intellectuals was especially important.