A peek into Albania’s Socialist History

As the hermit kingdom of North Korea faces its great crisis since the invention of the hamburger. We consider another land who strove to maintain a  self imposed quarantine amidst world affairs,  Albania.

Socialism in Albania was written and directed by Enver Hoxha. The script was considered by Albanians to be the the only “true”  legitimate socialism (anti-revisionist Marxist Leninism). By declaring themselves the real deal, they closed themselves off from even the staunchest of hardline communists. USSR- washed up, Yugoslavia- sellouts, China- Mao was cool for a while but in the end, they also were considered sellouts.

What resulted is incredibly weird, tragic, unique and amazing. Being self sufficient requires a hard line, a strong sense of identity and the will of the people. When you don’t have all that to go on, you create myths and build huge electric fences… that’s exactly what Enver Hoxha did. The myths of identity linking Albanians to the ancient Illyrian civilization is more “Little House on the Balkan Prarie” than truth, but in the hearts and minds of Albanians, they are the legitimate heirs to this culture. Their DNA suggest otherwise.

The video collection below are parts of series that you can follow on the youtube. There is another, you can dig for from 1989 in German discussing how all churches and mosques were converted into museums and cinemas. I find it interesting that the solution Hoxha gives for a mixed bag of religious denominations is to Atheize them into unity.