‘Enverists’ and ‘Titoists’ – Communism and Islam in Albania and Kosova, 1941–99: From the Partisan Movement of the Second World War to the Kosova Liberation War

Abstract

‘Enverists’, or supporters of Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha, and ‘Titoists’, referring to sympathizers with the architect of communist Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito, are terms used in Albanian discourse over Kosova. But they are generally misconstrued to suggest differing orientations towards the rival regimes, when they more properly refer, as Albanian sources demonstrate, to attitudes about the fate of Kosova itself. ‘Enverists’ in Kosova very rarely supported Hoxha and ‘Titoists’ were not necessarily loyalists of Yugoslavia. Rather, the terms signify a distinction between those who saw the Albanian national question as one involving all Albanians, in Albania proper, Kosova, and neighbouring territories (‘Enverists’) and those who viewed the problem of Kosova as a separate question (‘Titoists’).

Notes

On the Gheg language issue, see Arshi Pipa, The Politics of Language in Socialist Albania (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1989).

The history of Bulgarian–Macedonian relations is irrelevant to the present inquiry; an authoritative outline of the emergence of Macedonian identity is found in Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).

Nexhmedin Spahiu, Serbian Tendencies for the Partitioning of Kosova (Budapest: Central European University Press, 1999).

Vladimir Dedijer, Jugoslovensko-Albanski Odnosi (1939–1948) (Belgrade: Borba, 1949).

On Llazër Fundo, see Julian Amery, Sons of the Eagle (London: Macmillan, 1948), pp.151–3, 309–11; Dedijer, Jugoslovensko-Albanski Odnosi; and Reginald Hibbert, Albania's National Liberation Struggle: The Bitter Victory (New York: St. Martin's, 1991), reviewed by Stephen Schwartz in Albanian Catholic Bulletin (annual, San Francisco), 1992, pp.119–21; also material on Fundo including photographs of him assembled in commemoration of the Italian pioneer of European federalism, Altiero Spinelli (1917–86), at <http://www.altierospinelli.it/compagni/fundo/index.php>, accessed 28 Nov. 2008.

Sadik Premte, ‘Stalinism and Communism in Albania’, Fourth International (New York), January 1949; Jon Halliday (ed.), The Artful Albanian: The Memoirs of Enver Hoxha (London: Chatto & Windus, 1986); Stephen Schwartz, ‘Sadik Premte’, Albanian Catholic Bulletin (1991), p.181.

Basic accounts of the KK are found in Banac, The National Question, and Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (New York: HarperCollins, 1999). A substantial literature on the KK and its leading figures has been published in Albanian, little of which focuses on its links with the Comintern: see, in particular, the seminar of the Academy of Sciences of Albania and the Institutes of History of Tirana and Prishtina: Akademia e Shkencave e Shqipërisë, Instituti i Historisë – Tirana, Instituti i Historisë – Prishtina, Komiteti ‘Mbrojtja Kombëtare e Kosovës’ (Tirana: Akademia e Shkencave, 2004). Also, as an example of popular literature on the topic, see Bedri Tahiri, Azem Bejtë Galica (Prishtina: Shkëndija, 2005).

Ivo Banac, With Stalin Against Tito (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 1988), p.205.

Malcolm, Kosovo, p.302.

Banac, With Stalin Against Tito, p.209, n.206.

A brief discussion of Zjarri appears at <http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/backiss/Vol3/No1/Premtaj.html>, accessed 28 Nov. 2008.

On Albanians in the IB, see Prenk Uli and Qemal Sarajeva, Asim Vokshi (Tirana: ‘8 Nentori’, 1982).

First published Tirana: Ndërmarrja Shtetërore e Botimeve, 1958.

Robert Elsie, Albanian Literature: A Short History (London: Tauris, 2005), pp.136, 184.

‘Bolshevist Intrigue’, The Washington Post, 26 Dec. 1924.

Islam Lauka and Eshref Ymeri, Shqipëria ne Dokumentat e Arkivave Rusi (Tirana: Toena, 2006), pp.50–51.

See <http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/comintern/docs/albania-f495-op188-vetted.doc>, accessed 28 Nov. 2008.

On Comintern involvement with Catalan nationalism, see Víctor Alba and Stephen Schwartz, Spanish Marxism vs. Soviet Communism: A History of the P.O.U.M. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988). On the Comintern's line on Croatian and Macedonian opposition to Serbian expansionism, see Stephen Schwartz, ‘Ante Ciliga (1898–1992): A Life At History's Crossroads’, Journal of Croatian Studies (annual, New York), 1997, pp.181–204.

Ljubiša Stojković and Miloš Martić, National Minorities in Yugoslavia (Belgrade: Jugoslavija Publishing and Editing Enterprise, 1952), p.35.

Ibid., pp.37–9.

Amery, Sons of the Eagle, pp.151–3, 309–11.

Elsie, Albanian Literature, p.163.

Alba and Schwartz, Spanish Marxism vs. Soviet Communism, p.295.

Further on Fundo, see Amery, Sons of the Eagle; Dedijer, Jugoslovensko-Albanski Odnosi, passim; and Schwartz review of Hibbert (n.5 above); the website <http://www.altierospinelli.it/compagni/fundo/index.php>, accessed 28 Nov. 2008, includes Fundo's encounter with Pertini and Fundo's poetry.

On Shaban Palluzha, see Malcolm, Kosovo, p.312; Sabile Keçmezi-Basha, Lëvizja Ilegale Patriotike Shqiptare në Kosovë (1945–1947) (Prishtina: Rilindja, 1998), passim; Azem Hajdini-Xani, Shaban Palluzha, 3 vols. (Prishtina: Rilindja, 2001–3), passim.

Ismet Dermaku, Gjon Serreqi dhe NdSH-ja (Prishtina: no publisher, 1996), passim.

On Marie Shllaku, see Gjon Sinishta (ed.), The Fulfilled Promise (Santa Clara, CA: no publisher, 1976), pp.167–8; Tome Mrijaj, Marie Shllaku, Bijë e Shkodrës martire e Kosovës (New York: no publisher, 2004), passim. See also Stephen Schwartz, Kosovo: Background to a War (London: Anthem Press, 2000); Albanian translation, Kosova: Prejardhja e Nji Lufte, 2nd Albanian edn (Prishtina: Rrokullia, 2006), p.97.

Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge, 2nd edn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), p.187.

M.B., ‘Historia e Trishtueshme e Atentorit të Miladin Popoviqit’, Bota Sot (Prishtina), 27 May 2000.

Banac, With Stalin Against Tito; Enver Hoxha, The Titoites (Tirana: 8 Nentori, 1982), pp. 284–286; Halliday (ed.), The Artful Albanian.

Schwartz, Kosovo, and Stephen Schwartz, The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony (New York: Doubleday, 2008), passim.

Stojković and Martić, National Minorities in Yugoslavia, p.206.

Sinishta, The Fulfilled Promise; Pjeter Pepa, The Criminal File of Albania's Communist Dictator (Tirana: Uegen, 2003).

Banac, With Stalin Against Tito, p.216.

Ibid.

Spahiu, Serbian Tendencies, pp.91–2.

This quotation and those that follow are taken from ‘Interview with Rexhep Qosja’, in Robert Elsie (ed.), Kosovo (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1997), pp.497–504.

Judah, Kosovo, pp.102–20.

Kosovapress (Prishtina), 29 Dec. 1999.

Albin Kurti, Zgjohu! Për Rezistencë drejt Lirisë (Prishtina: no publisher, 2007).

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Notes on contributors

Stephen Schwartz

Stephen Schwartz is Executive Director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism, <http://www.islamicpluralism.org>, Washington, DC. His most recent book is The Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony (2008). This article was excerpted in a presentation at the academic conference on the fortieth anniversary of the 1968 protests in Kosova, Macedonia and Montenegro, organized by the Kosova Society of Political Prisoners, The Institute of History of Kosova and the Albanological Institute of Prishtina, in Prishtina, Kosova Republic, 26 Nov. 2008. It is dedicated to the Albanian communist Llazër Fundo (1899–1944), who wrote: ‘Far from my country/I find myself in Mongolia.’