Mao and the Albanians

Mëhilli, Elidor

doi:10.1017/cbo9781107298576.011

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…This reinforces the idea that his political diary was written ex post, in an attempt to rewrite history in his favour following the Sino-Albanian split in 1978. 66 The first issue concerning Hoxha was China's celebration of Mao as a God, 'turning his cult almost into a religion' . 67 In ideological terms, Hoxha perceived Mao's cult as a threat to Stalin's position as a central figure in world communism.…”

Section: Dissenting From Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

China and Albania: the Cultural Revolution and Cold War Relations

Marku¹

2017

Cold War History

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During the central decades of the Cold War, China was Albania's only ally. The aim of this article is to analyse how the Chinese Cultural Revolution affected Sino-Albanian relations. This article argues that the events in China threatened to undermine the Sino-Albanian alliance, because Albania did not endorse most of the Cultural Revolution's policies, but supported it only for the sake of relations with China and the benefits received from this alliance. In a time when the Cultural Revolution caused enormous difficulties to the Chinese economy, Albania nonetheless received an increasing amount of aid. Based on recently released archives, this case study sheds light on this underexplored Cold War alliance and adds to our understanding of how the Cultural Revolution had implications beyond China's borders.

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Section: Dissenting From Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

China and Albania: the Cultural Revolution and Cold War Relations

Marku¹

2017

Cold War History

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“…At the same time, however, Hoxha and others continued to praise Mao as an important figure, and to point to China as a leader in the struggle for world socialism. 32 Albania had established itself as the nation that would criticize any deviation from Stalin's model, and yet it still needed China's help. (A further complication included the insistence that in Albania class enemies had long since been eliminated, and thus that a class war was unnecessary -though of course one was still being constantly carried out.)…”

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confidence: 99%

Between Two Easts: Picturing a Global Socialism in Albanian Post‐War Art, 1959–69

Isto¹

2022

Art History

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This essay examines the efforts to construct an image of global socialist society in post‐war Albania, looking closely at the images published in a 1959 travelogue by artist and art critic Andon Kuqali, chronicling his visit to the People's Republic of China. This piece of writing and the accompanying sketches and prints created by the artist reflect the cultural aspects of Albania's efforts to position itself within the socialist world in the period after Stalin's death. In this decade, Albania broke with the Soviet Union and moved towards stronger political and economic alliances with socialist nations in East Asia, including China. Kuqali's travel essay represents a key document in the formation of a global socialist identity in Albania, an effort to find common ground and shared purpose – in both life and modes of artistic production – between peoples who had relatively little knowledge of each other.

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Documents as Weapons: The Uses of a Dictatorship’s Archives

Mëhilli

2019

Contemporary European History

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Close to thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall Albania remains a blind spot in the literature on twentieth-century socialism. International histories of the Cold War continue to 'de-centre' Europe, and the focus increasingly shifts to relations between big powers and the so-called Third World. But this recent euphoria of 'the global' has also tended to obscure how a small European country can remain terra incognita for so long. In much of the former communist world, the socalled 'archival revolution' of the 1990s has helped produce a now large body of literature. Such a process has been slow and complicated in Albania. This essay begins by asking why. It first offers an overview of Albanian-language historical work from roughly the last two decades, placing it alongside other relevant contributions in English, German, Italian and French, to highlight trends and suggest possible analytical paths. My thoughts are organised around the problem of the country's archives, which took many years to become available to historians. Shrouded in mystery, communist era archives have often become places of political controversy over major themes like the Second World War and the origins of communist power. This essay argues for making archives objects of analysis, too. After surveying how authors have and have not approached the party-state's sources, it offers a history of archiving as an example of state led centralisation. The push to centralise archives coincided with a period in which Albania's regime sought to make sense of shifting foreign alliances: from a dedicated ally of the Soviet Union to an anti-Soviet voice during the revolutionary 1960s. Rather than as depositories of hidden truths, archives emerge as part of a larger project to define the state and discipline its past. They can shed much light on the domestic landscape of this period, but they can also offer new insights into how processes of nationalisation have been deeply intertwined with internationalist imperatives. Blind Spots Founded in 1941, the Communist Party of Albania (renamed Party of Labour, after consultations with Stalin, seven years later) was initially bound to neighbouring Yugoslavia, which provided tactical advice. Yugoslav advisors immersed themselves in planning affairs after Albania's liberation, an arrangement initially also supported by Stalin. Within a few years, however, the Soviet leader had grown impatient with his Yugoslav counterpart, Josip Broz Tito. During the Soviet-Yugoslav rift in 1948, Albania's cunning party chief Enver Hoxha saw an opportunity to escape from Yugoslav dependency, professing loyalty to the Kremlin. Purges of so-called pro-Yugoslav individuals ensued, followed by years of intense borrowing from the Soviet Union: desperately Thanks to Emily Greble for commissioning this essay and for providing detailed feedback, and to the anonymous reviewer for a sharp reading, which helped me bring discipline to the text. I presented some of these ideas at the conference 'Mes apatisë dhe nostalgjisë: Kujtesa publik...

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Mao and the Albanians

Cited by 4 publications

References 4 publications

China and Albania: the Cultural Revolution and Cold War Relations

China and Albania: the Cultural Revolution and Cold War Relations

Between Two Easts: Picturing a Global Socialism in Albanian Post‐War Art, 1959–69

Documents as Weapons: The Uses of a Dictatorship’s Archives

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