Nineteen-nineteen was a year of peacemaking and national boundaries were being revised throughout the world. It was also a year of hope, especially for the Albanians, when many people believed that the world could be remade according to Wilson. The year was crucial in the development of Albania. For Albania the story of 1919 is both national and international. On the international scene the problem of what to do with Albania was as always tied to other issues. Albania had been created in 1913 by the Great Powers in an attempt to preserve the stability of the Balkans by preventing the growth of the states which were victorious in the first Balkan War and by maintaining Albania as a foreign dominated balancing factor. This system by which the Great powers maintained their control over the Balkans was broken completely by the First World War. During the peacemaking the Albanian problem became part of both the Adriatic question of Greece and the question of Greek and Italian claims in t...

The Kosovo National Protection Committee (KNPC), which was founded in Shkodra on May 1, 1918, was one of the most important organizations of Albanian political pluralism in the years 1918-1924. The Committee had a broad political, democratic and national program that would have played the role of the government for Kosovo and strongly represented its voice. With such a status, the Committee could play an important role in Albanian political life at that time. Hoping that the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 would resolve the Albanian question, the leadership of the Committee sent successive memoranda and telegrams respecting the independence of Albania and reversing the injustices inflicted by the Great Powers on the Albanian people in 1913. During these years, the Committee established close relations with the Albanian governments. At first, it objected to the pro-Italian capitulation policy of the Durres government and condemned its actions. Later, when the patriots decided to convene a new national congress due to the international political circumstances and the danger of the disintegration of the country, they endorsed this initiative and praised it as a historic congress. They joined the decisions of the Lusnya Congress and participated as members of the resulting national government. If one recognizes the names of the members of this organization, one can say that the KNPC was one of the most important influences in the history of Albanian statehood in the years 1918-1924.

After the First and Second Balkan Wars (1912–1913) the territory of Kosovo was annexed to the Kingdom of Serbia. This action was made in spite of the fact that the former vilayet of Kosovo definitely had Albanian majority at the time. However, the political elite of the Kingdom of Serbia did not have time to integrate Kosovo, as World War I started in July 1914. After the First World War (1914–1918) the territory of Kosovo was annexed to Yugoslavian state. Serbians regarded the Albanians of Kosovo as a foreign body within the Yugoslavian state. In accordance with this standpoint, the Serbian political elite leading the Yugoslavian state took measures against the Albanians of Kosovo in every field of the political-economic life. Such activities of the Serbs can be described under the following categories: 1. the issue of regional administration; 2. the topic of minority rights; 3. the field of economics. In the first part of our essay we examine what happened in the above mentioned t...

The paper introduces these key ideas: First, Albania admitted to the League of Nations remained under international protection in terms of its rights to independence and territorial integrity. Second, Any intervention against Albania would be brought to the League of Nations, which would have to check that no one of the Balkan potentials acted to break Albania. Thirdly, Albania’s accession to the League of Nations was a consequence of itself, while in international affiliation the acceptance of a country into the League of Nations brought with it its recognition as a state. Fourth, this act marked a recognition of the state and of the Albanian government and paved the way for the fair resolution of the Albanian issue at the Ambassador’s Paris Conference in 1921. It was precisely on 9 November 1921 that this Conference made its final decision for Albania: recognition the independence of Albania and the borders of 1913, with some changes in the northeast in favor of Serbia.

The intra-party conflict in Yugoslavia in 1966 resulted in a fundamental shift in the attitude of the Yugoslav leadership toward the Albanian national minority, which was also reflected in the country' s foreign policy orientation. The normalization of relations with Albania was set as one of the objectives of Yugoslav foreign policy. Yugoslavia stopped responding to the anti-Yugoslav statements of Albanian officials and launched a series of cooperation initiatives with Albania. The Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija was assigned a special role in the normalization of relations with Tirana and, with the consent of Belgrade, an exchange of publications, visits of cultural-artistic associations and contacts between the cultural institutions of Kosovo and Metohija and Albania ensued. This policy resulted in the establishment of direct cultural, economic and political ties between the governments of Albania and the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Meto-hija, into which the Yugoslav political leadership no longer had any insight.

This study seeks to explore the relations between Albania and Kosovo as they stand at the present and the likely trajectory they are going to take in the near future. The point of departure is the study of these relations from February 2008 when Kosovo proclaimed its independence and how the process of Kosovo`s recognition and state-building have influenced and conditioned its relationship with Albania. The discussion has involved the mainstream elite in both countries and several proposals have emerged since. On the other hand, a related debate on a Kosovar identity as a rather exclusive and new one versus the traditional understanding of the undivided Albanian identity seems to develop simultaneously with the participation of a substantial part of political and cultural elite on both sides of the border. In this framework, stereotypes about “Great Albania” and unification of Kosovo with Albania persist and are part of the discourse in the Balkans, especially neighbors such as Serbia which have expressed certain fears about such developments. This phenomenon had seen attempts made by governments of both Albania and Kosovo, whose effects remain to be seen, ranging from unification of school curricula and textbooks to unification of consulates in certain countries to an energy union between the two countries. On the other hand, polls made by international organization, as well as local organization in Albania and whose data is presented below, do not support any popular support for “Greater Albania”, so fears mentioned above remain without a solid base. However, recent evidence that is going to be duly analyzed in this study, testifies for a rising nationalist fervor in Albania versus a decline in Kosovo, which also relates to how masses and elites view the Albania-Kosovo future. It is the goal of this study to make an assessment of key internal and external factors that will influence the future of relations between Tirana and Pristina and make projections for possible scenarios of the bilateral relations in the next twenty to thirty years. These four scenarios are the following: A. Kosovo and Albania borders become gradually irrelevant as part of European Union if both are integrated at that stage. B. Albania and Kosovo are part of one of the following regional proposals (i.e. Balkan Union, Balkan Benelux, CEFTA etc.), but only one of them (most probably Albania) is part of EU. C. Albania and Kosovo realize a de facto unification before accession in the European Union. D. Albania and Kosovo operate as two functional countries without any projected unification of any kind, where Albania joins EU, with Kosovo still to conclude state-building process. I will show here that the scenario most likely to happen in the next ten years period is the last scenario while the scenario the most likely will develop in the next decade after that is the B scenario. I base this selection on the findings I have accumulated through desk analyses and focus group that is used to test my hypotheses and which one most likely will develop as a scenario in the short and medium term period.

The latest show of solidarity after the biggest earthquake to hit Albania in decades from the Albanians of Kosovo, their government and people, was one of the series that witness the strong and lasting relationship between the two Albanian halves despite more than a century of arbitrary border between themselves. The recent earthquake made possible the outpouring aid from Kosovo, which has been yet another instance of brotherly help in times of crises. There have been till now 500,000 euros donated from the government of Kosovo and more than 3.5 million from the population of Kosovo till now. Also, 110 specialized operators and 40 members of the Kosovo Security Force search and rescue units have contributed to alleviate the needs of the suffering people in the post-earthquake situation. This was the latest instance of a relationship that is well established and tested through times. Proofs of solidarity are given time to time as to reinforce the brotherly relations between the two brethren states, as the example of more than 435,000 refugees that had to leave Kosovo for Albania in 1999 according to the UNHCR,[1] in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing by Milosević’s regime and that found refuge in Albania at the time. This article explores the relations between Albania and Kosovo as they stand at the present and the likely trajectory they are going to take in the near future. The point of departure is the study of these relations from February 2008 when Kosovo proclaimed its independence and how the process of Kosovo`s recognition and state-building have influenced and conditioned its relationship with Albania. The discussion has involved the mainstream elite in both countries and several proposals have emerged since. On the other hand, a related debate on a Kosovar identity as a rather exclusive and new one versus the traditional understanding of the undivided Albanian identity seems to develop simultaneously with the participation of a substantial part of political and cultural elite on both sides of the border. In this framework, stereotypes about “Great Albania” and unification of Kosovo with Albania persist and are part of the discourse in the Balkans, especially neighbors such as Serbia which have expressed certain fears about such developments. This phenomenon had seen attempts made by governments of both Albania and Kosovo, whose effects remain to be seen, ranging from unification of school curricula and textbooks to unification of consulates in certain countries to an energy union between the two countries. On the other hand, polls made by international organization, as well as local organization in Albania and whose data is presented below, do not show any massive popular support for “Greater Albania”, so fears mentioned above remain without a solid base. However, recent evidence that is going to be duly analyzed in this study, testifies for a rising nationalist fervor in Albania versus a decline in Kosovo, which also relates to how masses and elites view the Albania-Kosovo future. In this analysis I offer an assessment of key internal and external factors that will influence the future of relations between Tirana and Pristina and make projections for possible scenarios of the bilateral relations in the next twenty to thirty years.