The Eastern Question again The Economist

The Eastern Question again
The Economist - June 10, 1978 (Page 17)

"Just as we are not and do not want to be Turks, so we shall oppose anyone who would like to turn us into Slavs. . . . We want to be Albanians"

That message was sent to the Congress of Berlin 100 years ago today, on June 10, 1878, by an assembly in the town of Prizren in Kosovo, then still a province of the Turkish empire. The congress was not impressed. Bismarck dismissed the message with the curt remark: "There is no Albanian nationality". Bismarck was wrong. A century later, the aspirations of this fiercely nationalist people, one of Europe's oldest, look like presenting Europe with a new version of the Eastern Question that tested the statesmanship of Bismarck, Disraeli and company.

To be sure, most Albanians have had a state of their own since the first world war. But the 2.5m Albanians who live in Albania proper have more than 1.5m fellow-Albanians living across the border in Jugoslavia, most of them in Kosovo, now an automomous province of Serbia, one of federal Jugoslavia's six republics. Unlike other European peoples with close relatives outside their national frontiers, the Albanians of Albania have never stopped claiming the right to unite themselves with these other Albanians. The Albanian communisit party newspaper Zeri i Popullit last week sternly maintained, apropos the Prizren message, the "principle of the integrity of the lands inhabited by the Albanians".

That is empty talk so long as Albania, far smaller and poorer than Jugoslavia, has no powerful friend to help it. It has lately quarrelled even with China, its great patron ever since the break with Russia in the late 1950s. But the Russians may see the split with China as their opportunity.Their growing navy still lacks a regular port opening on to the Mediterranean, and they might be happy to return to the base at Vlore (Valona) they lost in 1960. Russian support for Albania's claim on Kosovo might buy the Soviet government a return to Vlore, with the bonus of reminding post-Tito Jugoslavia that Russia can make life distinctly unpleasant for it if it goes on refusing to toe the Soviet line.

Jugoslavia, sensing the danger, does what it can to keep its Albanians quiet. The new federal government formed a few weeks ago has two Albanians in senior posts. The vice-presidency of Jugoslavia, which rotates among the constituent republics, has just devolved on an Albanian, Fadilj Hodzha, a distant cousin of Albania's ailing party leader Enver Hoxha. But the Albanians-in-Jugoslavia still have cause for discontent. Those who continue to campaign for union with Albania go to jail. Those who, as an alternative, want their own republic inside Jugoslavia on a par with Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia and the rest are still denied it. Serbia does not want to give up its ancient overlordship of Kosovo. Macedonia, part of which is also inhabited by Albanians, fears that it would be carved up in the making of a new Albanian republic.

The matter could come to a head when 86-year-old Tito and 69-year-old Hoxha die, which could happen any day. It will present a challenge to western diplomacy. It is not easy for the west to get closer to an intensely xenophobic, anti-western regime such as Albania's. Britain still has no diplomatic relations with it because of the mining of two British destroyers by the Albanians in 1946; West Germany because of a large Albanian claim for wartime reparations; the United States just because it is powerful and "imperialist". The EEC may be the best way for the western world to get back on terms with this prickly little nation. The European community should be ready to offer Enver Hoxha's successor a package of hard-currency aid that will help him to develop his country. That might divert Albania's attention from the Kosovo claim; keep the peace between Jugoslavia and Albania; and make it possible for the west to be friends with both of them.