O AΛΒΑΝΙΚΟΣ ΕΘΝΙΚΙΣΜΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΧΟΤΖΑ
Cultivating nationalism
Enver Hoxha had declared during the anti-religious campaign that "the only religion of Albania is Albanianism,"[94] a quotation from the poem O moj Shqypni ("O Albania") by the 19th-century Albanian writer Pashko Vasa.
Muzafer Korkuti one of the dominant figures in post-war Albanian archaeology and now Director of the institute of Archaeology in Tirana said this in an interview of 10 July 2002:[95]
"Archaeology is part of the politics which the party in power has and this was understood better than anything else by Enver Hoxha. Folklore and archaeology were respected because they are the indicators of the nation, and a party that shows respect to national identity is listened to by other people; good or bad as this may be. Enver Hoxha did this as did Hitler. In Germany in the 1930s there was an increase in Balkan studies and languages and this too was all part of nationalism."
Efforts were focused on an Illyrian-Albanian continuity issue[96] and on appropriating Ancient Greek history as Albanian.[96]
An Illyrian origin of the Albanians (without denying Pelasgian roots[97]) continued to play a significant role in Albanian nationalism,[98] resulting in a revival of given names supposedly of "Illyrian" origin, at the expense of given names associated with Christianity. At first, Albanian nationalist writers opted for the Pelasgians as the forefathers of the Albanians, but as this form of nationalism flourished in Albania under Enver Hoxha, the Pelasgians became a secondary element[97] to the Illyrian theory of Albanian origins, which could claim some support in scholarship.[99]
The Illyrian descent theory soon became one of the pillars of Albanian nationalism, especially because it could provide some evidence of continuity of an Albanian presence both in Kosovo and in southern Albania, i.e., areas that were subject to ethnic conflicts between Albanians, Serbs and Greeks.[100] Under the government of Enver Hoxha, an autochthonous ethnogenesis[96] was promoted and physical anthropologists[96] tried to demonstrate that Albanians were different from any other Indo-European populations, a theory now disproved.[101] Communist-era Albanian archaeologists claimed[96] that ancient Greek poleis, gods, ideas, culture and prominent personalities were wholly Illyrian (example Pyrrhus of Epirus[102] and the region of Epirus[103]).
They claimed that the Illyrians were the most ancient people[96][104] in the Balkans and greatly extended the age of the Illyrian language.[96][105] This is continued in post-communist Albania[96] and has spread to Kosovo.[96][106] These nationalist theories have survived largely intact into the present day.[96]