Kosovo During the Tense Relations Between Albania and Yugoslavia in Sixties and Seventies of the Twentieth Century
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS QUARTERLY , Vol. 5. No.2. (Summer 2014/2) KOSOVO DURING THE TENSE RELATIONS BETWEEN ALBANIA AND YUGOSLAVIA IN SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ETHEM ÇEKU ∗ (Abstract) Kosovo during the tense relations between Albania and Yugoslavia in the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century is the object of this paper. This period distinguished for the raise of the autonomous institutions of Kosovo. This study is based on a more contemporary analysis of the Albanian, Serbian and international historical research, as well as on the latest documents of the American, Russian, Serbian and Albanian provenance. The Albanian scholarship has considered these relations as a result of the tense international relations during the Cold War, especially between the two cams: the eastern and western ones, but also as a result of internal changes within Yugoslavia. The Albanian state found its interest in these developments. Independently from the secondary documents that emerge, the internal developments in Kosovo, and further on, the political assessments and also those cultural and scholarly promoted from Tirana and Pristina show that in their essence, they were delineated by the national paradigm. Meanwhile, this did not impede the Albanian or Yugoslav parties to not use these activities for international propaganda: good neighbors (Albanians) and political and cultural development of the minorities (Yugoslavs). In reality, more than Albanians or Yugoslavs, Albanian Kosovars profited from this, not only by raising their own political, economic, educational, cultural and social institutions, but also by enhancing the national spirit, which in 1981 exploded into a movement, which would prepare the crisis and the final countdown of the Yugoslav Federation.
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