History! History for all!

By Maklen Misha*
It is often said that history is written by the victors, but what happens when there is no winner? This is the question Albania has been grappling with since the end of the Communist regime. It would be a difficult enough situation in any case but matters are made even worse when politicians join in the discussion. Then one can safely claim that the situation is impossible. Making them all agree on how Albania’s history should read is no easy task. Making them understand that it is none of their business in the first place is even harder.
Through some ironic accident of history the end of Communism, unlike other revolutions or changes of regimes, brought no real winners or losers in Albania. Former Communists, Socialists, Democrats, Republicans, supporters of the Monarchy and a whole host of others, to their chagrin, have to coexist in a pluralistic political system. They all have their own political agendas and given that most believe in the definition of history as a weapon they all have their interpretations of it too, which are almost always determined by their agendas. Thus historians have been pushed out of the scene and politicians have taken over. “We have come to discuss history as politicians, of course!” remarked a well known politician and close partner of the prime minister in a TV debate on the subject of history without even realizing how strange that statement sounds. It is though to some extent understandable that politicians – given the fact that being one requires high levels of self confidence – see nothing wrong in fashioning themselves historians overnight.
Historians however do. The quality of research and historical studies will suffer for one. Politicians are by definition no great friends of truth; it comes with the craft. And when something as serious as history – from where their political legitimacy derives – is at stake one can hardly expect them to be objective and present balanced views. One has but to look at the discussions on the crisis of 1997 and the radically different views and explanations presented by the two sides of Albanian politics to realise that. Or again if one looks at the collapse of the Communist regime and the advent of democracy and the Democratic Party: not even 17 years have passed and no one seems capable of saying what exactly happened. Of course, historians, given the chance to conduct their research and studies unimpeded by political pressure would arrive at some more or less objective and balanced interpretation. Unfortunately they cannot. Politics won’t let them. And when historians – or any other academic types for that matter – are as foolish as to go head to head with politicians in Albania, it is they who loose. How could it be otherwise?!
Of course history in Albania needs to be rewritten. The Communist version of it simply does not hold water anymore and it never did: it presented its own reading to the exclusion of all else and one challenged it at one’s peril. But as in many other cases during Albania’s transition, the rewriting of history has been perceived as a free for all. Everything is up for grabs. Every group can present its own view and so can all sorts of charlatans. If one does not like a certain aspect of the country’s history because he/she or their families are not portrayed in a good light, or just for the heck of it, well, that can easily be remedied. Just write an article or two, portray yourself as a victim of the regime, a dissident or at the very least as a crypto-Communist, season it all with some choice anti-Communist slogans and you bought yourself a new past. Because as in Communist history writing the same concept seems to guide the new attempts at rewriting the country’s history too: to have a new present or future one needs a new past.
This principle can be seen in the choice of the parts of history that are subject to rewriting. The discussions have focused not so much on the decades of Communist rule as on the World War Two period and the regime that preceded the Communists, that of King Zog. The choice of subject is strategic indeed. The fight against Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany is where the Communists derived their legitimacy from; it also where the Monarchists and Nationalists lost much of theirs. Of course the Communists exploited this period too for their own political gains and portrayed their defeated adversaries purely in terms of traitors and quislings. But as in many other former Communist countries – most notably Croatia, Serbia – the new right-wing political elites often had their roots in those defeated adversaries. History therefore had to be rewritten in order for their legitimacy to be on a sound basis. On the other hand the Albanian left tries its best for history not to be changed so that their legitimacy does not suffer. The merits of the arguments of both sides go way beyond the scope of this paper, but one thing must be said: they are both extremely manicheist in their conception. After all it would have been simply impossible for the Communists to have been 100% bad and have enjoyed no popular support and win the war. Conversely it would have been impossible for the Nationalists and Monarchists to have been such good souls and enjoyed such support and loose. Then there is the argument about King Zog which is even stranger. While criticising one cruel dictator, Enver Hoxha, many nowadays try to glorify Zog who was after all just another petty dictator. Not just that but he had the audacity to proclaim himself king!
But instead of looking at these periods of Albanian history and the figures that shaped them in their entirety, instead of looking at the complex circumstances that enabled them to achieve what they did, the debate has degenerated to the same level as that of opposing football fans: my team is better because! You cheated! All the inconvenient facts are simply pushed aside. (For instance no self-respecting Albanian Monarchist dares ask or answer the most obvious question about King Zog: Who died and made him King?)
In order to get around these thorny issues these self-made historians and politicians are using some age old tricks. One consists in the choice of subject. For instance any study concentrating exclusively on the crimes or wrongs, committed by a given regime runs the risk of becoming nothing more than a propaganda instrument. Then there is the other trick which consists in choosing a starting date for the study. After all even identical historical narratives can have very different connotations depending on what one takes as the starting date of the narrative. As Bernard Lewis once remarked the history of the war between the US and Japan would look very different if one took Hiroshima as the starting point rather than Pearl Harbour.
To make a long and complex story short one can say that Albanian politicians, and groups of interest are doing all they can to rewrite history. Rewriting history is a necessity for Albania not just in light of the new evidence and facts, but also because of the newly found freedom to do so without risk of persecution. However what is not justified are the attempts at distortion and fabrication motivated by political aims which are then presented as the sacrosanct truth. Such endeavours have nothing in common with the craft of history writing. An historian has to look at the how-s and why-s of any given period but he/she has to do so as objectively as possible. After all it is not history that changes but what we make of it.
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The author is Director of Resarch at the Albanian Institute International Studies