Dr Deona Çali

The Contribution of Albanian Civil Society to Albania State-Building, Identity-Formation, and Minority Rights Between 1920-1939

Through this research, I will examine the impact of the activities of the nascent Albanian civil society, specifically immigration societies, religious organizations, and charitable bodies vis a vis the League of Nations securing the rights for minorities in Albania as well as rights for the Albanian minorities who found themselves outside the new state after its borders were set in 1920. I intend to analyse the contribution of Albanian civil society during the interwar period in order to highlight the wider problems of national identity.

Through an examination of immigration societies, I will seek to examine the problems faced by international migrants as 'transnational' actors, and their activities as examples of 'transnationalism'. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they contributed to the growth of independence movements and helped forge a distinct Albanian national identity, shaping political life in Albania, as well as her neighbouring states, that contained large Albanian minorities.