The Image of Ottomans / Turks in the History Schoolbooks in Albania

Abstract

This essay discusses the image of Ottomans/Turks in history schoolbooks in contemporary Albania, a country which was the first mainly Muslim nation-state to emerge from the Ottoman Empire. With an attempt to contextualize this discussion, it firstly summarizes the modern Albanian historiography and the institutions producing the historiographical discourses in Albania; secondly it depicts the narrower context of the production process of history schoolbooks and their use. The main corpus of the article is devoted, however, to a detailed analysis of history schoolbooks by focusing on several specific issues: a) The process of Ottomanization and Islamization in Albania and the place of Kosovo War (1389) in this process; b) the first phase (XIV-XV. centuries) of this process and the place of Skender beu's resistance against it; c) the socio-economic and cultural structure in the Classical Age (XVI-XVII. centuries); d) Albanians and Albania in the Ottoman modernization process (from 1830s to 1912); and finally e) the declaration of independence (1912) and its aftermath.