The expression "Great Albania" (Shqipëria e Madhe) is considered to be contrary to the interests of the Albanians, who do not want to be regarded as expansionists and insist that one speak of "ethnic Albania" (Shqipëria etnike), which also refers to the territory but makes the Albanian claims seem more "natural" than political. The purpose of this introduction is to describe the way in which Albanians living outside of Albania – in Macedonia especially – regard the question of "ethnic Albania", above and beyond political considerations.

Ethnic Albanians in Macedonia often refer to Albania as "the mother country" (shtet amë). The metaphor of the mother (Albania) and her children (Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro) perhaps is used to suggest that, in spite of the current situation in Albania, the ties with Albanians living abroad will never be broken "because," quoting a villager of the Polog, "a mother never abandons her children." Other metaphors are often used: that of the tree (Albania) and its branches (Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro), that of the body and its limbs, or that of body and mind. The latter one is interesting as it ascribes a major role to Albanians living abroad, who are the mind of the nation : although the body is currently ill, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and Macedonia direct operations and see to it that the nation is always alert.

Although relations with Albania were quite good at the time of Sali Berisha’s presidency, ethnic Albanians in Macedonia have regarded with suspicion the governments that have followed (the socialist governments led by Fatos Nano and subsequently by Pandeli Majko, as of September 1998). Indeed, they are accused of disregarding the fate of ethnic Albanians living abroad and of selling Albania to its all-time enemies: the government is seen as a puppet moved by Greek interests; Fatos Nano is strongly criticised for holding talks with Slobodan Milosevic and receiving in Tirana the Minister of the Interior of Macedonia, who is considered responsible for police violence against Gostivar Albanians in July 1997. On the other hand, the hesitant, at times contradictory positions of the Albanian government as regards the Kosovo question (independence or autonomy) are frowned upon.

What is more, independently of the government in office in Tirana, ethnic Albanians in Macedonia feel they cannot rely upon the help of Albanians to solve their problem. Albania has a poor reputation with ethnic Albanians in Macedonia: the latter deplore the influence of communism, which has destroyed the Albanians; Albanians are considered thieves, parasites, idlers. They do not know how to work, they seek easy money and spend their time drinking at the pub. Communism has left their country a shambles, in a state of economic backwardness which it will take decades to erase. All the ethnic Albanians interviewed in Macedonia have gone back to Albania at least once since the fall of communism and most admit they have lost all their illusions about the mother country. Instead of the cradle of the nation which they were expecting to find and had envisioned in their minds at the time the border was closed, what they found was a miserable and dangerous country: since 1997, many have stopped crossing the border for fear of armed bands, and all have been robbed at least once: "If they know you carry money," says a retailer from the village of Banjshte (between Dibër/Debar and the Albanian border) "they are capable of killing you for it. I’m not going back any more, I’m scared!"

In spite of everything, ethnic Albanians in Macedonia are convinced that Albanians are greatly advantaged: they have schools and universities, they have the opportunity to develop the national culture, while ethnic Albanians in Macedonia are deprived of all this. Thanks to communism, women are more emancipated, which is seen as an advantage with a view to modernisation and European integration. Likewise, the (assumed) weak religious sentiment of Albanians, and of Muslims especially, is seen as an advantage.

Nonetheless, for all Albanians, the Albanian national community does exist, despite the international borders separating Albanians: Albanians, Kosovars and the Albanians of Macedonia are one and the same people, they have the same language, the same blood, the same flag, the same customs. Indifference towards Kosovo is therefore impossible.

The reference to language is typical of Albanian nationalism: unlike the other nations of the Balkans, which formed around the Orthodox religion, the Albanians, divided into three religious communities (Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic), founded their nation on the Albanian language. Throughout the entire political separation between Albania and Yugoslavia, the Albanians of Yugoslavia always adopted the linguistic reforms established in Albania. In 1973, at the time of the political separation between the two countries, the decisions of the conference on spelling held in Tirana were also applied by the Albanians of Yugoslavia. Today, the reference to language is still pertinent since the Albanians are the only ones who speak Albanian. As many among them observe: "We all speak both Albanian and Macedonian, but no Macedonian speaks Albanian." In fact, it is true that few non-Albanians speak Albanian, and the Albanian language is thus closely associated to the Albanian identity.

The reference to the flag has taken on great importance since the July 1997 events in Gostivar, whose mayor was arrested and later sentenced to prison for displaying the Albanian flag on the Town Hall on the occasion of an Albanian festivity. His arrest was made possible by a law hurriedly approved less than 24 hours after the event. The Albanians of Macedonia continue to repeat one of the arguments of the Albanian mayors who defended their use of the Albanian flag in Macedonia: "It is not the flag of the Albanian state, it is the flag of the entire Albanian nation." In all the demonstrations that take place in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, and European cities where there are many Albanian immigrants, the Albanian flag serves as the main emblem of the Albanian nation.

The reference to religion is also quite important. Muslims account for 70 percent of the population in Albania and for over 90 percent of the Albanian population in Kosovo and Macedonia. There is a clear identification between Muslims/Albanians on the one side and Orthodox/Slavs on the other. Relations between Kosovars and Serbs and those between the Albanians of Macedonia and Macedonians involve the national sphere and the religious sphere alike. This accentuates the solidarity between Kosovars and the Albanians of Macedonia, as Muslims, in the face of the Orthodox Slavs.

Finally, the reference to common customs is also used to give some substance to the nation, although few people are capable of explaining what exactly these customs are. When asked, most people relate them to the "traditional" dimension of Albanian society (including what has been re-invented): weddings, dances, costumes. Actually, however, when it comes to current customs, there appears to be quite a difference between the Albanians of Albania, those of Macedonia and Kosovars. Some Albanians of Macedonia recognise that from the point of view of customs, they have much more in common with the Macedonians than with the Albanians of Albania. "It’s understandable," says an Albanian student in literature at the University of Tetovë, "for fifty years we have lived in the same country as the Macedonians, having no contact with Albania." Hence, although the unity of the Albanian nation is always explicitly asserted, the sentiment of national community is nevertheless limited by the different political fates of the Kosovars and the Albanians of Macedonia.

As for the issue of national borders, many Albanians do not appear to be especially eager to change them, provided they are "weakened" by a union of sorts of the countries concerned, following the model of the European Union (actually within the framework of the European Union). Such is, for instance, the proposal of Adem Demaçi (formerly a close associate of Rugova, who recently switched sides to become the political representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army - UCK), as envisaged in his "Balkania" project: it is a matter of transforming current Yugoslavia (Serbia-Montenegro) into a federation with no internal borders or national minorities, which can be extended progressively to Macedonia, Albania and other Balkan countries. ¹

Unlike Kosovo in Serbia, the region of Macedonia in which Albanians live (north-west) does not have a special name. The Albanians of Macedonia do not have a particular ethnonym; they distinguish themselves from the Albanians of Albania by calling the latter "those from Albania" (ata të Shqipërisë). Moreover, there is a very strong feeling of internal differentiation within the Albanian regions of Macedonia, in particular between the Polog region (Tetovë; Gostivar and their villages) and the Dibër/Debar region (Dibër, Struga and their villages). The other regions in which Albanians have established themselves (Kumanovë, Kërçovë/Kicevo, Manastir/Bitola) have few ties with the two mentioned above.

The Albanian language is the main marker of the Albanian nation: an Albanian remains Albanian for as long as he/she speaks the Albanian language; if he/she loses his/her Albanian due to the exclusive use of the Macedonian language, he/she becomes "assimilated", as the Albanians say, mentioning as an example the case of the Christian Orthodox Albanian population living in the central part of western Macedonia. Today, most Orthodox Albanians have become Macedonians to gain material advantages, both in Yugoslavia and in Macedonia, and the younger generations speak only Macedonian and call themselves Macedonians, whereas their grandparents’ generation spoke only Albanian.

Thus, the Albanians demand that the government endorse the widest possible use of the Albanian language. They want Albanian to be the country’s second official language, next to Macedonian. They complain that they cannot carry out administrative procedures in their mother tongue: all letters addressed to an administration - even local - have to be written in Macedonian or else they are likely to be rejected. Albanian names have to be transcribed into the Cyrillic alphabet, which is not always possible. At post offices, train stations and police headquarters all forms and signposts are in Macedonian, sometimes also in English and in French, but never in Albanian, not even in the towns where the majority of the population is Albanian.

The law on municipalities (1995) recognises the right to use two languages, Albanian and Macedonian, in the documents of the municipalities in which over 50 percent of the population is other than Macedonian (Article 89). Likewise, in towns where Albanians account for more than 50 percent of the population road signs can be in both languages (Article 90). In reality, however, since very few activities are entrusted to the municipalities (mostly water and power supply, garbage collection, road maintenance) these provisions have little effect. On the other hand, the fact that Macedonians do not learn and do not speak Albanian makes it virtually impossible to enforce the law: at a meeting of the municipal council, if there is just one Macedonian and ten Albanians, the deliberations will be in Macedonian rather than in Albanian. Since Macedonian is the only official national language, and since the Macedonians refuse to speak Albanian in practice they always have the upper hand.

Language claims are also made in the area of education, especially higher education. Presently, Albanian primary school students are taught in Albanian. As of the third year of school, all Albanian students are expected to learn Macedonian. In higher education, only the Faculty of Pedagogy in Skopje offers courses in Albanian (that is where future Albanian teachers study). Albanian students who sign up at other faculties must follow courses in Macedonian in all subjects. Since they have studied only in Albanian until that time, it is hardly surprising that they have a hard time at university and fare less well than Macedonian students.

This is one of the reasons that led in 1994 to the founding, by the ethnic Albanian community, of the Tetovë university, a decision strongly opposed (but tolerated) by the government. In the academic year 1997-1998, the university had more than 4000 students, most coming from the Albanian regions of Macedonia. At the end of this year, the first generation of graduates is going to enter the labour market, but since the university has not yet been recognised by the state, their future does not look very promising.

Employment is indeed a major issue. As of the 1970s, many Albanians of Macedonia worked outside their country, both in the former Yugoslavia, mainly in Croatia (tourism, restaurants, etc.) and in Western Europe (Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy). They did so quite successfully, without having to depend on the employment opportunities offered by the state. Consequently, they were relatively well off, as evidenced by the fact that in Albanian villages modern and comfortable houses are much more numerous than in the Macedonian villages of the same region. Slav Macedonians, on the contrary, did not show the same kind of economic dynamism in the field of private enterprise and were less inclined to emigrate (or, if they did, to Canada and Australia, would not return) and have always relied more on permanent jobs in the civil service and in state enterprises.

The independence of Macedonia in 1991 broke the ties that Albanians entertained with the outside world. Not only are visas for travelling abroad now necessary and hard to get, but the Yugoslav market, to which Macedonia exported its agricultural produce, is now closed off, because of the war in the former Yugoslavia and the ensuing re-mapping of international borders in the Balkans. For the Albanians of Macedonia, the current economic and social crisis is not due so much to the transition from a socialist economy to a market economy (which already existed, and from which the Albanians had already benefited) as to the loss of most of their sources of income and to the fact that their low level of education prevents them from seeking remunerative jobs, let alone an elite status.

This situation has caused discontent and is fuelling resentment, also against those Albanians who have climbed the social ladder in both state institutions and the private sector by abandoning the Albanian language in order to do business with the Macedonians, thus betraying the nation. The Albanians complain that in the public sector, whether it be administrations (including the police and the army) or state enterprises (mining, industry), jobs with responsibility are assigned exclusively to Macedonians, while Albanians, if and when they do find a job always end up in a subordinate position. Undoubtedly, the value system inherited from their communist experience, according to which a paid job is the only noble form of employment, has some bearing on this attitude, even among the Albanians who own and run their own private and independent businesses as retailers, artisans, farmers or small entrepreneurs.

A recurrent complaint is that all Albanians do is pay taxes without receiving anything from the state, while being more exposed than others to fines and corruption, since the administrations are mainly in the hands of the Macedonians. Another complaint is that most taxes collected by the highly centralised Macedonian state are redistributed in such a way as to favour the Macedonian municipalities in the centre and the east of the country to the detriment of the Albanian municipalities in the west. Thus the economic crisis which has been plaguing them since the country became independent is viewed by most Albanians as a consequence of the unequal status of Albanians and Macedonians, that is, of ethnically motivated discrimination.

The discontent of the Albanians, so far, is expressed by the separation of the two communities. Such a separation is both ideological and physical (they try to live in separate neighbourhoods, there are virtually no inter-ethnic marriages). Albanians and Macedonians barely co-exist; in the cities, neighbourhoods – both old and new – each have a dominant nationality (Macedonian, Albanian, Tzigane). Most modern buildings, erected in the 1970s, are occupied by Macedonians, especially the "Macedonians of the Aegean", originating from northern Greece, which they left at the end of the Greek civil war (1949). A special programme of the former Yugoslavia gave them permission to settle in western Macedonia at advantageous conditions (they were guaranteed a job and a new house). The Albanians refer to them as "Greeks", which allows them to say that they are not Macedonians and, therefore, that there are fewer Macedonians than is stated (see the comments on demographic data below). They denounce a colonising policy on the part of the then Yugoslav government, aimed at modifying the composition of the population in western Macedonia (as well as in Kosovo).

Social life is also characterised by division between the two communities: the Albanians only mingle with Albanians, the Macedonians with Macedonians. Shops, cafés and restaurants generally have either Albanian or Macedonian clients. The Albanians say that at times they go to Macedonian bars or restaurants, but that Macedonians never go to Albanian ones. In actual fact, such cases are rare but they do occur, both on the Albanian and on the Macedonian side. The difference is that the Albanians who go to a Macedonian bar or shop speak Macedonian, whereas the Macedonians who go to an Albanian one do not speak Albanian.

Lastly, marriages between Albanians and Macedonians are extremely rare. The Albanians refuse to give their daughters to Macedonian men, for the "fear" or "risk of assimilation." The children born of an inter-ethnic marriage will automatically be Macedonian In this regard, the case of the villages of the Mavrovo region, inhabited by Christian Albanians who married Macedonians and are now assimilated, is often mentioned. On the other hand, when Albanian men are told that they can marry Macedonian women thereby averting the danger of assimilation, they answer that Macedonian women generally refuse to become part of Albanian families and if they do they refuse to learn Albanian and therefore pass their language on to their children, who thus become "assimilated." It is clear here that the contrast between Albanians and Macedonians covers up the religious difference opposition between Muslims and Christians, concealed behind language issues: by way of comparison, in southern Albania, where religious opposition is very strong but the language problem does not exist, marriages between Christians and Muslims are rare, but conceivable.

The absence of inter-marriage reveals the Albanians’ mistrust of the Macedonians: they compare their situation to that of the pre-war Bosnians: "In Bosnia, marriages between Serbs and Muslims were frequent and still for the Muslims it was an honour to have a Serbian son-in-law. But this did not do them much good. It did not stop the Serbs from slaughtering them."

On the Albanian side, there is first of all the opposition between the Albanian nation, defined as "the oldest in the Balkans" and the Macedonian one, which is said to be "artificial". Ethnic Albanians in Macedonia claim that they are the heirs of the ancient Kingdom of Dardania; in other words, that land has always been their home. As the Albanians see it, the Macedonian nation was built from scratch by Tito after 1945 and "in reality, Macedonians do not exist". Some of the people who today call themselves Macedonians are Serbs, others are Bulgarian, other still are Greek, not to speak of the "assimilated" Orthodox Albanians. Basically, there are very few real Macedonians. The Albanians greatly insist on the Slav origins of Macedonians and on the fact that the latter cannot claim to have been in the Balkans longer than the Albanians. The Macedonians’ attempts to recover their past history (Philip and Alexander, the star of Vergina) is ridiculed by the Albanians, who are seriously convinced that they descend from the Illyrians.

On the other hand, Macedonians are rarely designated as such by the ethnic Albanians, who call them "Slav Macedonians" or "Slavs". This allows Albanians to dissociate the state (The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) from its citizens: Macedonians are not the only legitimate citizens of the state, which makes the Albanians just as ‘Macedonian’ as anyone else. In September 1998, one of the electoral slogans of the Albanian Democratic Party (PDSH) was "Macedonia will either be also the state of the Albanians, or it just will not be." By insisting on the Slav origins of the Macedonians, the Albanians try to present their co-existence problems as a single aspect of a general conflict between the Albanians and the Slavs, Kosovo being its core. In other words, the Albanians try to erase the difference between Serbs and Macedonians and to present their situation as an extension of the one in Kosovo. Once again, the Macedonians are not acknowledged as they present themselves, namely as a particular nation, but are considered either an artificial creation or an integral part of a vaster ensemble, that of the Slavs.

As Slavs, the Macedonians are attributed many characteristics. To begin with, they are Orthodox. All Slavs, according to the Albanians, pursue the same goal, which is to spread the Orthodox faith to the detriment of other religions, in this case especially to the detriment of Islam. This makes it possible to affirm that the Slavs unlike the Albanians, do not have a purely national project. The former will not be satisfied until the entire Balkan region is Christian, the latter only want to exist as a nation on the territory that is theirs by right.

The second characteristic of Slavs, always according to the Albanians, is their incompatibility with democracy: "Wherever there are Slavs, there can be no democracy." Communism, as a non-democratic regime, is thus associated with the Slav world. When Albanians are reminded that Albania itself was a communist dictatorship, they answer that communism originated in a Slav country (Russia) and was brought into Albania by the Yugoslavs (according to this thesis, which has been very popular in Albania since 1992, up until 1948 Enver Hoxha was a puppet in the hands of the Yugoslav communist party). Within the framework of Macedonia, the Albanians see themselves both as an oppressed nation and as political opponents persecuted under communism.

The latter argument is significant insofar as the government coalition in power in Macedonia is formed in part by reformed communists (the Social Democrats, SDSM). Thus the Albanians have had nothing to gain from the independence of Macedonia and from democracy: in the past they were persecuted by the communists, today they are persecuted by the Macedonians, that is, by the same people. On the other hand, especially according to the supporters of the PDSH (Albanian Democratic Party), the officials of the PPD (the Party for Democratic Prosperity), which is a member of the government coalition, are traitors of the nation as well as collaborators of the communists. Such opposition between communists and anti-communists also exists in Albania, and is based on similar arguments. Here, however, it takes on a national tone which makes reconciliation virtually impossible (the Macedonians in power are accused of being corrupt and of having taken advantage of their position following the transition to appropriate national wealth).

The third characteristic of Slavs, according to the Albanians, is that they are deceitful and corrupt. They are also unpredictable, and, many Albanians point out, it is regrettable that the Europeans should consider the Serbs or the Macedonians as valid interlocutors, without realising that Slavs always have an idea in the back of their minds and that they are very good at cheating in order to get what they want. On the contrary, ethnic Albanians present themselves as just and trustworthy people, who would never do what the Serbs did, for example, in early March 1998, when they attacked the villages of Drenicë in Kosovo, and killed women and children with the pretext of fighting terrorism. It is worth noting that, in Albania, the Greeks are often accused of being cheats as are the Orthodox Albanians by the Muslims. Here again, the opposition between Albanians and Slavs conceals the opposition between Muslims and Orthodox Christians.

The Albanians also react to the statutory inferiority they feel by disclaiming the reliability of the two censuses taken since 1991, according to which Albanians account for 23 percent of the population. They maintain that, due to the boycotting of the first census by the Albanians and to the irregularities committed in the second, this figure underestimates the actual number of Albanians. Their own estimates vary between 35 percent and 50 percent. They also like to point out that if one reasons in terms of nation rather than of state, then one should take into account all the Albanians who live in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Italy and Greece are not on this list, because the Arbëresh of Italy and the Greek Avranites are not considered Albanians, and current emigration to these countries is considered too recent to constitute actual Albanian communities abroad.

The demographic argument is put forward to claim the status of constitutive people of the state, on an equal footing with the Macedonians. Even if one were to accept the figure of 23 percent, they insist, the discrimination of which the Albanian population in Macedonia is victim remains real and unacceptable, especially in the regions where Albanians represent the majority of the population, and the Albanian question should not be covered up by a controversy about figures. In fact, according to the Albanians, the Macedonians are what remains of the country’s population if one deducts the Albanians, Turks, Valaques, Tziganes, "Greeks", Bulgarians and Serbs, which is not much. As for Kosovo, the Albanians say that they have as much right as the people of Montenegro to form a republic, since they are more numerous.

In their quest for political legitimacy, the Albanians resort to historical and toponymical arguments. Hence, Albanians attribute an Albanian etymology to most toponyms of western Macedonia which, as in Albania, are of Slav origin, thus justifying the seniority and autochtonous nature of the Albanians. For instance, the name of the city of Tetovo (Tetovë in Albanian) is explained by the Albanians as tetë hovë, "eight assaults", referring to the eight battles that the national hero Skënderbe fought against the Turks on that site. The name of the monastery of Saint John Bigorski (between Mavrovo and Dibër) today is considered by the Albanians as the distortion of the Albanian mbi guri, "on rock", since the monastery is built on a cliff. And so on and so forth. Thus, one witnesses a constant appropriation of the territory on historical and etymological grounds in response to the real dispossession which the Albanians feel. Not only do they claim to be "occupied" by the Macedonians, but many of them, especially in the Polog region (the plain of Tetovë and Gostivar) have never recovered their land, which was nationalised under the communist regime.

Bearing in mind the existence of an "Albanian question" which cuts across several states, the outbreak of war in Kosovo in early March 1998 could not fail to have repercussions in Albania and Macedonia. The pages that follow offer an analysis of these repercussions.