Albania: a denial of the Ottoman past : (School textbooks and politics of memory)

Abstract

In post-communist Albania’s schools, alongside regular textbooks of history for teaching the subject, school atlases of history are also employed as a prescribed or adjunct textbook. In the stories and facts related through texts and maps, the Ottoman past is curiously warped and marginalized. As a result, the average Albanian is left incapable of explaining why Albania is a predominantly Muslim polity, but with a considerable degree of tolerant poly-confessionalism. Furthermore, school history education in Albania propagates the unreflective anti-Ottoman feeling encapsulated by the stereotypes of ‘Turkish yoke’ or ‘the five centuries of Turkish occupation.’ This simplistic anti-Ottomanism of Albanian culture and public discourse is strangely at variance with the Muslim and polyconfessional character of Albania.