"Albania and the Liberated Lands, 1939-1946"
"Albania and the Liberated Lands, 1939-1946" is a monography which is focused on the history of Albania and the territories inhabited by Albanians outside the state borders, during WWII and the years that followed.
This work covers three large historical periods:
(i) the period of fascist Italy's occupation of Albania, which begins with the military invasion on April 7, 1939 and continues until September 9, 1943, with the capitulation and the announcement of the armistice between Italy and the Allies.
(ii) occupation by the German Army which begins on September 9, 1943, and continues until November 29, 1944, the day of Albania's liberation;
(iii) that of post-liberation until the end of 1946, which corresponds with the establishment and legalization of a Soviet dictatorship and with the beginning of the Cold War. This is also the time of the establishment of the military regime of terror in Albania, Kosovo, Dibra, Tetovo, and other Albanian inhabited areas. This phase also saw the destruction of the traditional Albanian elite by the communists.
The book argues that the years 1939-1946 constitute a structural break, an interruption of the previous Albanian institutional life. In this monography, the author applies a thematic and chronological order of events, using the latter as a guide. During the 6 years of the WWII and after the war, Albania experienced a collapse of the constitutional state of the Second Albanian Monarchy. This book provides a narrative and detailed analysis of the process of the collapse of the normal state, and an explanation of the times of the two invasions by the Central Axis powers. It also offers an assessment of the reasons for the creation of a Stalinist dictatorship, a political experimental forced upon the society in Albania during the first years of the Cold War and thereafter.
The author has addressed all the relevant thematic developments and political dynamics of the events of this period. The work provides a detailed analysis of a number of issues related to the character of the administrative and military power built by the Italian fascists, the position of Albania in the Roman Imperial Community and the independent and neutral power established by the German Army in Albania during the years 1943-1944. Furthermore, it looks at the legalization of power by the communists after the war (1945-1946, some topics continues to be treated for the years 1947, 1948) and focuses on Albania's relations during the war and after it with the Western Allies (1943-1946), etc.
The work offers an objective, realistic and genuine critique of the treatments of this period of the history of Albanian people, providing new facts, new documentation, new interpretations, original perspectives and contemporary research methodologies. It does this by applying the principle of the intersection of documentation coming from no less than two independent sources. The author had made use of historical archives in Albania, the United Kingdom, Italy, the USA, etc.
Gurakuqi has built his work mainly through archival research, the results of which are placed on thematic lines and in a theoretical analysis. He has carried out this study, being aware that this complex study is only "a temporal fragment of a national history", based on "the prevailing generalist paradigms of the world historiography of the same period".
Why is this study titled: "Albania and the "Liberated Lands", 1939-1946"? The study focuses on the history of the Albanian state, as configured geographically by the decisions of July 29, 1913 and November 9, 1921, ("Old Albania"), but it is also a history of the Albanian territories that remained outside the state borders that were defined by the great powers. In 1941 these lands were included within the state (Liberated Lands) and the extended area makes up what the author often calls in this book, "True Albania".