Albania - a country in transition

Even after the breakdown of the Communist regime in Albania in the 1990ies, this small country of the Balkan peninsula remains one of the least known areas of Europe. In this volume, a number of authors from the fields of Balkan studies, Anthropology and History examine various aspects of the transition process which the country has been dealing with after more than 40 years of complete isolation. The contributions to this volume focuses on the Albanians‘ quest for their own identity when facing contradictory influences from East and West – caught between tradition and modernism, post-Communist adaptation to capitalism and maintenance of pre-Communist social structures. Among other topics, the role of Islam in the former self-proclaimed ’first atheist state of the world‘, enduring patriarchal patterns of gender relations, mass migration, the position of ethnic minorities, and stereotype images of Albanians and Albania in the West are highlighted. Thus, this compendium offers a wide range of background information to scholars of Balkan-related subjects as well as to the average reader who is interested in history, culture and religion of south-eastern Europe.