In May 2021, I began archival research in Ljubljana. Thus far, I have focused on Albanian confectioners from the greater Ljubljana region in the early socialist period (1945-1955). Many useful documents were uncovered. They mostly pertain to crafts and feature a couple of dozen confectioners from Ljubljana and surrounding towns. It is clear that the …
Polog is a densely populated stretch of flat land in the western part of North Macedonia. Inhabited predominantly by Albanians, it is oriented along a north-south axis and confined by mountains to the west and east. On the western side of Polog, the Sharra mountains rise up to 2700 meters high, and separate N. Macedonia …
Read more“Ice-creams are made of this.” Traces of (Macedonian) Albanian migration to Slovenia
Besnik is an Albanian migrant from Macedonia living in Slovenia for more than 30 years. I had the opportunity to meet him in February 2020 while doing a radio broadcast for Radio Študent, an independent radio station in Ljubljana. At the time, I did not have much knowledge about the Albanian community in Slovenia, so …
Read moreReflections of an Albanian migrant in Ljubljana on experiencing the end of Yugoslavia
Delo (‘Labour’) was once the most read daily newspaper in socialist Slovenia and still today its circulation is among the highest in the country. In 1988, one of its Saturday editions (Sobotna priloga) featured an article ‘Tržni in netržni narodi’ (‘Market and Nonmarket [Yugoslav] nations’) written by journalist Dragiša Bošković.[1] The author attempted to deconstruct …
Read more‘Market’ and ‘non-market’ nations: Albanian entrepreneurialism in late-socialist Slovenia