Photo: Prishtina, 1984 (Croatian State Archives, f.2031, Kosovo) About the workshop: Jointly organised by the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna (ÖAW), and the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, the event seeks to assess the state of the art regarding the social history …
Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz, 9-10 February 2024 This workshop, jointly organised by the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, and the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, seeks to assess the state of the art regarding the social history of …
Read moreCfP: Towards a social history of Albanians in socialist Yugoslavia
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
For the month of May 2021 I am finally able to undertake oral history interviews with Albanians living and working in Istria. While the pandemic has upended research plans for many colleagues, the combination of vaccine-induced antibodies and warmer weather has enabled me to start speaking with individuals about their life experiences (notwithstanding the usual …
Read moreThe entrepreneurial spirit of Poreč’s old town in the 1980s (notes from the field)
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
A recent article in Balkan Insight penned by Fjori Sinoruka and Mare Knezević explores the position of Albanian women migrants in Croatia. In ‘Struggling to be Seen: In Croatia, Albanian Women Fight Prejudice, Patriarchal Norms,’ the authors cite Belgium-based journalist Augustin Palokaj who previously lived in Croatia. He describes how Croatia was a window for …
Read moreGendered aspects of Albanian migration in Croatia (1988 and 2020)
The idea for a project exploring the social history of Yugoslav Albanians during socialism generally, and the experience of migration in the socialist republics of Slovenia and Croatia in particular, first emerged during a previous research project, Between class and nation: Working class communities in 1980s Serbia and Montenegro (FWF project no: P27008) In the …
After a couple of months of work we are finally there. Our website went live today!