Political and Social Conditions of Albania During the 1920s

Abstract

In the 1920s, Albania was one of the least developed countries of the Balkan peninsula, despite its good geomorphological conditions, geographical position, and the proximity of civilized peoples. The Albanian region extended along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, is crossed by tributary rivers of this sea and is naturally open to influences from Western Europe; discrete mountain barriers separate it instead from the East. As a result of this geographical feature, its social development should have been more in tune with the Mediterranean civilizations than with the Balkan ones. The historical events - having linked the region to the hegemony of eastern states in the last fifteen centuries - did not favor the natural anthropogeographic development of Albania based on Western and Mediterranean civilizations. The aim of this paper is to give a description of the political and social conditions of Albania during the years after the First World War, specially the 1920s. The primary source used in the paper is the military archive in Rome.