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traces often reflect the ongoing history of contestations over the place which “continues to
shape historical narratives and political claims to both purity and hybridity” (ibid.).
Claims of purity and hibridity also pertain to the contemporary historiographies in Albania.
The idea of “purity” of the Albanian nation was promoted and disseminated already in the
period of communism. The national historiographers of that period were rather nation-centred
than interested in the world history (Schwandner-Sievers 2002: 14). Schwandner-Sievers
(2002: 17) notes that the totalitarian project of passionate nationalist historiography
constituted and recreated many myths of continuity, equality and uniqueness of people living
within the territory of the Albanian nation-state. Any kind of objections against these myths
would pertain to the “enemy of the people” in those years. Every national historiography,
Albanian included, is thus often grounded on mythohistories 56 (Schwandner-Sievers 2002: 12-
20) which try to create an ideal image of the past, present and future in order to re-enact the
authority and power of the state’s policy. Mythohistory emotionally connects people in a
group and provided them with feelings of moral satisfaction, belonging, pride and
followership. Mythohistory is often crucial in the process of constitution, demonization and
exclusion of the Other and different (see Schwandner-Sievers 2002: 20, Kalčić 2006: 66).
After the collapse of communism and during “transition” period, previously neglected local
mythohistories, oral stories and individual memories gained new significance. A single,
mythohistory gradually dispersed into plurality of mythohistories with all of them in their
own way conveying the continuity, homogeneity and uniqueness of particular people and
particular places. Many mythohistories became contested and the difference between the oral
and the written became blurred and porous. In this hybridity of mythohistories there is a scope
and choice when the individuals and groups appeal or not appeal to a particular myth, because
they have their own rationales for different ways in which distinctive identities are presented
as if relevant in different periods and circumstances (Schwandner-Sievers 2002: 17).
Schwandner-Sievers (2002: 12) adds that there may be “truth” in every mythohistory. Though
in difference to the “objective history” the nationalist historiography uses particular narrative
techniques which include the use of metaphors and “ironic trope” in attempt to establish the
distance to the object. Mythohistories produce historical and political maps which are often
56 A term mythohistory is also used by Gingrich (1998: 110) who defines it as a version of history that reduces
complex historical interactions to a »one-dimensional tale«. In order to clarify its point and interest,
mythohistory systematically denies other, alternative narratives.
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