Battles of Nostalgic Proportion: The Transformations of Islam-as-Historical-Force in Western Balkan Reconstitutions of the Past

Abstract

This chapter explores tactics used by various Albanians traumatized by what they believe is their unwarranted affiliation with Islam. Efforts to rewrite the past as a way to shape these modern identity claims must take on a corrective agenda vis-à-vis the international relations analysis that has contributed to this discourse of Albanian/Muslim marginality. As such, the chapter inspects the ideological assumptions of the proponents of this corrective agenda in the Western Balkans, an area still on the margins of European inclusion. This aim is pursued by critically questioning how a selective reading of the past, often framed as nostalgia for cultural as much as political relations between the Balkans and Europe, highlights a prevailing methodological weakness in the study of the Balkans.