The Emergence of Albanian national identity and three figures : Şemsettin Sami, İsmail Kemal, Fan S. Noli

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Thesis Type: Postgraduate

Institution Of The Thesis: Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences, Department of International Relations, Turkey

Approval Date: 2012

Thesis Language: English

Student: Endri Ziu

Supervisor: ZANA AYŞE ÇITAK AYTÜRK

Abstract:

This thesis will examine the emergence of Albanian national identity. It will analyze this process in two different phases. The first phase includes the period after the League of Prizren until the independence. The second phase starts after the independence. This thesis will try to understand this process by focusing on the intellectual activity of the Albanian intellectuals and mainly on the intellectual thoughts of three Albanian figures: Şemsettin Sami, Ismail Kemal, and Fan S. Noli. These intellectuals formulated their ideas on the basis of both the process of modernization and the international context. As such, they enabled the transition from a mere ethnic Albanian identity to an Albanian national identity. The main components of the Albanian national identity analyzed in this thesis are language, territory, and myth.