Area Handbook for Albania Part 7

After the Communists emerged victorious they imposed controls, the objective of which was to eliminate clan rule entirely; they waged a continuing struggle against customs and att.i.tudes that, they believed, detracted from the growth of socialism. Blood feuds were brought to an end. Party and government leaders, in their effort to develop national social and cultural solidarity in a Communist society, publicly tended to ignore ethnic differences.

In practice, Enver Hoxha, the Party leader, who came from the south and received the bulk of his support during World War II from that area, frequently gave preference to persons and customs of Tosk origin. In the late 1960s Party and government leaders continued to devote considerable effort to the suppression of customs and rituals that, they declared, were vestiges of the patriarchal, bourgeois, and religious systems of the past. On one occasion in 1968 the Party announced that because of its influence 450 infant betrothals were annulled and 1,000 girls renounced ancient customs, including the taboo against females leaving their village (see ch. 5, Social System).

The Gegs, because of their greater isolation in the mountainous areas of the north, held on to their tribal organization and customs more tenaciously than the Tosks. As late as the 1920s approximately 20 percent of male deaths in some areas of northern Albania were attributed to blood feuds.

Under the unwritten tribal codes, which included the regulation of feuds, any blow, as well as many offenses committed against women, called for blood. Permitting a girl who had been betrothed in infancy to marry another, for example, could cause a blood feud. The _besa_ (pledge to keep one's word as a solemn obligation) was used under various conditions and included pledges to postpone quarrels. A person who killed a fellow tribesman was commonly punished by his neighbors, who customarily burned his house and destroyed his property. As fugitives from their own communities, such persons were given a.s.sistance wherever they applied.

A man who failed to carry out prescribed vengeance against a member of another tribe or that individual's relatives was subjected to intolerable ridicule. Insult was considered one of the highest forms of dishonor, and the upholding of one's honor was a first requirement for a Geg. On the other hand, if the individual carried out the required act of vengeance, he was in turn subject to extinction by the victim's relatives. Women were excluded from the feud and, when escorted by a male, he too was considered inviolable. In other respects, women's position in society generally was one of deprivation and subjugation (see ch. 5, Social System).

The isolation from influences beyond his community and the constant struggle with nature tended to make the Geg an ascetic. Traditionally, his closest bonds were those of kinship, as a member of a clan.

Obstinate and proud, the Geg proved himself, under the leadership of his compatriots, a ruthless and cruel fighter. Visitors from outside the clan were generally suspect, but every traveler was by custom accorded hospitality.

Less isolated by rugged terrain and with greater, although limited, contact with foreign cultures, the Tosk generally was more outspoken and imaginative than the Geg. Contacts with invaders and foreign occupiers had influence and, before 1939, some Tosks had traveled to foreign countries to earn sufficient funds to buy land or to obtain an education. The clan or tribal system, which by the nineteenth century was far less deeply rooted and extensive in the south than in the north, began to disappear after independence was achieved in 1912.

Of the minority ethnic groups, persons of Greek descent are the most numerous. Estimates based on World War II and earlier data indicate that they compose approximately 2 percent of the population. They are most numerous in the southwestern coastal area of Dhermi and Himare and the region extending southward to the Greek border from Gjirokaster. They have adopted Albanian folkways and dress. Although their first language is Greek, they speak Albanian as well.

Persons of Vlach, Bulgar, Serb, and Gypsy origin make up about 1 percent of the population. The Vlachs in Albania have lost much of their h.o.m.ogeneity and adopted the ways of their Tosk neighbors. The typical Vlach is akin to the modern Romanian. Both are descendants of Romanized Dacians or Thracians of the pre-Christian era.

Under Communist rule the Vlachs, mostly herdsmen, have been incorporated into the collectivized economy. Previously, they grazed their flocks in the mountains in the summer and then returned to the valleys in the winter. They are most numerous in the Pindus Mountains and in the Fier, Korce, and Vlore areas. Persons of Bulgar origin live mostly in the border area near Lake Prespa; a few persons of Serb derivation live in the Shkoder area; and Gypsies are scattered in various places.

There are large numbers of persons of Albanian origin living outside the country. Estimates based on Yugoslav data indicated the total number in Yugoslavia in 1970 was approximately 1 million, of which about 70 percent were in Kosovo. Data is generally lacking on the exact number in other areas, and estimates vary widely. There may be as many as 250,000 in Italy and Sicily, 350,000 in Greece, and 80,000 in the United States.

They are found also in Bulgaria, Egypt, Romania, and Turkey. The degree to which persons living outside the country have retained Albanian customs and language varies. Indications are that they have retained their clannishness to a considerable degree.

LANGUAGES

Albanian, of Indo-European origin, is the only surviving language of the early Thraco-Illyrian group and is spoken by all or nearly all inhabitants. Some of the minority ethnic groups also speak the tongue of the country from which their families originated.

Modern Albanian is derived from the ancient Illyrian and Thracian, but many outside influences are evident. Additions and modifications, beginning in the pre-Christian era, were made as a result of foreign contacts. Most important of these were the Latin and Italian influences during the centuries of Roman domination and trade with the Venetian merchants and, later, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Contributions also were made by the Greeks, Turks, and Slavs. The first written doc.u.ments in Albanian did not appear until the fifteenth century; therefore it is difficult to trace the development of the language during the earlier period.

The repressive policies of the Ottoman rulers over a period of 450 years, beginning in the fifteenth century, further r.e.t.a.r.ded language development. Written Albanian was forbidden, and only the Turkish or Greek languages could be used in schools. Emigre Albanians, particularly those in Italy after 1848, helped keep the written language alive. Until the nineteenth century continuity of the language in Turkish-dominated areas was provided largely by verbal communication, including ballads and folk tales (see ch. 7, Communications and Cultural Development).

By the early twentieth century more than a dozen different alphabets had developed. Some were predominantly either Latin, Greek, or Turko-Arabic.

Many were a mixture of several forms. It was not until 1908 that a standardized orthography was adopted. The Latin-based alphabet of thirty-six letters, approved at that time by a linguistic congress at Monastir, was made official by a government directive in 1924 and continued in use in 1970.

Letters are written as they are p.r.o.nounced. There have been variations in the spelling of many words because of dialectical differences, and they still persist despite the government's efforts to develop a uniform language. A dictionary was published by the Inst.i.tute of Sciences in Tirana in 1954, and it indicated that the spelling of some words varied.

During the 1960s the Linguistics and History Inst.i.tute, which was part of the State University of Tirana, carried on studies relating to language origins and morphology, but no lexicon was known to have appeared as of early 1970 to standardize spelling or supersede the 1954 dictionary.

The two princ.i.p.al Albanian dialects are Geg, spoken by about two-thirds of the people, including those in the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia, and Tosk, by the remaining third. There are subvarieties of both dialects.

Despite the considerable variations that developed in the many isolated communities, Albanians are able to communicate easily with each other.

Efforts were made by the government during the 1920s and 1930s to establish the dialect of the Elbasan area, which was a mixture of Geg and Tosk, as the standard and official language; but the local dialects persisted, and writers and even officials continued to use the dialect of their a.s.sociation. After the Communists, most of whose leaders had come from southern Albania, acceded to power, the Tosk dialect became the official language of the country. In 1952 the Albanian Writers'

Union, a Party-controlled organization, took action to make Tosk the only dialect to be used in publications.

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

Some two-thirds of the people live in rural areas in a widely dispersed pattern of small villages. The urban population, according to 1969 data, lived in forty cities with 1,000 to 10,000 inhabitants and twelve cities with over 10,000 dwellers; of the latter group, six had 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants; two had 30,000 to 50,000; three had 50,000 to 100,000; and one, Tirana, was approaching 200,000.

The heaviest concentrations of settlement in the late 1960s were in the districts of Tirana with a density of 528 persons per square mile, Durres with 469, Fier with 323, and Lushnje with 298. The area surrounding Korce and the area immediately around, and to the south of, Shkoder were among the most thickly settled even though the administrative districts of Korce and Shkoder were not heavily populated when considered in their entirety (see ch. 3, Physical Environment).

Several factors contributed to the pattern of settlement. Large expanses of mountains and generally rugged terrain made the building of land transportation routes difficult. Poor soil and lack of water during part of the year did not provide support to large concentrations of people.

Mineral and other resources were generally not readily accessible or were difficult to exploit (see ch. 3, Physical Environment).

Coastal cities generally have a small hinterland, and their influence does not extend beyond their borders. The port of Durres, with road and rail links to Tirana, Elbasan, and Fier, is an exception. During the 1960s the area generally bounded by these cities experienced the greatest growth of industry and population of any region. Vlore, a port and naval center, increased almost fourfold between 1945 and 1967, but it lacks links with inland areas.

Tirana, the capital and largest city, increased from about 60,000 inhabitants in 1945 to 170,000 in 1967, largely because of the expansion of industry and a growing bureaucracy. It is located on the inner margin of the coastal plain and is surrounded by an area of the better soils of Albania. The streets in the central area of the city, where government buildings are cl.u.s.tered, are wide and attractive; many parts of the city are much like the rural villages. Tirana has become the most industrialized city and continues to be a collecting and distributing point for agricultural products of the area.

Centers for inland mountain valley or upland basin communities are Berat, Elbasan, and Korce. They, like most cities, have changed little in appearance and retain much of the flavor of nineteenth-century agricultural life.

The typical mountain village, of 70 to 100 homesteads, is located on an isolated slope among rocks and thin scrub-like vegetation. Only footpaths link it by land with the outside world. During the summer there is a drought period which requires that water use be limited to drinking. Houses are cl.u.s.tered in the south, whereas in the northern mountains they tend to be dispersed. Fields and pastures are located some distance from the village. Water must be carried from a common source, usually a spring. Mountain villages frequently are located at 1,300 to 1,600 feet above sea level. This is generally the line of contact between the underlying impervious serpentine rock and layer of limestone and the point where spring water comes to the surface.

At lower levels the villages are laid out around the collective or state farms or enterprises, many of which were previously estates or patriarchal settlements. Here the houses are more substantial, and the fields or other place of work are near the village. Water is carried from a common source. Open sewers run down the streets of some villages, but this condition is gradually changing. Electric power has been extended to about 70 percent of all villages, but other facilities and amenities, except medical services, have been little improved since the end of World War II.

LIVING CONDITIONS

The standard of living in 1970 was very low, and life was difficult for the ma.s.ses despite very modest improvements in living conditions during the 1950s and 1960s. The standard of living was the lowest in Europe and was improving at a slow pace because priority was given to industry, to increasing the means of production, and to developing eventual self-sufficiency in food production, especially of cereal foods. The most widely felt improvements were in health services and in use of electricity, which resulted from expanding the electrical network to many villages.

Plans for the late 1960s and 1970 called for 23 to 25 percent of the state budget to be spent on social and cultural sectors. In 1967, when total planned budget spending was 3.6 billion leks (5 leks equal US$1--see Glossary), the sum for social and cultural sectors was 837 million leks, of which 189 million were for health, 167 million for social insurance, 143 million for a.s.sistance to mothers and children, and 338 million for education and culture.

The government maintained that it was improving living conditions by increasing food supplies and commodities and by construction of public facilities and structures. In February 1970 the chairman of the State Planning Commission reported that 1,200 dining rooms, 1,140 bakeries, 1,850 public baths and laundries, and 187 water mains had been built and that electricity had been supplied to 1,096 additional villages in 1968 and 1969, leaving only 663 without electricity. Although these additions added to the amenities of life, the rapid growth of population caused heavy strain on the very limited total resources available.

Medical authorities a.s.serted that many diseases and afflictions that had taken heavy tolls of life and tended to debilitate large segments of the population before 1950 had been greatly reduced or eliminated. These successes were primarily attributable to large-scale inoculation programs, elimination or reduction in the number of disease-spreading pests, and expansion of health services. Malnutrition, unsatisfactory sanitary-hygienic conditions, and indifference to medical aid in some areas posed problems for further improvements.

The Communist regime, posing as the protector of the ma.s.ses, credited itself with a revolutionary transformation in the health standards of the country. Data on health and disease from other than Albanian sources were not available. Statistics released by the Ministry of Health indicated substantial improvements during the 1960s. Responsibility for shortcomings and inadequacies relating to health care was attributed to backwardness on the part of the people or to the lack of resources.

Failures on the part of the Party or government were not mentioned.

There were widespread epidemics of measles in 1948 and 1949 and 1954 and 1955, of Asiatic influenza in 1957, of typhoid in 1945 and 1950, and of poliomyelitis in 1953. Health officials stated that there were no epidemics during the 1960s.

Malaria was one of the most prevalent diseases before 1950. Health authorities, a.s.sisted by the Rockefeller Foundation beginning in the 1920s, made considerable progress in eliminating mosquitoes and reducing the incidence of malaria before World War II. The campaign was continued by the Italians during their occupation. The ravages of war greatly increased the spread of malaria from 1945 to 1947; according to Communist reports, 60 to 70 percent of the population were afflicted in those years, in comparison with 16.5 percent in 1938.

The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration provided food, medicine, and antimalarial a.s.sistance in 1945 and 1946, and the Communist regime followed up with a concerted effort against the disease, which reduced the percentage of persons afflicted to approximately 7 percent in the early 1950s. Health officials declared in 1970 that malaria had been eradicated by 1967, and no cases had been recorded after that date.

Health authorities reported that measles had been eliminated by 1970 through a program of ma.s.s vaccinations. The last major epidemic, that of 1954-55, afflicted almost 14 percent of the population. The incidence among children under three years of age was 60 percent, and 1,712 children under age fifteen died.

A broad program against tuberculosis was begun in the 1960s that included general prophylactic measures and vaccine injections. Health officials planned completion of vaccinations countrywide in 1970. It was estimated that almost 15 percent of the population had tuberculosis in the mid-1950s. Officials reported that the incidence of this disease had dropped to less than 0.2 percent in 1968.

The Health Ministry reported progress in combating many other diseases.

Syphilis, once prevalent, was eliminated. A broad program of serologic examinations involving over 2.3 million persons between 1947 and 1968 was utilized to detect venereal disease and was instrumental in reducing the rate of syphilis infection from 3.14 percent in 1949 to 0.02 percent in 1968. Incidence rates per 1,000 population of other illnesses decreased from 1955 to 1968 as follows: abdominal typhoid, from 5.2 to 2.4; dysentery, from 87.7 to 14.5; diphtheria, from 2.3 to 0.5; poliomyelitis, from 0.4 to 0.1; brucellosis, from 2.4 to 0.8; and arthritis, from 2.2 to 0.8. Trachoma was eliminated, and no cases of rabies were reported in the 1967-69 period. Deaths per 100,000 population from contagious diseases, including influenza, decreased from 220 in 1950 to 43 in 1968. Data on the number of deaths from heart ailments, cancer, and other causes were not published.

Although progress was made in reducing mortality among children up to one year of age--from 121.2 per 1,000 live births in 1950 to 75.2 in 1968--the rate remained unusually high. Failure to obtain timely medical a.s.sistance was given as the primary cause of death by health authorities. Malnutrition, shortages of professional medical personnel, and insufficient health facilities were also contributing factors. The rate for cities in 1968 was 65.4 as compared with 78.0 in rural areas.

Some areas in the mountains of the north ran as high as 136.9 during the 1963-67 period. About three-fourths of all infant deaths occurred during the first six months after birth. In 1960 only 34 percent of infant deaths were diagnosed; by 1967 the percentage had increased to 65.

Medical aid by a physician or midwife was provided for about 99 percent of births in cities; in rural areas approximately 61 percent of births were with medical a.s.sistance.

There were indications that some segments of the population, those in remote and most poverty-stricken areas, were in poor health. A 1968-69 study of 1,580 children up to three years of age in thirteen northern localities, reported by the Ministry of Health, showed that 60 percent suffered from neuromuscular disorders in various degrees and that 47 percent suffered from rickets. The princ.i.p.al causes for these abnormalities, according to the official study, were malnutrition and unsatisfactory hygienic-sanitary conditions.