Conference Myths in south-eastern European textbooks 22-24 October 2014, Tirana Myths in south-eastern European textbooks

Conference

Myths in

south-eastern European textbooks

22-24 October 2014, Tirana

Myths in south-eastern European textbooks

22-24 October 2014, Tirana

Wednesday, 22 Oct. National History Museum at the Skanderbeg Square
17:00 - 18:00	Official welcome on behalf of the Georg Eckert Institute by Claudia Lichnofsky, Georg-Eckert-Institut Welcome address by German ambassador Hellmut Hoffmann Introduction by Valentina Duka, University of Tirana Keynote lecture by Bernd Fischer, Indiana University: “Myth and Albanian history, the Case of the Second World War”
18:00 - 19:00	Reception at the National History Museum
20:00	Dinner at Hotel Mondial
Thursday 23 Oct. Hotel Mondial
9:00	Introduction and welcome Claudia Lichnofsky, GEI; Valentina Duka, Uni Tirana
9:30 - 11:00	Panel I: Myths in Albanian-language history textbooks Chair: Bernd Fischer, Indiana University The mythization of history in the service of identity construction in textbooks in Kosovo Abdullahu Durim (Prishtina) Heroes and myths in curricula, textbooks and other educational materials Astrit Dautaj/Xhevair Lleshi (Tirana) Myths and legends in support of the political manipulation of history Ndricim Mehmeti (Tirana)
11:30 - 13:30	Panel II: Key studies of history textbooks from Albania Chair: Gentiana Kera, University of Tirana “The Myth of a Leader”: Enver Hoxha’s role during the Second World War in Albania Enriketa Pandelejmoni (Tirana) The myth of the “return to Europe” in public discourses and textbooks in transitional Albania Enis Sulstarova (Braunschweig/Tirana) Myths and events in history textbooks of Albanian-language areas during the First World War Dieter Nehring (Berlin) Collective narratives of the interethnic conflict in Kosovo Mimoza Telaku (Beersheva)
13:30 - 15:00	Lunch at the Hotel Mondial
15:00 - 16:00	Panel III: Myths in comparative perspectives Chair: Enriketa Pandelejmoni, University of Tirana Ideology, history and myth: The case of the 1920 Vlora War from a trans-Adriatic perspective Fabio Bego (Rom) Continuity and Change in perceptions of the Greek as an “enemy” in the Albanian national identity-building process (Albanian National Movement up to 2010s) Erika Haxhi/ Klaudjo Kavaja/ Ilir Kalemaj/Konstantinos Giakoumis (Tirana)
18:00	Dinner at Restaurant 'Vila 31' (Rruga Thoma Kacorr, former rr. Rr. Gjon Muzaka, corner of Rr. Naim Frashëri, in the street behind the German embassy compound)
Friday 24 Oct. Hotel Mondial
9:30 - 11:00	Panel IV: Myths in Slavic-language history textbooks Chair: Konstantinos Giakoumis, University of New York Tirana Between History and Politics: Understanding the Myth of Antiquitas in Macedonian History Textbooks Darko Stojanov/Jovan Bliznakovski (Skopje) Myths of statehood in post-Yugoslav textbooks Jovana Mihajlović Trbovc (Ljubljana) The impact of the political context on Croatian heroic mythology Igor Despot (Zagreb)
11:30-13:00	Panel V: Myths in historical history textbooks Chair: Eckhardt Fuchs, TU Braunschweig/Georg Eckert Institute The National Liberation Movement in Albanian history textbooks during the socialist period Gentiana Kera (Tirana) Mythologisation and de-mythologisation of heroes, shield of the communist system Vojsava Kumbulla/Florenca Stafa/Majlinda Peza (Elbasan/Tirana) Constructing the myth of the national leader over the centuries Denis Vuka (Berlin/Athens)
13:00-14:00	final discussion

Note

The Mythization of History in the Service of Identity Constructions in Textbooks in Kosovo

Durim Abdullahu


Abstract: The current historical textbooks which are in wide use in educational system in Kosovo, are written and structured fairly delicately in a way to reach a level of “political correctness”. Despite periods, geographical regions, historical events or contents around which are centered, those texts in most of cases pursue certain narrative and explanatory lines, endeavoring to narrate history in that way as to incite students to feel proud and comfortable of their own history. In order to reach this goal, the authors of such texts have often mythologized and modified the history. In a nutshell, in those texts are selected some events and historical personalities who in turn have received special emphasis while the rest are being neglected or scrubbed from narrative. This has been done in a deliberate attempt to give to the students a clear and compact identity. The historical textbooks in Kosovo have a preponderance of political history, even in those cases when other histories are discussed; the main narrative is prevailed by politics. This overly politicized narration of history, relies upon some major points: the territorial autochthony of Albanians; ethnic purity and continuity; a form of albano-centrism as nationalism; religious tolerance of Albanians; innocence and victimization through history and the affiliation with West. In those texts, the history is being narrated to sustain the above-mentioned premises. It happens quite often that historical facts and the truth are mythologized in line with nationalist demands. This mythization is achieved through the selection of history, linguistic schemes, one-sided narration, nationalist interpretation, use of images and the repetition of some subjects etc. Accordingly, through the mythization and reshaping of history, those historical textbooks, conceive some identity models and set of values which reconcile with the current approaches of Albanians towards the historical past and their political and social demands.
Keywords: myths, history, textbooks, identity, Kosovo.
The mythization of history is an imagined intervention on the past. Its primary goal is to immerse as much as possible on the present, and in so doing to fulfill a seemingly determined future. This arbitrary intervention on the past obfuscates history by muddling the collective memories of people. Mythization, thus, can be achieved through two ways: in a quite coincidental manner, or deliberately. The more mythization is a deliberate attempt, the more history became abused in favor of certain subjects.

History and myth went often hand by hand. Thus, in 12^th century a Danish soldier named according to the Latin manner, Saxo Gramaticus, under the patronage of archbishop of Lund, Absalon, wrote a concise history of Denmark, entitled “Gesta Danorum”. At the very outset, its author states that his book intended to glorify his homeland. Later on, at the beginning of 13^th century, an Iclandese historian called Snorri Sturluson, wrote his book entitled “Heimskringla” (“The Circle of the World”), which consisted of a history imbued with myths, concerning the deeds of Norway kings. Seven hundred years later, during 19^th and 20^th centuries, those books became inspiration for Danish and Norway nationalism. This is a perfect example which confirms once more the role of myths on history.

As soon as myth interfered on history’s domain, it became an active subject. The myth cast its shadow upon the past and in so doing it became a history-making subject. While the history runs according to its one-direction-way, namely from the present to the future, the myth moves in both directions at the same time. The myth is a desperate endeavor to twist history by reshaping the past. Moreover, it is a competitive history which negates history, empiricism and science alike.¹ While the history has a sense of being accessible, the myth is always not available given that it does not pertain to the present: it resides on the imagined past, attempting to forge the future. In terms of Heidegger, the historical myth is “a being without beings”.² There are myths but they do not exist as long as they are mere constructions. Most of time, they behave as parasites in the body of history. While the history gets entailed on myths, everything became more and more vague.

It is not amiss to state that a mythized history is a disguised one, a farce with a powerful potentiality. To demythize the history, one is compelled to deploy a method of deconstructionism with all its variations: from the language and theory, to natural and practical.³ The main scope of this insightful take is not the general deconstruction of myths. The study is confined only at the identification of certain myths. Cases in point are certain school textbooks in Kosovo, which are peppered at some scale from various myths.

Taking into account the Nitzhean concept on the will for power, Michael Foucault considers the school as most important institution that shapes the modern man.⁴ According to him, the school delivers basically the same knowledge for many generations and it forges a specific type of man for decades. This kind of education, greatly reduces the creativity of students by curtailing their mental capacities because its main purpose is to put the knowledge within a box of ''undoubted truths”. Therefore it is of utmost importance to know what knowledge one gets from school, as Jean-François Lyotard puts it: “Who transmits learning? What is transmitted? To whom? Through what medium? In what form? With what effect?”⁵

In educational system in Republic of Kosovo, history is being taught during eight years of education. For all levels of educational system, there are in use 17 textbooks: 12 books and 5 work-books. The Ministry of Education has standardized all historical text-books, thus it leaves little room for alternative textbooks. Consequently, it emerges a situation when all schools deliver basically the same history. All students, indiscriminately, are aware of that history which is included in those textbooks. One is tempted to repose Lyotard questions: “Who transmits learning? What is transmitted? To whom? Through what medium? In what form? With what effect?”

In this way, we are attempting to get an answer on one major question: what kind of identity is conceived by such text-books? First and foremost, in these textbooks history is being narrated along modernist or pseudo-postmodernist approaches. Although those textbooks include history from antiquity down to modern times, all 17 textbooks are written by 8 authors: most of them are adept only for modern history without any specialization for ancient or mediaeval history. It strikes one's eye that political history predominates more than 90% of contents. The history concerning culture, philosophy, arts, religion, architecture or science constitutes only 10% of content. It must be noted that all those aspects are ostensibly influenced by the political history.⁶ This uniformity on the content unravels a tendency to inculcate on students an overly political point-of-view about history of their country and that of world.

What's more, their content entails a socio-political take on history. Most of these textbooks features with a uniform structure, same language, same illustrations and same approaches, while time to time in these textbooks appear the same themes borrowed from one another. The authors employ a narrative where events are selected and they often make use of certain myths, gross exaggerations in a way to forge a nationalist identity on the students. This is perhaps best exemplified by the first paragraph of history textbook of 5^th grade: “By learning history, we enable ourselves to handle with the present and future and to be participants of civilized values”.⁷ These textbooks bolster a kind of identity which relies upon the hypothesis of an ethno-cultural compactness which stretches back on history. This identity is centered on six mythical central themes: 1) autochthony; 2) ethnic continuity; 3) religious tolerance; 4) albano-centrism as nationalism; 5) victimization and innocence; 6) the relations with West.

Autocthony
A solid identity requires deep roots and they in turn need a soil, the space of history and identity. In terms of history, this necessity is closely associated with the idea of autochthony, which has prompted the complex of being native. In spite of fact that scholars hold that Albanians are native to the country they dwell now, historical textbooks in Kosovo have mythized this fact in a crude fashion.
The Myth of Aboriginal People
The myth of being a native people has a clear message, yet untold: “We are the first dwellers here, the rest came after us”. This idea underlies the interpretations of Albanian ethnogenesis made by textbooks writers. Those texts lay a special emphasis on the origin of Albanian people, especially on the textbooks for the 5^th, 6^th, and 10^th grades. The myth of native people is the cornerstone of the identity as displayed on these texts. This myth is a byproduct of a poor argumentation made by these authors concerning the vexed problem of Albanian ethnogenesis.

There are certain passages which dwell on the origin of Albanians: “The earliest population on Balkans was Pelasgians. Scholars opined that they were the predecessors of Illyrians...Illyrians are among the oldest people in Balkans. They are considered as the offspring of Pelasgians and are the antecedents of Albanians...They had a distinct language and customs likewise, very similar to those of modern Albanians. Their dress is similar with that of Albanians.⁸ Scholars held that Illyrian owes its origin to the Pelasgian...Albanians are the descendants of Illyrians. The Illyrian language was spoken in Illyria, although it was written with either Greek or Latin alphabet. Out of this old language survived thousand words like names of persons, tribes, cities, places, rivers, etc. These words are fairly similar with modern Albanian equivalents which account to the fact that Albanian is a direct descendant of Illyrian.⁹ According to many Albanian and foreign scholars, Pelasgians were the forebears of Illyrians....On the basis of data it follows that they lived on Balkans as far as third millennium B.C...A large array of historians contended that Illyrians are native and belong to Indo-European peoples. According to many researchers, both Albanian and foreign, Pelasgians were the ancestors of Illyrians.”¹⁰

The above-cited passages make it plain that the origin of Albanians stemming from both Pelasgians and Illyrians is articulated mainly through simple assertions, without any further ado. In a quite unconvincing way, the main argument relies upon linguistic connection between Illyrian and Albanian although this line of reasoning is considered by scholars as indicative but not decisive when it comes the origin of Albanians.¹¹ Moreover, the Illyrian ethnogensis of Albanians is overly mythized especially when it is stated that Illyrian dress is similar to the Albanian one.

This thesis is repeated time and time again in order to instill it on students, while in textbooks it is underlined with bold. The “obsession with origin”¹² go as far as to claim that Illyrians lived on Balkans since third millennium B.C, in spite of fact that the earliest accounts for certain tribes (later assigned as Illyrian) come out from Homer and Hesiod who lived on 8^th and 7^th centuries B.C respectively, while the first account which explicitly mentions Illyrians as a distinct people appears on Herodotus work (5^th century B.C).¹³ It is worth pointing out that nowhere is the second theory about the origin of Albanians mentioned, according to which Albanians descend largely from both Illyrians and Thracians.

The Myth of Original Culture
As soon as the myth of native people is settled, another myth appears in textbooks which claims a distinct and authentic culture of Illyrians. To raise the pride on students about their noble ancestors, authors of textbooks portray them as being highly advanced on terms of culture. This attempt is evident on the following excerpt: “In the period of king Glaucus, both arts and culture bloomed....In his time (Pyrrhus of Epirus - D.A), arts and culture flourished...The children of free citizens when they became at the age of 7 went on private schools...where they received a knowledge on math, history, arts etc...The Illyrian language was spoken in Illyria, which was distinct from Greek and Latin...It is believed that there were many books on Illyrian, which have not survived in nowadays...¹⁴Greek settlers found a developed culture in Illyria which they never met before. They took a large amount of knowledge from Illyrians, especially for agriculture, livestock and craft which were fairly developed...The Illyrian woman enjoyed respect both in family and society...There were even public schools on several cities...which were funded by state.¹⁵ The earliest attestations of art on Illyrian soil pertain to the Neolithic period....Taken as a whole, Illyrian art was of highest quality...Illyrians developed their own culture through art, buildings, language, the way of life, religion etc...In addition with theatres, music and gymnastic, even literature prospered.”¹⁶

The above endeavors assign Illyrians as carriers of a highly advanced culture, and this takes the form of intuitive narration about history. This narration holds that Illyrian culture harks back to the Neolithic period by describing it as very developed. By the same token, the Greek culture of coastal colonies on Illyria is overlooked, whereas Illyrians are displayed as being culturally superior to Greeks.¹⁷ The assertion, according to which Illyrians have written many books,¹⁸ is by far the most blatant claim, taking into account the very fact that the first book was printed on the middle of 15^th century by Guttenberg because prior to him, there were solely manuscripts or codex’s.

The authors give a special emphasis on the knowledge about Illyrians, which is best attested by the homework book on history for the 5^th and 6^th grades. Students are required to know which language is similar to Pelasgian; how children were educated in Illyria; which language was spoken on Illyria; what are the similarities between Illyrians and Albanians;¹⁹ the cultural level of Illyrians compared to the Greeks; the boundaries of Illyria; the comparison between Illyrian and Albanian and so forth.²⁰ The mythization of autochthony reaches its nadir with the myth about ethnic continuity.

Ethnic Continuity
The myth about autochthony and the origin of Albanians is further bolstered by the ethnic continuity. The narrators seem to make the origin as much as possible compact by intertwining with the myth of a vertical continuity and that of ethnic purity. Such myths belittle the diversity which took place in past; instead it makes ethnic history of Albanians to look undiluted since the antiquity down to the modern times.
The Myth About Vertical Continuity
This myth emerges on the very idea that the origin of Albanians has an uninterrupted vertical structure: Pelasgians-Illyrians-Albanians. Although the history of such lineage spans a period of more than 3000 years, it is explained through an uninterrupted timeline. This narrative is being structured on the text about 5^th grade, 6^th grade, 7^th grade and 10^th as well through such passages: “Since 8^th century onwards Illyrians were called Arbër or Albanians, while their country as Arbëri or Albania according to the name of Illyrian tribe of Albanoi...Later, this term encompassed all Albanian lands...Albanians are the descendants of Illyrians...The Albanian state did not include all areas inhabited by Arbërs-Albanians.²¹ The old Illyrian populace which survived, with the drift of time it was called Arbër or Arbëri. These primeval names of Albanians stretch their origin back to the Illyrian tribe of Albanoi...The name Arbër and Arbëri during Middle Age was spread throughout all Albanian lands jutting from Kotorr Bay (Montenegro D.A.) in north all the way to Arta’s Bay in south. These areas were called Arbëri-Albania.²² During 11^th century, Albanians were under the rule of Byzantines...Among the most famous uprising against Byzantines was that of 1043. At this time appears for the first time the name Arbër.”²³

The above cited passage examplifies the very idea to consider Illyrians, Arbërs and modern Albanians as a single ethnic substance, but with different labels. The transition from Illyrians to Arbër and from Arbër to modern Albanians, is not explained as a socio-historical and political evolution, but as a mere spontaneous shift of ethnic terms. These authors seem to lump together different concepts like Arbëri-Arbëria-Albania, which is a grave mistake on the light of historical sources that draw a sharp distinction between them.²⁴ This unjustified and erroneous point-of-view is linked with the myth of ethnic continuity which ignores the historical timeline by drawing a straight line from Illyrians up to the modern Albanians.²⁵ This mythization reaches its nadir with such passages taken from history textbook for the 10^th grade:”...its previous name Illyria and Illyrians with the drift of time was replaced by the new emerged national names Arbër and Arbëri. These old names hark back their origin to the Illyrian tribe of Albanoi.”²⁶ This formulation gives the impression that the transition from Illyrians to Albanians was merely a linguistic replacement and not a deep socio-political evolution within the framework of Byzantium world which was torn by continuous invasions which altered its demographics. It must be noted that the terms “Arbër” and “Arbëri'' are shown as “new national names” despite the fact that nations in modern sense were not coalesced yet. These names quite paradoxically are considered as equivalent with the later names Shqiptarë and Shqipëri.²⁷