Educational Networks in Communist Albania

The lecture explores the educational networks of Albania during the Cold War for a more complete understanding of the communist regime of Albania during the 1960s and most of the 1970s, when several economic and industrial projects were under construction with Chinese assistance. By tracing Albania’s educational networks during its communist period, this lecture aims to inscribe part of the history of Albania’s communist past into the broader context of the exchanges that took place between East European countries, as well as between them and the rest of the world in the field of education and expertise circulation during the central decades of the Cold War. It also aims, among others, at revealing the limits of ideology-driven economic models, their legacy in the model that followed the fall of the communist system in Albania (path dependency), and the shortcomings of the centralized planning of human resources at national level under the communist regime. Furthermore, the research will also focus on the personal experiences of the students.

This event takes place in the context of the research project “Foreign policy thinking in communist Albania and Romania, Grant-DOI: 10.55776/PAT6757023” funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and in collaboration with the University of Vienna’s Research Group New Cold War Studies.

Ylber Marku is a Marie-Curie Research Fellow at the Department of History / School of East and South East European Studies (Geschichte Osteuropas und Südosteuropas), Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, München. He is a Cold War historian with research interests in Albania’s communist past, Tirana’s transnational networks during the communist period, the Global Cold War and the Global South during the 1960s, Sino-Albanian relations and the International Communist Movement. Ylber Marku obtained his PhD in History at Lingnan University, Hongkong, in November 2017. He has published research articles in leading journals in his field, and is currently working on two book projects.