“Patriotic frenzy has gripped Pristina”, writes Nerimane Kamberi on Le Courrier des Balkans. However, it is not a frenzy for the Kosovar state, whose flag “has been put aside”, but a frenzy for the Albanian nation: “In the streets of Pristina, the red [flag] is increasingly imposing itself” as the date of Albanian Independence Day approaches. “One could think that Pristina wants to compete with Tirana for the big Holiday”, she writes, and there is a big reason for this: the 100th anniversary of the independence of Albania is celebrated in 2012. As a sovereign state, Albania was born indeed in 1912, but the idea of a country for the Shqiptärët had been already put forward by the League of Prizren in the 1870s. Theirs was a maximalist proposal (see map) that included far more territories than those awarded to Albania in 1913 at the treaties of London and Bucharest. Are today Albanians closer to the goal of Prizren? Continue reading →