CHODIA · Cultural Heritage of Dictatorship in Albania

Cultural Heritage of Dictatorship in Albania

In many Former ‘Eastern Bloc’ countries, underlying historical contingencies and unresolved conflict have led to the neglect of a rich cultural resource: remains of the recent past dating to the communist dictatorship period. The aim of the Cultural Heritage of Dictatorship in Albania (CHODIA) project is to provide an in-depth assessment of the significance of the cultural heritage of the communist dictatorship period using as a case study Albania, a small country in South-eastern Europe. Some two billion people (about a third of the overall world population) live in a country that either was, or still is communist. The influence of former and current communist regimes on geopolitical history, culture, lifestyle and more is certainly immense. These regimes represent (or have represented) catalysing moments for the inhabitants of countries that experience them. Attitudes towards the communist dictatorial pasts have varied and, excluding a few notable exceptions, their remains have only recently started to be considered part of traditional notions of heritage. The importance of the cultural heritage of dictatorship is increasingly beginning to be claimed for a variety of reasons within and beyond individual states. In recent decades, the questions raised by such trends have not escaped heritage specialists, and notions of dissonant, unwanted and difficult heritage have emerged to make sense of these situations. UNESCO is also gradually realising the importance of this process and has de facto extended its definitions to also comprise forms of unwanted/‘difficult’ heritage. The specific issues engendered by the cultural heritage of communist dictatorships, in former eastern bloc states, have started to be openly discussed in a number of countries from both heritage and tourism specialists. Building on a number of previous more specialised projects, the research has been the very first attempt at drawing a country-wide perspective on the perception of cultural heritage from the dictatorship period in a modern post-socialist state. The overall objectives of the project include the assessment of three broad research themes. The first one relates to the what the tangible cultural heritage of the dictatorship period in Albania is. The second dealt with the way the intangible inheritance of communism is, while the third investigates the political uses of such a heritage.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union