GREECE'S EXPECTATIONS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Sut,—Poor service would be rendered to Greece and Yugoslavia by the partition of Albania between them as suggested by your Special Corre- spondent. The effect would be to burden each of the beneficiaries with an Adriatic "Irish problem" of its own. The centralising tendencies of Belgrade and Athens are too strong to hope that the incorporated terri- tories would for long enjoy that "wide local autonomy" of which your correspondent speaks. Bearing in mind Yugoslavia's failure in Croatia— notwithstanding that the Croatians always desired union with the Serbs on the lines of free federation—how much greater would be the difficulties (and injustice) of bringing the more warlike North Albanians under the rule of their traditional foes. Indeed, there is already that unhappy example of Kossovo where the Albanian majority, annexed by Serbia at the time of the Balkan War, have never been either conciliated or free.
Your correspondent's alternative plan for the formation of a dual State of Albania and Greece has much to commend it, on condition that the union were such as that of 16o3 between England and Scotland, establish- ing a common Executive for currency, Customs and external affairs only, while allowing the northern partner complete internal independence in the preservation of its own laws and local institutions. But a good case Is not strengthened by arguing from the Albanian ancestry of certain eminent Greek statesmen. Italy, Turkey and Egypt have also had states- men descended from Albanian settlers—who are indeed to be found as far afield as the Caucasus. However, it remains true that the population of northern Greece, especially of Greek Epeiros (itself mixed), have much In common with the Albanians, especially with the Tosks of South Albania who are probably a remnant of the Pe lasgian or pre-Hellenic population of Greece. But this tradition—like the identification of the Ghegs of North Albania with the Illyrians (from whom -Ake Dorians sprang)--whether fanciful or otherwise—is not to confirm that the Albanians are "ethnologically Greek," even in Northern Epeiros as your correspondent asserts. About forty per cent, of them are members of the orthodox faith, and about sixty per cent, are bilingual. *Who is to dogmatise about the nationality of people who tend to speak Albanian at home in the family circle and Greek in the market-place or coffee- house? The old Ottoman rule was to classify nationality according to religion, but even this is obscured in Albania, thanks to the tolerant influence of the pantheistic order of Bektashi—heterodox Muslims who often observe Christian festivals.
Albanian Tribal organisation, so far from betraying a want of national consciousness, is rather a measure of the degree in which the Albanians managed to maintain their local independence under Ottoman dominion. It is precisely in the plains where the Turks were able to impose their form of feudalism, in place of native tribal rule, that the feeling for nationality has always been least strong. Moreover, the tribal system, for all its primitiveness, probably represents a more genuine democracy than Balkan attempts to adopt Western parliamentary institutions.
If it be true that Albania has proved neither populous nor rich enough to maintain her independence in face of incursion by a great Power the same has proved unhappily true, for all their modernity, of the much larger and more prosperous States of Czechoslovakia, Poland and the others for whose liberation we are fighting.
Under the rule of an English prince, such as the Albanians have arways desired, and within a Graeco-Yugoslav Customs Union, a free Albania could contribute far more to the future peace of the Balkans than as the rebellious colony which would result from partition or annexation. Con- templating the pass to which the advance of civilisation has brought the Europe of 1943, who is to disdain the backwardness of the Albanian highlander? In that very backwardness may lie the mainspring of finer virtue than is to be found in the ideologies born of mechanical progress.—
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