In his popular novel, Kürk Mantolu Madonna (Madonna in a Fur Coat), which was first published in Istanbul in 1943, Sabahattin Ali wrote that “for some reason or other people prefer to investigate what they feel sure they will find. It is without doubt easier to find a brave man to descend to the bottom of a well where it is known that a dragon lives than to find a man who will show the courage to descend into a well about the bottom of which nothing is known.”1 This view applies nicely to research into nations and nationalisms, for the bottom of the well is already known: the Ottoman Empire collapsed and was replaced by new nation-states. This collapse has often been taken as the “inevitable” triumph of nation-state over empire, the victory of national identities over other identity constructions.

Chapter 5 describes the transformation of a section of Arnavutluk into the modern Albanian state. The new independent Albania was proclaimed by the predominantly Sunni elite when Ottoman rule collapsed in the First Balkan War in 1912 and Albanian settlement areas seemed on the verge of being divided between Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. With the onset of the First World War, the fledgling state was faced with foreign occupation, and threats to its territorial integrity and to its very existence. The chapter examines how in the immediate aftermath of the war, Albanian leaders, meeting at the Congress of Lushnjë, struggled to create a functioning state apparatus but were quickly faced with political conflict which led to coups, assassinations and general instability. In this chaos, power was dominated by those with independent access to armed forces, resulting in the rise of the tribal leader Ahmet Zogu. Fearing his increasing authoritarianism, opposing forced mounted a revolution which ousted Zogu and allowed the construction of a short-lived generally progressive regime. Within six months, however, a counter-revolution brought Zogu back to power.