Artan Hoxha
- Research Affiliate, 2020-2021
Dr. Hoxha is a historian of 20th-century Europe with a special focus on World History. He has a strong thematic interest in the social and cultural transformations during the 20th-century, and his scholarship highlights the connections that bridge the Cold War era West-East divide. His doctoral thesis explored how the Communist government that came to power in 1945 implemented one of Albania’s largest rural development projects in the plateau of Maliq, which had been a swampland for thousands of years. The new regime not only drained the swamp and opened arable land for the cultivation of sugar beets but also built a large sugar factory. Based on unexplored documents from local and national archives and using interdisciplinary research, which entwines environmental, economic, social, and cultural history, the dissertation traces the common features that Maliq’s scheme shared with other contemporary models of development, including those implemented by liberal democracies. It is a case study for analyzing the micro-dynamics of the programs that aimed at engineering society and nature. Maliq also serves as a lens for shedding light on the transnational entanglement of the second half of the 20th-century, which defy the conventional ideological borders that we have inherited from the Cold War.
Reseach Interests
Modern Europe, Modern Central/East Europe Southeastern Europe/Balkans, Southern Europe, Mediterranean, Socialism, Rural history, Development and Modernization, Modernity, Religion, Cold War
Representative Publications
Books
Sugarland: The Transformation of the Countryside in Communist Albania. Budapest-New York: CEU Press, 2023 (Forthcoming).
Communism, Atheism and the Orthodox Church of Albania: Cooperation, Survival and Suppression. London-New York: Routledge, 2022.
Tharja e kënetës së Maliqit dhe ndërtimi i regjimit komunist në Shqipëri (The Reclamation of the Swamp of Maliq and the Making of the Communist Regime in Albania). Tirana: Onufri, 2021.
Kisha Ortodokse nën komunizëm: KOASh-i dhe regjimi diktatorial shqiptar, 1945-1967 (The Orthodox Church Under Communism: the AAOC and the Albanian Dictatorial Regime, 1945-1967), (Tirana: UET Press, 2017).
Artan R. Hoxha, A Historical View on the Development of Philanthropy in Albania, (Tirana: 2011).
Articles
“A Swamp, a Forbidden Grove, and a Ruined Factory: From the Heterotopia of First Modernity to the Dead Zones of Second Modernity,” Südost-Forschungen, Band 80 (2021): 253-290.
“From Missionaries of Socialism to Spies of Imperialism: The Shifting Position of Soviet Women in Communist Albania,” Histories 1, 4 (2021): 256-266.
“Exploiting and Conserving: Forests, Nation, and Strategies of Development 20th Century Albania,” Economic and Eco-history: Scientific Research Journal for Economic and Environmental History, 14 (2018): 145-167
“La Cortina di ferro sull’Adriatico vista dall’altro lato d Environmental History, 14 (2018): 145-167. dell’Atlantico. L’Italia a l’Albania sotto la lente di Washington (1945-1961), in Una pace necessaria: I rapporti italiano-albanesi nella prima fase della Guerra fredda, a cura di Paolo Rago, (Bari-Roma: Laterza, 2017), 63-94. [The Iron Curtain on the Adriatic Seen from the Other Side of Atlantic: Albania, Italy and the Cold War Under the Lenses of Washington, 1945-1961, in A Necessary Peace, ed. by Paolo Rago, (Bari-Roma: Laterza, 2017), 63-94]
Conference Presentations
“‘Down the Fences!’: The Industrialization of Agriculture in Socialist Albania,” presented in Agricultural History Society Annual Meeting, Washington DC, 06-06-2019
“From Red to White Sugar: The Collapse of Communism and the End of Autarkic Development of Albania,” presented in Midwest Slavic Conference, Columbus, Ohio 04-07-2019
“From Missionaries of Socialism to Spies of Soviet Imperialism: The Position of Soviet Women in Communist Albania,” presented in ASEEES 50th Annual Convention, Boston, 12-09-2018.
“Transgressing Modernization: The Taming of Nature and Rural Responses in the Albanian Countryside during the Interwar Era,” presented at ASEEES 49th Annual Convention (Theme: Transgression), Chicago, November 11th, 2017.
“Perdja e Hekurt mbi Adriatik parë nga ana tjetër e AtlantikutShqipërisë: Shqipëria, Italia dhe Lufta e Ftohtë nën lenten e Uashingtonit 1949-1960” (The Iron Curtain on the Adriatic Seen From the Other Side of Atlantic: Albania, Italy and the Cold War Under the Lenses of Washington, 1945 – 1960), presented at the conference "The Relations Between Italy and Albania During the Cold War," Tirana, May 24th, 2017.
"Woman as Object and Agent of the 'Civilizing Mission' in Interwar Albania," presented at “Midwest Slavic Conference, 2017,” The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, April 8th–9th, 2017.
“Memory/Oblivion: The Protection of Jews in Albania during the Holocaust and the use of history,” Rome, Italy, June 2nd, 2014.
“De-Stalinization as an Implosion from Within: The Hungarian Revolt of 1956 and the Albanian Political Elite’s Dilemmas in a Time of Change,” Budapest, Hungary, May 27th, 2014.
“East and West in the Discourse of the Albanian Stalinist Regime in the Years 1960–1970,” Tirana, Albania, December 17th, 2013.
“‘Minorities’ Position in the Balkans. Causes and Consequences (a comparative approach)”, Plav, Montenegro, July 29th, 2013.
“Religious Particularism versus Socialist Nationhood. Orthodox Church’s Place in the Policies of the Albanian Communist State, 1945–1951,” Regensburg, Germany, January 11th, 2013.
“From Gentile to Gramsci? The Cooperation of the Italian Soldiers with the Albanian Communists, September 1943–November 1944,” Tirana, Albania, December 9th, 2011.
“East or West? Post–Communist debates on World War II in Albania,” Moscow, September 28th, 2011.
“The Power of Knowledge: State, Religion and Education in the Process of Nation–Building in Albania,” New York, April 15th, 2011.
“Between Faith and Nationalism: the American Protestant Missionaries in Albania during the first half of XX Century,” Tirana, Albania, December 2nd, 2010.
“Politics, ideology and historical constructions. The Case of a Revolt in Central Albania in 1914–1915,” Tirana, Albania, April 15th, 2010.
“Edward Grey, British Foreign Policy and the Making of Albania,” Tirana, Albania, December 18th, 2009.
“Raymond Poincare, French Foreign Policy and the Albanian Problem, 1911–1914,” Tirana, Albania, July 9th, 2009.
“Oral History and the Protection of Jews in Albania during the Holocaust,” Tirana, Albania, February 11th, 2009.
