Albanian nationalism in the context of Great Eastern Crisis

Kosovo is the birthplace of the Albanian nationalist movement which emerged as a response to the Eastern Crisis of 1878. In the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Ottoman war, the Congress of Berlin proposed partitioning Ottoman Albanian inhabited lands in the Balkans among neighbouring countries. The League of Prizren was formed by Albanians to resist those impositions. For Albanians those events have made Kosovo an important place regarding the emergence of Albanian nationalism. During the remainder of the late Ottoman period various disagreements between Albanian nationalists and the Ottoman Empire over socio-cultural rights culminated in two revolts within Kosovo and adjacent areas. The Balkan Wars (1912–13) ending with Ottoman defeat, Serbian and later Yugoslav sovereignty over the area generated an Albanian nationalism that has become distinct to Kosovo stressing Albanian language, culture, and identity within the context of secession from Serbia. Pan-Albanian sentiments are also present and historically have been achieved only once when part of Kosovo was united by Italian Axis forces to their protectorate of Albania during the Second World War.

Reincorporated within Yugoslavia, Albanian nationalism in Kosovo has drawn upon Kosovar folk culture and traditions which became imbued with theories of descent from ancient Illyrians and Dardanians stressing the purported precedence of Albanian settlement and rights to the area over the Serbs. Traditions of armed resistance by local Albanians to Serbian forces have existed since the interwar period resulting in various and protracted conflicts, ethnic cleansing and violence on both sides. The most recent was the Kosovo War (1999) between the guerilla fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Yugoslav army who later were evicted from Kosovo through NATO military intervention. Placed under an international United Nations framework, Kosovar Albanians declared independence (2008) which is internationally recognised by some number of countries satisfying a main tenet of Kosovar Albanian nationalism. Albanian nationalism in Kosovo stresses a secular character sidelining religion.

Irreligion, such as atheism and agnosticism, are present in Albania, along with the predominant faiths of Islam and Christianity. The majority of Albanians lead a secular life and reject religious considerations to shape or condition their way of life.

Irreligion in Albania arose after a period of rising anti-clericalism and secularisation in the context of the rising Albanian nationalism in the late Ottoman Empire. While authors in this period had at times used invective against religion, the first public advocate of abandoning religion itself was Ismet Toto in 1934 followed by works by Anastas Plasari in 1935. Beginning in 1946 under communist rule in Albania, religion was first curtailed, and then public religious practice was outlawed in 1967 with the adoption of state atheism by Enver Hoxha although some private practice survived, and remained so until restrictions were first eased in 1985 and then removed in 1990 under his successor Ramiz Alia. Polling by UNDP showed that large majorities of Albanians agree that nationalism, lack of religion and the ban of religion during communist rule have helped build the foundations of religious tolerance.

Greater Albania (Albanian: Shqipëria e Madhe) is an irredentist and nationalist concept that seeks to annex the lands that many Albanians consider to form their national homeland. It is based on claims on the present-day or historical presence of Albanian populations in those areas. In addition to the existing Albania, the term incorporates claims to regions in the neighbouring states, the areas include Kosovo, the Preševo Valley of Serbia, territories in southern Montenegro, northwestern Greece (the Greek regional units of Thesprotia and Preveza, referred by Albanians as Chameria, and other territories that were part of the Vilayet of Yanina during the Ottoman Empire), and a western part of North Macedonia. The combination of the populations of these countries and territories of other countries sustaining large ethnic Albanian communities enumerate to over 4 million people.

The unification of an even larger area into a single territory under Albanian authority had been theoretically conceived by the League of Prizren, an organization of the 19th century whose goal was to unify the Albanian inhabited lands (and other regions, mostly from the regions of Macedonia and Epirus) into a single autonomous Albanian Vilayet within the Ottoman Empire, which was briefly achieved de jure in September 1912. The concept of a Greater Albania, as in greater than Albania within its 1913 borders, was conceived and implemented under the fascist Italian and Nazi German occupation of the Balkans during World War II. The idea of unification has roots in the events of the Treaty of London in 1913, when roughly 50% of the predominantly Albanian territories and 40% of the population were left outside the new country's borders.