Implementation of the agreement between the UP and the UT

The management of both universities evinced high expectations for the implementation of the 1970 MoU. They exchanged academic staff, texts, manuals, publications and study visits for students (AMFA 511/1976). Over 50 professors from UT were immediately

110 During one of his visits to Kosovo, Miko Tripalo, a member of the Executive Bureau at the Presidency of Communist League of Yugoslavia, said: "despite ideological differences, there is a willingness among the SFRY leadership to expand bilateral relations with Albania…”

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brought to Prishtina, while teachers and professors from UP were sent to Tirana for specialization and qualification in certain subjects that were to be taught in Prishtina. Other institutions also began cooperating, the Academies of Sciences from Kosovo and Albania exchanged literature, funds, and other materials from their archives and libraries, and also offered thematic lectures, especially in the fields of linguistics and human sciences (AK PSoER/1972-84/1-97/4).

Through Prishtina's Academy of Sciences, Albania's Academy of Sciences also helped educational and cultural institutions in other parts of the SFRY (CAA 490/1978/582). Kosovo's cooperation with the Republic of Albania was also initiated in other cultural and educational fields, including music, theater (CAA 511/1971/182), and cinematography (AK PSoER/1979-88/36/3). One cultural activity that brought many visitors and was a direct product of this cooperation was "Java e Filmit Shqiptar" (Week of Albanian Film), which took place in Prishtina (CAA 511/1971/182). Associations of writers (CAA 490/1976/411) and associations of figurative and applicative arts (CAA 511/1976/241) of both countries also cooperated. One of the most important events during this period was a congress for the unification of the Albanian language held in Tirana in November 1972. This event resulted in the expansion of patriotic feelings among Albanians in the SFRY¹¹¹ (CAA 511/1972/48). Additionally, there were many cultural activities outside the framework of the provincial administration. All of these events and activities undoubtedly contributed to the "national emancipation" of students in Prishtina and throughout Kosovo.

The Republic of Albania had two main objectives for engaging in cooperation with Kosovo academic and cultural institutions: First, to help prepare Albanian cadres and specialists in Kosovo and the SFRY; and second, to contribute towards the "empowerment of patriotic feelings, the deepening of love for Albania, and the preservation of Albanian traditions, pride and nationhood" (CAA 511/1973/203). While it is clear that cooperation between these two universities did not have purely academic objectives, the "normalization"

of relations between Belgrade and Tirana in 1970 allowed Kosovo Albanians to reconnect with their "homeland" and made the UP a channel through which political and national messages from the Republic of Albania were disseminated to Kosovo and the SFRY. As

111 This conference was also the result of the resolutions taken by Albanian intellectuals in the SFRY in 1968. See now Elliott (2017) for a detailed discussion of the significance of these decisions.

99 Clark notes, "teachers and books from Albania" were essential in the expansion of Kosovo's political emancipation (Clark 2000: 58). Indeed, the UP was transformed into a tool for the national emancipation of Albanians throughout the SFRY. Professors from the UT came to the UP, the academic home of SFRY Albanians (Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Presheva/Preshevo, Bujanoc/Bujanovac, and Medvegjë/Medveđa), which in a way reflected a sort of "unification." Ideas generated in this academic laboratory were distributed to other parts of the SFRY. It was expected that generations completing their studies at the UP would return to their respective places to continue to disseminate ideas learned at the UP.

With the improvement of relations between the Republic of Albania and the SFRY, Albanians in Kosovo were empowered politically (Malcolm 2001: 339). Indeed, they played a key role in the intensification of these relations for a decade. The empowerment of Albanians and tangible results in the field of education made the Serbs from Kosovo and Serbia uncomfortable. Professor Victor Friedman, whose multidisciplinary research has involved fieldwork in the Balkans for over 40 years, in his first visit to Kosovo in 1972 noticed many tensions between Albanians and Serbs. He also noted that he did not observe such tensions between Albanians and Macedonians in Macedonia. When he returned to Kosovo in 1974, tensions were even higher. Professor Friedman explained how he saw some Albanian students standing around in the hall of a UP building while he was looking for Prishtina's Academy of Sciences. He approached them, and "because my Albanian was very poor at that time, I spoke to them in Macedonian. They just looked at me and ignored me… Then I told them in Albanian, "No, no, I'm American. Of course, everything was fine then" (Friedman: December 2015). During the 1970s, Serbian professors and politicians in Kosovo observed these developments and warned professors from Tirana, such as historian Kristaç Prifti, to be careful especially when lecturing on sensitive topics about the region's past. Professors from Tirana were advised by their republic to be careful around the Serbs,

"who are only looking for a reason to destroy cooperation between the two Albanian universities" (CAA 511/1972/237).

The political character of the UP was conspicuous in every phase of its development.

From the beginning, both sides were aware that cooperation between the UP and the UT might be viewed as a political threat. SFRY was worried that Albanians in Kosovo might be influenced by Tirana's national leftist ideas, whereas the Republic of Albania was afraid

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that their professors and others visiting Kosovo might be "infected" with social-democratic ideas. During the 65th session of the SFRY Presidency held on December 14, 1976, while reporting on "political achievements," it was highlighted that there were many illusions about the Republic of Albania, but Kosovo visitors who used to be nationalists returned extremely disappointed from their visits of the Republic of Albania (AJ 803/498). Indeed, some of them were disappointed, but some blindly stuck to their illusions and kept promoting the image of a "perfect" Albania and "Enverism." For example, while interviewing Hydajet Hyseni, an ex-political prisoner and a founder and famous member of the illegal group known as "Revolutionary Group," I noticed that even now he continued to speak about how "perfect" and even militarily strong the Republic of Albania was during the 1970s (Hyseni: December 2015). In contrast, Albanian linguist Rexhep Ismajli, a UP professor and a member of Kosovo's Academy of Sciences since 1993, whose main aim in the 1970s was to continue with postgraduate studies at the Institut de linguistique générale et appliqué René Descartes, Sorbonne, said that when he and his friend Ibrahim Rugova visited the Republic of Albania for the first time in 1972,

"We did not like their system. We were there as visiting scholars and stayed there for about two weeks, but we spent most of the time arguing about literature and art with our colleagues from Albania.

Mehmet Elezi accompanied us and, for example, he always rejected Franz Kafka or any other ‘foreign' writer, even though he did not have a chance to read them at that time! However, Mehmet admitted he was brainwashed by the system only when I met him again in 1992"

(R. Ismajli: March 2017).

Thus, the situation in the Republic of Albania was perceived according to the actual level of political awareness of those who visited it. Indeed, it was common in communist Albania to suspect each Kosovan tourist and keep him/her under surveillance, considering them as potential agents of the SFRY. Those who accompanied visitors from Kosovo were obliged to write detailed reports (relacion) with impressions, including profiles of writers, researchers or other institutional visitors who came to Albania during the 1970s. The relacion had to be delivered also by professors or visitors from Albania who came to the SFRY during this period. These reports included information about political, cultural and

101 social issues. They even mentioned jokes that Kosovans told about Tito. I came upon most of these relacions in the Albanian Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some of them have already been published and disseminated through local portals in Kosovo or Albania.¹¹²

Political interference in the educational sector of communist and socialist federations/countries was "normal." However, the battle between "Enverist national-communism" ideologies and the "brotherhood and unity" platforms promoted at the UP challenged political borders and raised students' ambitions – and later those of the wider public – to forge and strengthen the Albanian identity in the SFRY.