The Ypi Case and the Albanian Kingdom: Ahmet Zogu FLAMUR BUÇPAPAJ

The Ypi Case and the Albanian Kingdom: Ahmet Zogu
FLAMUR BUÇPAPAJ
Recycled Communist Propaganda Confronted with the Historical Reality of King Zog
It is a bitter paradox of Albanian history that today, in the name of modern academicism, the old narrative of communist historiography about King Zog is reproduced almost unchanged. It becomes even more problematic when this comes from authors who bear surnames of families known to have been persecuted by the communist regime, as in the case of the Ypis.
I have respect for this surname, especially for figures such as Eduard Ypi and his brothers—persecuted, anti-communist, capable men who were struck by the regime precisely because they did not submit to its ideology. But respect for a surname cannot oblige us to remain silent in the face of positions that reproduce the sixty-year-old propaganda of the reactionary left.
The essential question is simple:
Where does this historiography take its data from?
From Western archives, or from the manuals of socialist realism?
The Albania Zog Inherited and the State He Built
King Zog did not take power over a consolidated state, but over a territory:
without functional institutions,
without a state administration,
without a national army,
with massive illiteracy,
with tribal order and the Kanun prevailing in many areas.
In this pre-state reality, Zog:
consolidated central power,
imposed the authority of law over local authority,
created the civil administration,
founded the modern notion of the Albanian nation-state.
These are historical facts, not ideological interpretations.
Legal Reforms: Civilization, Not Regression
One of the chapters most silenced by communist historiography—and by authors who recycle it—are the legal reforms of King Zog.
Under his reign:
the European Civil Code was adopted,
a modern Penal Code was enacted,
blood feuds were combated as a social institution,
legal equality of citizens was established.
These codes removed Albania from medieval arbitrariness and placed it within the European legal sphere. The historical irony is that the communist regime, which demonized Zog, destroyed the rule of law and replaced it with party rule and violence.
Economy and Infrastructure: The Beginning of Modernization
Yes, Albania was poor.
But it was poor before Zog, not because of him.
During his reign:
a national currency was created,
roads and cities were built,
fiscal administration was stabilized,
the foundations of a state economy were laid.
Zog was building a European Albania under extraordinarily difficult conditions. Communism, by contrast, interrupted this process and replaced it with isolation, poverty, and the destruction of property.
Education and the Formation of the National Elite
One fact that does not suit propaganda:
Zog founded state education in Albanian,
opened schools throughout the country,
sent students to study abroad.
Even the future communists, who later built the dictatorship, were educated thanks to the Zogist state. He:
did not persecute them,
did not punish them for their beliefs,
did not build camps.
This was done later by the regime that called itself “liberator.”
The Army and the Italian Occupation: The Great Enverist Lie
One of the most worn myths is that “Zog did not fight.”
The historical facts are clear:
Albania faced Fascist Italy, a military superpower,
the Albanian army was small, young, and without allies,
resistance was carried out as much as was possible given the real balance of forces.
The claim that Albania could have stopped Italy is a propagandistic fantasy, invented to later justify the communist dictatorship.
Foreign Policy and Western Orientation
King Zog oriented Albania:
toward the West,
toward European diplomacy,
toward modern state alliances.
The Albanian passport traveled freely. Albania was not a prison, but part of the world. Communism turned the country into total isolation and severed it from civilization.
The Ypi Case: Double Standards and Questionable Sources
In Ypi’s writings on King Zog:
British, American, and French archives are absent,
comparison with Balkan neighbors is missing,
analysis of real reforms is lacking.
Instead:
the language of Enverist historiography is reproduced,
selective moralizing is employed,
double standards are applied.
Zog is judged by 21st-century criteria, while the communist dictatorship is relativized or justified.
The Moral Paradox
Families such as the Ypis were:
persecuted,
imprisoned,
destroyed by communism.
Yet today, some intellectual descendants:
use the same history,
the same language,
the same propaganda.
This is not a revision of history.
It is moral amnesty for a narrative that produced violence, terror, and poverty.
King Zog was not perfect.
But he was:
a statesman,
a state-builder,
a modernizer,
Western-oriented.
Albanian history does not need ideological recycling in academic language. It needs facts, archives, and intellectual honesty.
And anyone who writes about the history of this country has the moral obligation not to speak in the language of the propaganda that destroyed Albania for forty-five years.