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ABSTRACT
In the last ten years, many books and articles dedicated to Pelasgians have been published in Albania, mostly by amateur historians and linguists. These works question the official discourse on the Illyrian origin of Albanians inherited from the socialist era. They also question the relationship of Albanians with Greeks, both in ancient times and in the present. Considering the fact that a significant number of those authors originate from southern Albania and that their books are widely read and appreciated in this Albanian borderland, this article argues that the recent success of Pelasgic theories can be partially explained by the new uses of the border in the post-1991 context and by the state of relations between Albanians and Greeks as experienced at the local level. Imagining the Pelasgians as prestigious ancestors appears as an answer to feelings of inequality and marginality related to new practices of the border.
KEYWORDS
Albania, border, Greece, imagination, migration, Pelasgians, prehistory
This article is an attempt to understand the impact of changes in the borderland between Greece and Albania after 1991. More precisely, it relates the recent success of some 'ideas' about the ancient past of the area with the state of social relations between Albanians and Greeks as they are experienced by local inhabitants of the borderland. Established in 1913 as a boundary between two national states, the Greek-Albanian border came to separate two geopolitical blocs during the Cold War and became an external border of Europe in 1981 when Greece joined the European Community. Its 'global' function (Balibar 2005: 126) was, however, mostly activated after 1991, when huge numbers of Albanian migrant workers crossed the border and entered Greece. It is now a gate into Europe for many migrants and, as such, its crossing is strictly controlled.
In the first part of this paper some examples of border crossings are used to reveal central features of the border and of how it functions, between the local and the global level. The borderland appears as a place of fluidity and fragmentation, where national categories are questioned; but also as a place where economic inequality and political domination are experienced in everyday life. From this starting point I will then address the issue of reversion to an ancient...