East Central Europe 39 (2012) 304–330 © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/18763308-03903013 brill.com/eceu “Brought to Life by the Idealists, Preserved by Blind Circumstance, Killed by Politicians”: Dilemmas of Nation-Building in Albanian Political Thought, 1920–1928* Lea Ypi Government Department, London School of Economics and Political Science Abstract The purpose of this article is to explore the tension between the celebration and critique of the nation in Albanian political thought through an analysis of key texts produced during the critical years 1920–1928. The discussion is placed in the context of a distinctive nation- building project, one which sought to consolidate the Rilindje kombëtare (National Renaissance) whilst also having to critically interrogate it. These intellectual efforts can be understood as an attempt to shift from an ethnic form of nationalism to a political one, seek- ing to replace or integrate the kin-based categories on which the previous nation-building discourse had relied with an emphasis on civic allegiances based on shared social and politi- cal interests. This involved a revised analysis of issues that had been central to the Rilindje narrative, including new arguments on the status of a shared ethos within modern state structures and integrating the question of religious diversity through an analysis of faith in the public sphere. It progressively developed into a collective effort to reinvent more abstract moral categories under which to conceptualize emerging political allegiances, with impor- tant repercussions for the way the newly shaped, allegedly liberal, political institutions fig- ured in the nation-building discourse. Keywords Albania, political thought, nationalism, politics, ethnicity, religion, Rilindje, interwar period *) Earlier versions of this article were presented at the London School of Economics and Political Science and at ERC meetings of the “Negotiating Modernity” project held in Berlin and at the European University of Tirana. I am grateful to participants at these events for their suggestions as well as to Jonathan White and the anonymous reviewer for detailed written comments.