This paper investigates the relation between violence and state-building in the aftermath
of the Great War. In particular I analyse the way in which the experience of violence
conditioned Albanians’ positioning toward their national identity and their state-building
endeavours. In analogy to many studies published on the topic of violence and statebuilding,
the research shows that violence against Italians and Yugoslavs who threatened
the integrity of Albanian territorial claims and Albanian individuals or groups who
were considered a menace to the national cause, contributed to consolidate the feelings
of national solidarity and to legitimate Albanian claims for self-determination. However,
differently from most of current recent research, the analysis of the events displays
that violence for state-building purposes had complex ethical and political implications
which hindered the coherence of the Albanian national discourse and the state-building
projections that it entailed. The employment of coercive means exposed Albanians’ vulnerability
to the violence of internal and external actors who instead exploited violence
to delegitimise Albanian self-determination claims. State-building violence created dissidence
between Albanian political circles, generated contestation against the authority
of the government and led political actors to question the overall value and function of
their nation-state-building endeavours.
