ABSTRACT
Historically, there are many parallels between Albania and Macedonia: they are neighbouring countries in the heart of the Balkans and both were once part of the Ottoman Empire. Macedonia contains a large population of ethnic Albanians. In the years after World War II, however, both countries took quite different paths. Macedonia was then a province of Yugoslavia, which was gradually to become among the most liberal and Westward-looking of all the Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. Albania, on the other hand, became the most isolated and backward country in Europe, shunning all contact with its neighbours and pursuing purely autarkic policies within a repressive Stalinist framework. In addition to the end of Communism and the move to market economies, recent events in the Balkans have caused both countries a much more difficult transition than might have been expected.
