About the Author

Tadeusz Czekalski is a historian and specialist in the Balkans employed in the Institute of History at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He has authored books on the 20th century history of Albania, Bulgaria, and Greece as well as the transformation of morals and customs during the communist times. His research interests include the social history of the Balkan countries in the 19th and 20th centuries, transformation of morals and customs in communist countries, and European culinary culture of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Reviews

The author has an excellent understanding of Albanians due to his very good knowledge of the Albanian language, even including local dialects. This enabled him to explore Albanian archives efficiently and to reach the people who created the most recent history of this unjustly forgotten country. The author is fascinated with communist Albania and Albanian communism, which had many features in common with the communism in Eastern and Central Europe, but also many distinctive and specific features. The author tries to establish how religions came to be outlawed and eradicated in Albania and what consequences this produced. In this regard, Albania was the world's pioneer. The significance of the subject matter, the attractive presentation, the precise construction, and the clear narrative should all combine to ensure that the English edition of the book gets a warm reception and speaks well of Krakow's historiography and Polish reflection on the subject of communism in general and Albania in particular. -- Andrzej Chwalba, Jagiellonian University, Vice President of the Polish Historical Society