Authors
Rigels Halili1; 1 University of Warsaw, Poland Discussion
At the outset of the 20th century there were two competing hypothesis regarding the origin of modern Albanians. According to the first one, they were direct descendants of Illyrian tribes, which lived in the western and, partly, central Balkans before the Roman conquest. However, there was also another theory, somehow of a minor presence, that Albanians were descending from the Pelasgian, a semi-mythical populace mentioned first in Homer poems. These two theories were somehow competing during the first half of the 20th century and only after the WWII, first in Albania and thereafter in Kosovo and other areas inhabited by Albanians in former Yugoslavia, the first hypothesis, namely that of Illyrian origin, became the main dominating theory. A reversable process is visible during the last ears and seems that Pelasgian hypothesis is gaining pace once again, at least among some Albanian historians and linguists. Having no ambition to give a final verdict on each of the hypothesis, this paper will show how in Albania and Kosovo the idea of Illyrian origin became first popular and then canonical, as well as what the role of Albanian intellectuals was in this process. 
