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Books about communist delusions can be an interesting read — but the real striking episodes are about the short transitional period after communism, during the 1990s, when Albania abruptly switched from one system to another

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Albania's post-communist dream has lessons for Ukraine

In her recent book Free, Coming of Age at the End of History, the Albanian political scientist Lea Ypi describes how she grew up in communist Albania, physically and mentally cut off from the outside world.

Her parents' families had been wealthy and cosmopolitan before the revolution and lost everything. Under the communists, they never got rid of their upper-class stigma — they called it "the biography". ...

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The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s, not those of EUobserver

Author Bio

Caroline de Gruyter is a correspondent and columnist for NRC Handelsblad, Foreign Policy and De Standaard. This piece is adapted from a column in De Standaard.

Books about communist delusions can be an interesting read — but the real striking episodes are about the short transitional period after communism, during the 1990s, when Albania abruptly switched from one system to another

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Author Bio

Caroline de Gruyter is a correspondent and columnist for NRC Handelsblad, Foreign Policy and De Standaard. This piece is adapted from a column in De Standaard.

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