as for the
financing of their various projects.

The twofold task of the Party leaders in the cultural field--that of
fostering cultural development while maintaining control over the
content of the cultural works--was difficult in many respects and easy
in others. The lack of a firmly established tradition in many cultural
fields, as well as the lack of a substantial cultural community,
facilitated the establishment of Party control. Writers and artists who
received their training under the Party's tutelage know only the
socialist realist approach. On the other hand, the lack of experience
and personnel in many fields, such as drama, meant that the developments
in these areas would be slow. Furthermore, the leaders were dependent
first upon the Yugoslavs and, after 1948, on the Soviets to train people
in the areas that were totally lacking in Albania's cultural heritage.

The paucity of artistic and intellectual achievements, compared with
those of other nations throughout the world, was basically the result of
Albania's long history of foreign domination and of the rugged
topography of the country, which facilitated the isolation of many
communities for centuries. During the several centuries of Turkish rule,
the Albanians were forbidden to develop a written language. Furthermore,
there were no schools that conducted classes in the Albanian language;
there were only Turkish schools for the Muslim population and Greek
schools for the Orthodox population. To compound these difficulties,
there are two major dialects of Albanian--Geg, spoken in the north, and
Tosk, in the south. Albania did not have a uniform alphabet until
November 1908, when a congress of intellectuals agreed upon the use of
the Latin alphabet. It was not until the Communist regime came to power
that it was decided that Tosk would be the official literary dialect
(see ch. 2, Historical Setting; ch. 3, Physical Environment; ch. 4, The
People).

An additional obstacle to the development of a substantial intellectual
and artistic community and tradition was the fact that until 1957 there
were no universities in the country. The State University of Tirana,
Albania's only university, was not established until that year. Before
World War II Albanian students went abroad, primarily to Western Europe,
in the pursuit of higher education. After World War II students were
usually sent to the Soviet Union or other Eastern European countries to
attend universitie