Stefan Gužvica is an assistant professor at the Department of History of the Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg. His historical research is available at www.stefanguzvica.su.
The Black Book of Communism has been hugely influential and sold millions of copies since its publication in 1997. Yet some of the dramatic claims made by its editor, Stéphane Courtois, were even rejected by his own contributors when the book came out.
Seventy-nine years ago today, Albania became the only country to free itself from Nazi occupation without any help from the Allied armies. A communist-led partisan movement spearheaded the drive for national liberation in one of Europe’s poorest states.