Albanians dreaming Celentano. Italian pop culture in Communist Albania

Italian pop music and entertainment has exerted considerable influence on Albani-an society. Historiography has taken for granted such a phenomenon, therefore, it has not been analysed in systematic studies. The roots of this influence can be traced to the Communist period and mass media played a central role in it. Until 1973 the recep-tion of Italian programs was in part legally possible, even if phases of greater and lesser opening alternated. Therefore, pop music, movies and other forms of entertain-ment conveyed by radio, TV and cinema were able to circulate. Afterwards, the repres-sion imposed by Enver Hoxha made the reception of such contents more difficult, but did not stop it. Albanian population made use of creative systems to catch TV and ra-dio signals from the other side of the Adriatic Sea. This process contributed to make Italy a counter-model to the poor and not free Albanian world. At the beginning of the Nineties, this kind of cultural influence contributed to drive a part of the Albanian popu-lation to look for new opportunities in the land of the Festival di Sanremo, of soccer and of movie stars.

Keywords: Italy, Albania, communist regime, television, pop music, cinema

Emanuela Costantini, Gli albanesi che sognavano Celentano. La cultura popolare italiana nell’Albania comunista in "MONDO CONTEMPORANEO" 2-3/2020, pp 153-169, DOI: 10.3280/MON2020-002008