Albania

Jelena visited Albania (Shqipëria, as it's called in Albanian) and decided to send some postcards from this quite rare country in the postcard-collecting world . And the result is the beautiful upper view from Lezha in the northwest of the country.

Albania (officially, the Republic of Albania) is country in Southeastern Europe, bordered by Montenegro, Greece, Kosovo and Macedonia. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto.

The modern Republic became independent after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe following the Balkan Wars. Albanians had for almost five centuries been at the heart of a sprawling empire in which they enjoyed a privileged position as administrators and generals. Albania declared independence in 1912, becoming a Principality, Republic, and Kingdom until being invaded by Italy in 1939, which formed Greater Albania, which in turn became a Nazi protectorate in 1943. In 1944, a socialist People's Republic was established under the leadership of Enver Hoxha and the Party of Labour. In 1991, the Socialist republic was dissolved and the Republic of Albania was established. Today, Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, World Trade Organisation, Council of Europe and  a potential candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003 (Albania formally applied for EU membership in 2009).

The stamps shows us an important part of modern Albanian culture - Ismail Kadare (born 28 January 1936), an Albanian author know for his novels, poetry collections and short stories. He has been a leading literary figure in his own country since the 1960s. In 1996 he became a lifetime member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of France. Kadare has been a Nobel Prize in Literature candidate several times.

Many many thanks to Jelena for the nice addition to my collection ;)