The underground press: newspapers as instruments of communication and resistance by liberation-oriented secret organizations in Kosovo during 1970–1981

Abstract

This study aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the communication ty-pology of clandestine liberation-oriented organizations in Kosovo during the period 1970-1981, focusing on the role played by the underground press as an alternative and necessary form of political, ideological, and national communication with the broader popular masses. At a time when the Yugo-slav state apparatus controlled all official channels of information and used propaganda to delegitimize any Albanian emancipatory efforts outside the Yugoslav doctrine of brotherhood and unity, the underground press emerged as the only means to articulate positions, produce counter-hegemonic dis-course, and create new spaces for political awareness. The study focuses particularly on the activities of the clandestine liberation-oriented organiza-tion, the “Kosovo Revolutionary Group – KRG,” which later became known as the Marxist-Leninist Organization of Kosovo – OMLK, one of the most active entities in producing, distributing, and institutionalizing the Albanian underground press during the 1970s and early 1980s. At the center of our study is the role and function of the underground newspapers such as “Zëri i Kosovës”, “Pararoja”, and “Liria”, which, under the direction of this orga-nization, became informative, educational, and mobilizing platforms within the Albanian space outside of -Albania. Despite the constant risk of infiltra-tion by the Yugoslav secret service and constrained by the need to maintain deep secrecy, this press managed to establish a stable system of alternative communication, intertwining ideology, political analysis, and demands for the national rights of Albanians. It conveyed a clear narrative of emanci-pation, spreading ideas about the right to self-determination, political lib-eration, and the project of Albanian national unification. In the absence of a free public space, the underground press functioned as a form of parallel opinion-making, where Albanian political discourse took on an articulated and independent form, free from state control mechanisms. The study will be structured around several main analytical pillars. First, it addresses the theoretical conceptualization of the underground press and its impact in re-pressive contexts, situating the case of Kosovo within a broader panorama of political resistance in Southeastern Europe. Second, within this framework, the origins of the Albanian underground press in Kosovo and its territories under Yugoslavia will be analyzed, examining the contextual conditions, the influence of the diaspora, and the distribution networks. Third, the study will conduct a detailed content analysis of the aforementioned newspapers, aiming to dissect their political language, argumentative structure, and central themes of their discourse. Finally, the socio-political significance of this press will be examined, including its impact on youth mobilization, its role in the politicization of society, and its contribution to the formation of a collective political identity on the eve of the Albanian demonstrations of 1981. A central thesis of the research will be the comparison between the Albanian under-ground press and the official Yugoslav press, highlighting two antagonistic discursive poles: one built on control, delegitimization, and the unification of reality according to the Yugoslav state model, and the other founded on resis-tance, critique, and the project of national liberation. This contrast between the two worldviews will serve to understand not only the historical role of the underground press but also the mechanisms of producing political knowledge under conditions of deep and organized secrecy.