page_title: Anti-Slavic sentiment
section_title: Albania
hierarchical_section_title: Anti-Slavic sentiment / 20th century / Albania
caption_attribution_description: English: inmate at the Rab concentration camp
context_page_description: Anti-Slavism, also known as Slavophobia, a form of racism, refers to various negative attitudes towards Slavic peoples, the most common manifestation is the claim that the inhabitants of Slavic nations are inferior to other ethnic groups, most notably made by Germanic peoples, Italians, Albanians and Greeks. Slavophilia, by contrast, is a sentiment that celebrates Slavonic cultures or peoples and it has sometimes included a supremacist or nationalist tone. Anti-Slavism reached its highest peak during World War II, when Nazi Germany declared Slavs, especially neighboring Poles and Russians to be subhuman and planned to exterminate the majority of Slavic people.
context_section_description: At the beginning of the 20th century, anti-Slavism developed in Albania by the work of the Franciscan friars who had studied in monasteries in Austria-Hungary, after the recent massacres and expulsions of Albanians by their Slavic neighbours. The Albanian intelligentsia proudly asserted, "We Albanians are the original and autochthonous race of the Balkans. The Slavs are conquerors and immigrants who came but yesterday from Asia". In Soviet historiography, anti-Slavism in Albania was inspired by the Catholic clergy, which opposed the Slavic people because of the role the Catholic clergy played in preparations "for Italian aggression against Albania" and Slavs opposed "rapacious plans of Austro-Hungarian imperialism in Albania".
caption: An emaciated male inmate suffering from severe malnutrition at the Italian Rab concentration camp on the island of Rab in what is now Croatia. This camp largely detained Slavs.
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