Context of 'April 28, 1945: Yugoslavia Recognizes and Represents New Albanian Government'

Yugoslavia is the first country to recognize the Albanian Democratic Government. Albania sends envoys to Yugoslavia’s embassies in 16 countries. By May 1946, Albania will begin conducting its foreign relations with other countries through Yugoslavia, with the reported approval of the USSR’s Josef Stalin. [Kola, 2003, pp. 71, 76-77]

Yugoslavia’s General Staff says Greece plans to attack Albania and therefore requests a base in the Korca region for an air force fighter division and an anti-aircraft missile division. An Albanian envoy will be sent to Belgrade regarding the request. Yugoslav communist leader Josip Broz Tito will then send a high-ranking military envoy in early 1948 to deliver a letter reiterating the request to Albanian communist leader Enver Hoxha. [Kola, 2003, pp. 87]

Albanian Prime Minister Enver Hoxha goes on a lone trip to Romania, where he confers with Romanian leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and Andrey Vyshinsky, the Soviet deputy foreign minister. Hoxha flies on a Soviet aircraft, crossing southern Yugoslavia without incident, though the Yugoslavs at some point began to bar Soviet aircraft. According to a later account by Hoxha, he indirectly criticizes the Soviets for not informing Albania about their disagreements with Yugoslavia earlier. Vyshinsky says that Stalin criticized Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito over the issue of the Yugoslav requests to station soldiers in Albania earlier in 1948. Hoxha says he does not know the details of the proposed and now scuttled Yugoslav-Bulgarian federation. [Hoxha, 1982, pp. 509-511, 533-536]