TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE IN ALBANIA: COMMUNIST PAST IN STUDENTS PERCEPTIONS

Albania endured a brutal communist dictatorship for over 45 years, which had severe effects on the rights of tens of thousands of people and the country's social fabric.The regime employed criminal tactics and justified violence and manipulation in the pursuit and retention of power through the ideology of "class war" and "the dictatorship of the proletariat.".The paper is based on an analytical research method that aims to highlight social awareness as one of the main features of transitional "legal approaches" designed to bring justice and reveal the truth about the bitter communist past.The main focus of the study is to assess whether the outcomes of transitional justice in Albania have reached society, particularly the young generation.In addition to using the doctrinal research method, the article employs an empirical approach by administering a questionnaire to evaluate students' perceptions of their awareness of the communist past.The study concludes that knowledge about the past is still relatively low among youngsters, and it suggests that the state should take more proactive and coercive measures, such as utilizing textbooks and organizing extracurricular activities, to reach the new generation.