Gardener state, the taming of waters, and overturning topographic tensions in a corner of the Balkans: the Twentieth Century Albanian experience

Abstract Widely considered one of the most backward nations of the continent, the communists’ efforts to modernize Albania provide an excellent venue for exploring the unintended consequences of modern engineering of waters. When the Great Powers of the European Concert decided to establish an independent Albania, the twenty-eight thousand and something square kilometers country had many mountains and swamps covering its few but valuable plains. The lowlands were hotbeds of malaria and thinly inhabited by an unhealthy and tormented population. Since the 1920s, the reclamation of the swamps has been an issue of paramount importance for Tirana’s political elites. What started during the interwar era was completed during communism. The Albanian communist regime did its best to discipline water flows as a sine qua non for national development and gardening a healthy, productive society. The engineering of nature and the full reclamation of swamps engendered unanticipated topographic inequalities. The lowlands became richer while the highlands became poorer. Such a process sheds much light on the contemporary debates on the Anthropocene.