Finding Primary Sources

I'm in the middle of a sort of intro module in my second year for my dissertation next year and need to find myself one or two primary sources. My dissertation is going to be on Albania in the 1920s and the reign of King Zog, preferably I'd like to look at the first and second treaties of Tirana.

Does anyone know any good online libraries or catalogues that contain snippets or full primary sources? Or even better a link to copies of the treaties above?

Thanks

Reply 1

Ardilla

I'd say the topic would be rather hard to find any primary sources on, unless, you can read albanian or perhaps Italian? ( I'd reckon the Italians, as the regions major power would take notice of this ). If you can read these languages, simply try to find their national archives webpages. Most archives today has an online collection you could browse through.

What could be the best and easiest solution for you, would perhaps be to look for what the british/american/french/german newspapers wrote on this matter. it would give an internatinoal perspective.

Reply 2

ljkobrien

thanks, I managed to find an English translation of the 1927 Treaty of Tirana between the two countries, as well as a publication on the British response in a newspaper

Reply 3

0404343m

Original post by ljkobrien

thanks, I managed to find an English translation of the 1927 Treaty of Tirana between the two countries, as well as a publication on the British response in a newspaper

You'd be amazed what the British government collected on virtually every country before 1945. Firstly, they'll have diplomats and civil servants reporting back on developments fairly frequently. Sir William Seeds and Sir Robert Hodgson are your men 1926-36. If they have papers surviving, they'll be useful, so it'd be worth asking anyone that's written on the subject or the National Archives if they know where they'd be.

At any rate, check FO in the National Archives in Kew for reports coming back to Whitehall from there. Britain was often preoccupied with developments in the Med, especially should they threaten access to the Suez. Italian naval development was one such concern, for instance. Since the treaty was with Italy, check the papers of the British Ambassador to Italy, Ronald Graham, through the National Register of Archives website. I'd imagine most of his correspondence will be recorded in the FO papers in Kew, but according to the NRA some letters up to 1931 are kept in the Bodleian Library in Oxford. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/searches/subjectView.asp?ID=P11826

Secondly, you have the League of Nations. It recorded EVERYTHING about international treaties, and talked ad infinitum about them. They're all in English, and while a lot of it made it as far as the UK, they keep most of the rest of it in Geneva. LoN is probably where you'll find a bulk of the material.

For examples of British reports on the topic see this: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonline/details-result.asp?queryType=1&resultcount=1&Edoc_Id=8043750

Keyword search between certain dates and see what there is. There might be online pdfs if you're lucky- Cabinet (CAB) often is.

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Articles for you

The Student Room Group Privacy Notice

What is an LLM and how could it benefit your career?

Powerful questions business students forget to ask their career advisers

Why I chose a law degree and what studying law was like