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The collective monograph under the title Countries of the Western Balkan in the Last Twenty‑five years and Perspectives of their Development of the author's collective led by Jan Pelikán which was made as a result of the research supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GA CR) is an attempt at analysing the development of the national states Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia – the majority of them were founded in the last twenty‑ five years after the fall of Yugoslavian federation. In the introductory chapter Jan Pelikán provides four categories of the Western Balkan states in light of their potential to participate in the European integrative process. The first group is formed by Croatia which already entered the European Union in 2013 and became its full‑ fledged member with capacity to grow – despite some today economic problems – into the political stability element in the territory of the South‑eastern Europe. To the second category of states rank Serbia and Montenegro which admission to the European Union is, however, unlikely in the horizon of shorter than eight or ten years. Both countries have already realized a number of unavoidable political steps leading to the acceleration of the access negotiations with the European Union. On the other hand, both states have caught up with the losses suffered in times of the Milošević regime which have been manifested particularly in insufficient economic transformation having the negative impacts on their economic development. The third category is represented by the states with prevailing Albanian population – Albania and Kosovo – which hopes for integration to the European structures in the horizon of ten years is utterly slim by reasons of their considerable economic backwardness, low level of observance of legal rules, often violation of parliamentary democracy rules, role of criminal activities in political life and unsolved Albanian national question posing the explosive potential which can destabilize the region of the Western Balkan. To the positive factors of the development primarily of Kosovo belong both the fact that after years of struggles the relations between Kosovar Albanians and Serbs have been at least partly solved, and the connection of both Albanian countries to the institutions of European Union. The fourth category of states is composed by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia which not only have no real chance to become the members of the European Union in the long‑ term perspective, but even are threatened by breakdown or distinctive revision of their borders. Both states have been de facto maintained alive by the pressure of the international community, their coherence is doubtful and separatist tendencies of the minor and dissatisfied nations have been all the time strong. Besides, they have suffered fom a number of economic, social and other difficulties similar to those of Albania or Kosovo. The latest history of Albania is analysed by Tomáš Chrobák who at first mentions the development of this territory in the whole 20th century, particularly the impacts of the Hoxha regime which dominated in the country after the WWII – without apprehension of this stage of Albanian history is impossible to understand what has happened in the last twenty‑ five years. The Hoxha regime is depicted as developed from the rule of the Stalinist type of state in which the personal rule by Hoxha, who increasingly combined the national xenophobia with the dirigisme statism supplemented by the ultra‑ leftist rhetoric mobilizing the population according to the samples of Chinese Cultural revolution, prevailed. After the collapse of the Communist regimes in the Central and South‑ eastern Europe the Hoxha's successor Ramiz Alia continued in the repressive course in internal affairs until the demonstrations in 1990 when the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania de

In the last twenty or twenty‑ five years, foreign, and especially Western, researchers explored the modern history of Kosovo, or the Albanian question in Yugoslavia to be more precise, in an often outdated, little effective and perhaps in an archaic manner reminiscent of earlier Sovietological approaches. In so doing, they based their research either exclusively or mainly on published sources and, furthermore, they in fact almost completely ignored the relevant and today easily accessible archival documentation. However, this notwithstanding, it does not mean that many of their conclusions would not be correct or indeed in many respects even inspiring. The analysis, which the presented monograph is based upon, relies, in contrast to most works on the modern history of Kosovo, on a detailed exploration of a wide spectrum of unpublished sources that came into being in the period under scrutiny as a result of the activities of state institutions and particularly of the party committees of the complicated internal structure of the Tito authoritarian regime. Documents located in the Archive of Serbia (Arhiv Srbije) were one of the main sources of information. The Fond of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia, divided into several folders and sub‑ folders, proved to be crucial. Among these, documents from folders entitled the Executive Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia and the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia – the League of Communists of Kosovo were especially important. The latter, comprising almost thirty boxes of documents, contains files that came into being as a result of the activities of the League of Communists in Kosovo between 1964 and 1969. It would appear that I was the first researcher to work with these key documents. The development of Kosovo in the period in question, however, cannot be analysed comprehensively and in all its complexities, and therefore properly, without a knowledge of the all‑Yugoslav context. For this reason, I also made use of the relevant published series of documents and, first and foremost, I conducted extensive archival research in the Archive of Yugoslavia (Arhiv Jugoslavije). Primarily, I examined the extensive documentation gathered in the Fond entitled the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia which, among other things, contains stenographic transcripts and audio recordings of meetings held by the highest Yugoslav party committees. The material in the archival fond that came into existence as a result of the activities of the President's Office held at least the same importance for my research. Among other things, the transcripts of talks conducted upon the receipt of Kosovo representatives by Josip Broz Tito were of particular relevance. In addition, I conducted likewise an extensive analysis of the Belgrade daily Politika. In so doing, I not only took note of the main political news or substantive articles, but I also explored in detail short notices that were in the local news or in the so‑ called black chronicle. Using these previously neglected sources proved to be very useful indeed both for understanding some of the complexities of the Kosovar political development and even more so for Kosovar everydayness in the 1960 s. Of course, I did not omit the relevant memoirs production. However, very many of these memoirs suffer, actually more than is usually the case, from tendentiousness and bias. This is particularly true in the case of autobiographies written by former high‑ ranking representatives of the police and the Ministry of the Interior. The history of the Second (or Tito) Yugoslavia is usually divided into the 1945–1948, 1948–1966, 1966–1971 and 1972–1980 periods, with the last stage being the break‑ up of the federation. Yet, in this context, the chronological framework of explanation may appear illogical, to say the least. Key moments i