The underground press: newspapers as instruments of communication and resistance by liberation-oriented secret organizations in Kosovo during 1970–1981 ; Shtypi i fshehtë-gazeta si instrument komunikimi dhe rezistence nga organizatat e fshehta me karakter çlirimtar në Kosovë gjatë vitit 1970-1981

This study aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the communication ty-pology of clandestine liberation-oriented organizations in Kosovo during the period 1970-1981, focusing on the role played by the underground press as an alternative and necessary form of political, ideological, and national communication with the broader popular masses. At a time when the Yugo-slav state apparatus controlled all official channels of information and used propaganda to delegitimize any Albanian emancipatory efforts outside the Yugoslav doctrine of brotherhood and unity, the underground press emerged as the only means to articulate positions, produce counter-hegemonic dis-course, and create new spaces for political awareness. The study focuses particularly on the activities of the clandestine liberation-oriented organiza-tion, the “Kosovo Revolutionary Group – KRG,” which later became known as the Marxist-Leninist Organization of Kosovo – OMLK, one of the most active entities in producing, distributing, and institutionalizing the Albanian underground press during the 1970s and early 1980s. At the center of our study is the role and function of the underground newspapers such as “Zëri i Kosovës”, “Pararoja”, and “Liria”, which, under the direction of this orga-nization, became informative, educational, and mobilizing platforms within the Albanian space outside of -Albania. Despite the constant risk of infiltra-tion by the Yugoslav secret service and constrained by the need to maintain deep secrecy, this press managed to establish a stable system of alternative communication, intertwining ideology, political analysis, and demands for the national rights of Albanians. It conveyed a clear narrative of emanci-pation, spreading ideas about the right to self-determination, political lib-eration, and the project of Albanian national unification. In the absence of a free public space, the underground press functioned as a form of parallel opinion-making, where Albanian political discourse took on an articulated and independent form, ...