Albanian National Youth Day in 2024

When is National Youth Day?

National Youth Day is a public holiday in Albania on December 8th each year.

This holiday commemorates the student demonstrations in 1990 which led to the end of the People's Republic.

History of National Youth Day

Since 2009, with a decision taken by the Albanian Parliament, December 8th is commemorated as a national holiday in honor of all students involved in the events of  December 1990 and all Albanian youth.

As the iron curtain fell across Eastern Europe after the end of the second world war, Albania became the People's Socialist Republic of Albania.

Though never part of the Soviet Union, its government nonetheless followed a Marxist Communist approach with a high degree of state control and administration. This made Albania an isolated country and one of the hardest in the world to visit. Arguably it was one of the most successful communist regimes with a degree of economic success, albeit built on heavy borrowing from other socialist states. However, the state also suppressed many freedoms such as rights to political views and religious beliefs. It even banned Christmas, declaring itself the world's first atheist country in 1967.

In 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall and more directly, the revolution in Romania that saw the execution of the leader, Nicolae Ceauşescu, spooked the leaders of Albania. They moved away from the Warsaw pact and signed the Helsinki Agreement which improved some human rights.

In 1990, several demonstrations had taken place in different towns, but this moved up several gears when students began a protest in the capital, Tirana in the evening of December 8th 1990. The students actually began marching to protest about the loss of electricity, but as so often, the focus of the protestors soon turned to wider issues and within a few days, they were demanding political changes to the nation.

Because of the other changes across Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union at the time, the Albanian regime was doomed and it was only a matter of time before the country saw regime change. The student demonstrations threw a match on a fire that was already smouldering.

The demonstrations became known as the "December Movement" and forced the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Labour of Albania to allow political pluralism on December 11th 1990 with the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party, founded the next day.