| Summary: | This study discusses the perspective of influential representatives of the Albanian national movement on the origin of their nation and the role of the Pelasgian theme from the second half of the 19th century until 1912. Five personalities from the Albanian national movement who had written key texts on historical subjects and other works in which the ethnogenesis of the Albanians is mentioned were chosen for the study of this issue. The authors selected include Girolamo de Rada, Pashko Vasa, Naim Frashëri, Sami Frashëri and Thimi Mitko. On the basis of the content analysis of their works, which include poetry as well as prose, the construction and structure of the earliest phase of national history is described in detail with reference to authors who used the Pelasgian origin thesis for the Albanians from Conrad Malte-Brun and Johann Georg von Hahn. The works of these pioneers in the field of Albanian studies can be described as the main source of inspiration and information in the texts analyzed. During the process of forming the narrative of the national origin Malte-Brun’s and Hahn’s works stood in for the missing medieval and early modern Albanian historiography. The study also describes the use of Albanian language as an important element of the argument about the Albanians’ Pelasgian origin and the perspective of the above-mentioned personalities on the origin of the endonym “shqiptar”.
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