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In the Albanian totalitarian political context, linguistic resources were considered an important tool for the installation of the guiding ideology and the materialist worldview. Dictionaries, being reference works, were very favourable and effective for normalizing any ideological perspective, even presenting them as objective linguistic truths. (Fairclough, 1992, p. 87). Our study aims at identifying the techniques of ideological manipulation imposed on the Albanian lexicographic practice of the communist period. We have taken into consideration The Dictionary of the Contemporary Albanian Language (1980) compiled during the communist period and compared it with The Great Dictionary of the Albanian Language (2026) published online in early 2026 with the aim of analysing how the ideological dimension is reflected in two different historical and methodological periods.
The research poses an explicit question regarding the influence of ideological constraints on lexicographic methodology, macrostructure, and microstructure in Dictionary of 1980, and their differences in relation to more descriptive and corpus-based approaches in Great Dictionary of the Albanian Language (2026). It further investigates which lexicographic tools, like lemma selection, definition strategies, illustrative examples, and usage labelling, carried ideological meaning in the period of communism. In its methodological design, the study is grounded in a qualitative and quantitative comparative analysis of the two dictionaries, addressing both macrostructural and microstructural levels of lexicographic analysis, including selection and organization of headwords, criteria of selection and exclusion, definitions, examples, and evaluative labels that reflect ideological interventions in lexicography. Particular attention is given to those examples and labels that express political and ideologically coloured meanings.
In compiling The Dictionary of 1980, Albanian linguists worked in a political environment, where Marxist-Leninist doctrine shaped both the language policies, and the scientific production. Consequently, this dictionary would reflect not only the codification of the linguistic norm, but also ideological interventions that affected both the macrostructure and the microstructure levels. Terminology from the political field, concepts related to religion, etc. were given a strong ideological content, while terms such as socialism, internationalism were often defined through positive explanations, typical of the language of propaganda.
The 1980 Dictionary was based entirely on Russian lexicographic practice, and the Soviet orientation even appears openly. (Lloshi, 2025, p.36). In fact, the explanation of the term socialism is a translation from the Dictionary of the Russian Language (vol. IV, 1961) and ends with the same words: ‘the first phase of communism’. The meaning of the word internationalism is explained in the Dictionary of 1980 using an elevated style, with positive and evaluative elements in antagonism with the explanation for the word nationalism, a clear example of lexicographic megalomania according to communist lessons. In this case too, the meaning is partly taken from the Russian Dictionary definition of 1957- 1961.
Meanwhile, the meaning of the word capitalist goes beyond the definition found in the 1957 Russian dictionary, because in the Albanian Dictionary of 1980 capitalists are described as brutally exploiting wage workers and enriching themselves by appropriating surplus value. Likewise, the illustrative examples used the same language, often glorifying socialist morality and the narratives of the Party. Even for words like Marxism and Leninism, the illustration is given in the same way as in Russian dictionaries.
Meanwhile, at the beginning of 2026, the Great Dictionary of the Albanian Language was launched online. In contrast to the 1980s dictionary, it (the compilation of which included the author of this study) represents a modern lexicographic paradigm grounded in comprehensive documentation and descriptive methodology. This shift becomes more apparent when we analyse political or socially sensitive terms. For example, the word capitalism in the 2026 Dictionary is defined in completely neutral language. The same applies to terms such as bourgeois, nationalist, identity, idea, moral, etc.
These changes are evidence of the transition from ideologically prescriptive lexicography toward descriptive and corpus-based lexicographic methodology. At the same time, they reflect the processes of semantic neutralization, de-ideologization and reduction of the positive framing of the word meanings in contemporary Albanian lexicography.