BALKAN BEAUTY, BALKAN BLOOD
Modern Albanian short stories
Edited by Robert Elsie. Translated from the Albanian
Writings from an Unbound Europe
ISBN 0-8101-2337-1
Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois, 2006
ix + 143 pp.
INTRODUCTION
The first book in Albanian was written in the year 1555, yet
creative prose in that language is very much a twentieth-century
phenomenon. Albania was ruled for five centuries by the
Ottoman Empire, which banned Albanian-language schooling,
Albanian-language writing and Albanian-language publishing.
It was only in 1912, when the little Balkan nation finally received
independence, that Albanian began to be used in all walks of
life, including publishing and creative writing, on more than just
a sporadic basis.
The earliest serious collections of Albanian prose date from the
1930s with the works of Ernest Koliqi (1903-1975), Mitrush Kuteli (1907-1967) and Migjeni
(1911-1938). Indeed the years 1933 to 1944 mark a golden age for writing in Albanian, fleeting
as it was. This promising decade was brought to a swift demise at the end of the Second
World War when communist partisans took power and set up a primitive Stalinist regime in
Albania which lasted unbridled and unimpeded to 1990. The existing intellectual community
was terrorized into submission from the very start. Most writers either fled abroad, were
executed or were sentenced to long terms in prisons and concentration camps. Albanian
literature, indeed Albanian culture, had been silenced.
Despite the atmosphere of fear and intimidation which reigned in Albania for almost half a
century, the new system made great strides in providing basic education and services for the
population and in creating stimuli for a new generation of proletarian writers. The vast body
of writing which was churned out in the fifties and early sixties proved, nonetheless, to be
sterile and highly conformist in every sense. The subject matter of the period was repetitious,
and simplistic texts were constantly spoon-fed to readers without much attention to basic
elements of style. It is no wonder that many works of socialist realism remained in the
bookstores gathering dust. Political education and fueling the patriotic sentiments of the
masses were considered more important than aesthetic values. Even the formal criteria of
criticism, such as variety and richness in lexicon and textual structure, were demoted to give
priority to patriotism and the politburo's message. The approach taken was designed to
reinforce revolutionary fervor and to consolidate the socialist convictions of the new man.
Whether it attained its objective to any extent is doubtful. It was insufficient, at any rate, to
stimulate talent and to ensure literary quality and thus, in the long run, it did not succeed in
satisfying the aesthetic needs of the Albanian reader.
The second generation of postwar Albanian writers increasingly came to realize that political
convictions, though important within the context of the Albanian society of the period, were
not the only criterion of literary merit and that Albanian literature was in need of renewal.
The road to renewal was facilitated by a certain degree of political stability and self-
confidence within the Albanian Party of Labor despite worsening relations between Enver
Hoxha and the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
One turning point in the evolution of Albanian prose and verse, after a quarter of a century
of standstill, came in the stormy year of 1961 which, on the one hand, marked the definitive
political break with the Soviet Union and thus with Soviet literary models and, on the other
hand, witnessed the publication of a number of trendsetting volumes, in particular of poetry:
Shekulli im (My Century) by Ismail Kadare, Hapat e mija në asfalt (My Steps on the Pavement)
by Dritëro Agolli, and in the following year Shtigje poetike (Poetic Paths) by Fatos Arapi. It is
ironic to note that while Albania had severed it ties with the Soviet Union ostensibly to save
socialism, leading Albanian writers, educated in the Eastern bloc, took advantage of the
rupture to try to part not only with Soviet prototypes but also with socialist realism itself.
The attempt made to broaden the literary horizon in search of something new inevitably led
to a literary and of course political controversy at a meeting of the Albanian Union of Writers
and Artists on 11 July 1961. The debate, conducted not only by writers but also by leading
party and government figures, was published in the literary journal Drita (The Light) and
received wide public attention in the wake of the Fourth Party Congress of that year. It pitted
writers of the older generation such as Andrea Varfi (1914-1992), Luan Qafëzezi (1922-1995)
and Mark Gurakuqi (1922-1977), who voiced their support for fixed standards and the solid
traditions of Albanian literature and who opposed new elements such as free verse as un-
Albanian, against a new generation led by Ismail Kadare (b. 1936), Dritëro Agolli (b. 1931)
and Fatos Arapi (b. 1930), who were cautiously in favor of a literary renewal and a
broadening of the stylistic and thematic horizon. This march along the road to renewal was
finally given the green light by Enver Hoxha himself who saw that the situation was
untenable and declared that the young, innovative writers seemed to brandish the better
arguments. Though it constituted no radical change and certainly no liberalization or
political thaw in the Soviet sense, 1961 set the stage for a few years of serenity and, in the
longer perspective, for a quarter of a century of trial and error, which led to greater
sophistication in Albanian literature. Topics and techniques were diversified and somewhat
more attention was paid to formal literary criteria and to the question of individuality. By the
late 1960s and early 1970s, literary prose had thus recovered to an extent and was making
good progress, though firmly within the framework of the official doctrine of socialist
realism. Many of the most successful prose writers of the late twentieth century have their
origins in these years of cautious experimentation: Dritëro Agolli, Teodor Laço and Ismail
Kadare.
Ismail Kadare is the only Albanian author to have been widely translated and to enjoy an
international reputation. His talents both in poetry and in prose lost none of their innovative
power over the last four decades of the twentieth century. Kadare's courage in attacking
literary mediocrity within the communist system, and later - though subtly - in attacking the
political system itself, brought a breath of fresh air to Albanian culture. His works were
extremely influential throughout the seventies and eighties and, for many readers, he was
the only ray of hope in the chilly, dismal prison that was communist Albania. Much to the
regret of the editor, Mr Kadare chose at the last moment not to authorize publication of the
three tales of his which had originally been foreseen for inclusion in this anthology with
those of the other authors.
When the "Socialist People's Republic of Albania" finally imploded in 1990, what remained
was chaos - a sub-Saharan economy and little direction or leadership on the part of writers
and intellectuals. Half a century of isolation from the rest of Europe had taken its toll.
Though a reasonably broad range of Western prose had been published in Kosova, only
leftist writers and classic foreign authors of centuries past had been available in Albania
itself. Contemporary prose from other European countries or the Americas was unknown.
There was now much to catch up on, and readers understandably turned away from their
own writers to prefer new, albeit often shabby Albanian translations of the contemporary
foreign literature of which they had been deprived for so long. The early 1990s were years of
disorientation for Albanian writers themselves because they had no tradition upon which
they could build. Initially they imitated the styles and themes of Italian, English, American
and French prose, and it is only in recent years that a fresh and unfettered Albanian
literature has emerged and crystallized.
It is as yet difficult to generalize about the characteristics and concerns of contemporary
Albanian prose, but much of it naturally reflects the Albanian experience, bitter as it has been
over the last few decades and up to the present. After a brief and mostly unsuccessful
attempt to come to terms with the horrors of the past, writers are turning increasingly to
reflections on the very diverse aspects of contemporary life in Albania and Kosova, and in
particular on themes of Albanian emigration.
Albanian literature - especially modern Albanian prose - remains little known in the outside
world. This is due primarily to the glaring lack of literary translators from Albanian into
English and other foreign languages, but also to the traditional isolation from which Albania
and its people have suffered. Two hundred years ago, historian Edward Gibbon described
Albania as "a land within sight of Italy and less known than the interior of America." At the
cultural and literary level at least, little has changed.
The present collection of Albanian short stories and prose extracts is but an introduction and
is not intended to mirror the full range of Albanian prose. It nonetheless endeavors to reflect
the best of modern writing from the last three decades, in particular the 1990s. Included are
prominent and well-established authors from Albania and from the large Albanian
communities of Kosova and Macedonia, as well as some new-comers to the literary scene.
After decades of muteness, Albanian writers have many tales to tell. It remains for me to
thank all the authors in question for their kind co-operation. Particular thanks also go to
Janice Mathie-Heck of Calgary, Canada, for her vital assistance with the preparation of the
manuscript.5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editor's Introduction
Stars Don't Dress Up Like That
Elvira Dones
The Men's Counsel Room
Kim Mehmeti
The Loser
Fatos Kongoli
The Slogans in Stone
Ylljet Aliçka
Adonis
Ylljet Aliçka
The Couple
Ylljet Aliçka
Ferit the Cow
Fatos Lubonja
An American Dream
Stefan Çapaliku
The Mute Maiden
Lindita Arapi
The Snail's March Towards the Light of the Sun
Eqrem Basha
The Secret of my Youth
Mimoza Ahmeti
The Pain of a Distant Winter
Teodor Laço
Another Winter
Teodor Laço
The Appassionata
Dritëro Agolli
About the authors