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Fishta's letter to Mussolini, after being elected to the Italian Academy

Fishta's letter to Mussolini, after being elected to the Italian Academy
Gjergj Fishta

From: Frano Kulli

Father Gjergj Fishta, at first he was a friar, a Franciscan priest, since he was ordained in 1893, when he was 22 years old, a path he started in his early childhood and did not leave until he closed his eyes. having tried all the degrees of the hierarchy of the Order to which he belonged. He said the first mass in Troshan, from where he started on the road to Shejtnia, then Friar in Gomsiqe, in Kushe t Hoti, in the Franciscan Church and Assembly of Lezha, a church which, according to a legend, was marked by Saint Francis himself, somewhere around year 1219, when he had undertaken his journey here and there among Dalmatia, to spread the Order. As evidence that approximates the tradition and the origin of the Church, there is a plaque that is still preserved today on its door where it is written: (Hoc templum Fratrum Minorum ædificatum ast anno MCCXL – This temple of the Little Brothers was built in the year 1240). He spent most of the years of his life in Shkodër, in the Assembly of the Franciscans of Gjuhadoli, as a brother with the friar and as their provincial. And with the same devotion as on the first day.

Fishta was proposed as a member of the Italian Academy by the composers Mascagni and Pelosi and the psychologist, also well-known Agostino Gemelli, who were not fascists and did not have a good relationship with fascism. (An approach that rarely comes to fruition even today, with the one to unite the national poet-academic of the Albanians with the fascist collaborator!) Do you think they liked the lute as a fascist work?! He was aware and had evaluated as he did his appointment in the Academy of Italy. In this sense, there was no way he lacked the courtesy of the moment and this is expressed and never denied by Fishta. An authentic testimony of this courtesy comes to us from contemporary times. It is a telegram4 that Fishta sends to Mussolini, thanking him for accepting him as a member of the Italian Academy.


Padre Fishta al Duce
The academic Padre Giorgio Fishta has sent to the Duce the following telegram: "Grazie Duce dell'alto onore del titolo d'academico d'Italia che per Vostra benevola disposizione mi é stato attribuito e che io considero quale sicuro indice del generozo Vostra interesamento anche for la stirpe albanese, virtû questa ignota sino ad oggi alla diplomacy europea.
Father Giorgio Fishta

Father Fishta, Dukes.
Academician Father Gjergj Fishta has sent the following telegram to Duce (following): "Thank you Duce for the high honor with the academic title of Italy that thanks to your benevolent disposition (will) has been attributed (given) to me and which I consider as a sure indication of your generous interest in my Albanian background, a virtue that has been known to European diplomacy until today.
Father Gjergj Fishta

Testimony of Ernest Koliq:

Unfortunately, some of those who are dismissed as super-nationalists, a position they gained after a false patriotism, reproach the poet for the fact that in 1939 he did not accept being named Academician of Italy. They arrogantly accuse the master of lack of patriotism, who spent his life to teach Albanians how to love their homeland. And, the accusation, not only in today's Albania, but unfortunately also in some part of the Diaspora, a kind of codification has been found. And it is not intended to simply denigrate the man and his politics as much as the community from which he comes, the loyalty to the traditions that give leaven to the work, and the western civilization that feeds us with the great spirit. You granted the interpreter of the Albanian spirit the academic title, Italy honored Albania. I was present in Rome in 1933 when the decision was made in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I was called to advise on the matter in question. Among others, Zenone Benini, undersecretary for the Albanian issue, took part in this meeting. Ambassadors Jacomoni of San Savinio and Carlo Straneo.

I apologize to those who feel honored if I am forced to mention the intervention that I have on occasion. I feel it is my duty to reveal this truth, to remove the shadow with which they try to obscure the memory of the Poet, who I had as a guide and support in my literary path.

Benini, who led the meeting, announced that the Italian government, in order to concretely honor the cultural values ​​of the Albanian nation, proposed three writers as members of the Academy of Italy. The names mentioned were: Patër Gjergj Fishta, Torenc Toçi, Ernest Koliqi. Benini recognized immediately that the face contracted. He had hoped to see you shining with pride, because he asked me "Do you not approve of this idea?" I felt compelled to speak with the deepest sincerity. I answered that the idea seemed very good to me and that such a high tribute to the values ​​of Albanian culture would please and fill our Albanians with pride, but I added that Koliqi should be considered as an author whose literary cycle continued to be in development, so it has not yet reached the point where it gives permanent recognition to a writer.

As for Toçi, I cannot deny that he is an outstanding cultivator of legal studies and a trained journalist, but he has not published any literary or scientific work such that he deserves the dignity of Academician. I closed with the words that in all three of these names, Fishta is the only indisputable personality, worthy of being accepted in the high Italian cultural community, with which he and only he, summed up in himself the most brilliant gift of the artistic creativity of the race. .

Benini, addressing the audience, appreciated the lofty concept I had for the Academy of Italy. Then he wanted to know if there was any other writer in Albania who deserved a place alongside Fishta. I answered, according to my humble point of view, that there were two Albanian writers who would not have a bad image in the Academy: Mrs. Fan Noli and Faik Konitza, but I added that they lived in America for a long time. Thus, Fishta was the only one who was named academician of Italy. The name, since he was not warned, he found by surprise. The end shows his proud nature, he laughed, sure that he would have rejected the low evaluation with contempt, if two other Albanians with lesser literary merits had been included. Of course, he would have rejected him, not out of arrogance, but because you accepted alongside him two others much less than him in terms of literary education, the name would have been stripped of its true value and would have taken on a different meaning.

When, after the ceremony, I saw him in the hall of the Academy of Italy, he expressed his enthusiasm to me with the words that Pope Pius XII had said to him: "I am pleased with your academic title, because through you the Order of Saint Francis and the Albanian nation are honored."

Then the poet left this topic and began to express his concerns about the European situation. We were at the beginning of 1940. A terrible fate is following us! - - he called out regretfully, do you think he was talking to himself - "I am very afraid for the future of Albania..."