Sami Repishti ran away, leaving behind a monument!

Too bad that Sami Repishti [1925-2024] has died! As a voice from heaven, he appeared in the Albanian world, from time to time, when his wisdom was defined as hope! Somewhere in the first pages of the book "In the shadow of Rozafa", Repishti tells us how, while the history teacher was talking to the students about Gjergj Kastrioti - Skenderbeu, an innocent classmate from Shan says: "It's too bad that Skenderbeu is dead"!

Such a regret seems to accompany Sami Repishti since childhood, because Skënderbeu is for him the Albanian "superman" who changes the course of history! Today, every Albanian who has a taste for culture, for freedom, for human dignity, for a society without violence and injustice, or for the sublimity of the Motherland, should get this message!

Sami Repishti, one of the greatest Albanian intellectuals, entered between two centuries, passed away! He dedicated his whole life to human dignity, individual and social freedom! Albanian of Shkodran descent, writer, dissident, political prisoner, philosopher, professor in America, activist in various US administrations, all time spent for Albania and Kosovo, in constant conflict with communist tyranny and national oppression !

Formed in the West, for 10 years imprisoned behind the iron curtain! Escaped as in legends, arrives in the land of freedom! He turns personal opportunity into an Albanian perspective! Contemporary and friend of the greats, Koliqi, Camaj, Pipa, as great as them! Ideologist of the European identity of the Albanians as well as of the mindset and democratic standards! "I spent all my youth in my country of birth, Albania, where I saw all the inhumane scenes of the fascist horror of the Second World War. As a young participant in the Resistance, I found myself in 1945 in front of a totalitarian ideology and a government they called 'people's power'. The reality I experienced crushed all my hopes and with the will to stay true to myself, I resisted the new established order. They called me a 'rebel'. I accepted this setting and all the consequences that flowed; ten years of torture, prison, concentration camp and forced labor. In 1959 I crossed the border with a gun... The human degradation organized by the communists in the concentration camps of Albania humiliated prisoners in large numbers; many were killed, committed suicide, in the most brutal ways... Living in a concentration camp is hell itself. To face the torture, today and tomorrow, to face it every day that follows and this for ten years in a row, is an agony much deeper than that of death"!

This autobiographical part is found in "The Dialectics of Order and Rebellion in Andre Malraux", a masterpiece of its kind in sociology and philosophy! In peace between Islam and Christianity, tribal in attitude, unyielding in conviction, fascinating in written and spoken works, great influence where each one of us feels small, next to the presidents of the USA or in historical chairs of Western civilization, yesterday he went to eternity, one of those whose husband is rarely born! Gone and left a monument of the Albanian who collected in himself the valences of history and has the senses of modernity, he left the monument of the intellectual of caliber, that of the cleric of freedom and dignity in the face of tyranny, of the patriot who loves his country even when he kill you! The last great Gega is gone!

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Read also: The writings of Sami Repishti