Initiatives of annihilating socialist realism in Albania: Writers of the rifle against writers of the mind

By: Albert Gjoka

Immediately after the Second World War in Albania, the conflict regarding the support or not of the armed resistance against Nazi-fascism extended not only to the political circles, but also to the intellectual and cultural environments of the time.

The writers who had taken part in the war, supported by the political structures, continued their struggle to bring about the overthrow of the literary system, with the clear principle that "literature is only the literature of the Party".

Initially, the clash appeared as a conflict between the new and the old; between progress and regression.

These debates took place in the media, in various forums, but they also became part of the art itself. This is what was written in the poem "Ku ishe ti" by the author Dhimitër Shuterić:

"Where were you?
when I asked for the sky to open?
where were you
when I was looking for sunlight?
-I was above the clouds,
I was in the sky and I was looking
qi tears the clouds
and together with the sun to shine
for you desert"
and in the last stanza:

"where were you
when was the earth renewed in the weather?
where were you
when did they say the first day is today?
where were you
when did the funeral leave that there is no death?
where were you
where were you
Poet?

- I was underground!

("Literature" magazine, 1947, no. 1)

While this debate was taking place, the League of Writers of Albania was created on November 25, 1945, an organization which was launched as a representative of the literary and cultural values ​​of the moment. It was undertaken by an "initiating committee: Monsignor Vinçenz Prendushi, Prof. Sejfulla Malëshova, Prof. Aleksandër Xhuvani, Ali Asllani, Prof. Skender Luarasi, Dr. Lazgush Poradeci, Dr. Dhimitër Pasko, Selim Shpuza, Sterjo Spasse, Dhimitër S. Shuteriqi, Shevqet Musaraj" (Dhimitër Shuterić's personal archive).

At the time of its launch, only one condition for the presence in the organization was set in the Statute of the League of Writers, defined in Article 4, which states: "Those writers, publicists and journalists who have served it with their works are not accepted in this LINK the occupier, directly and until the end, became enemies of the people""Bota e Re" magazine, no. 1, 1945).

The ideological clash started the newly created bodies, which quickly turned into not just a "media" for conveying and promoting literary achievements, but into an arena and then into an ideological weapon.

The first magazine "Bota e re" was published in July 1945, as a continuation of "Bota e re", of Korça, to support the "positivist and progressive traditions of the national Renaissance" (Bota e re, no. 1); "with a mirror of cultural development", with the support of "all mental energies that love freedom and progress", and to "support new talents"New World, no. 1).

The leaders of the magazine, who were also leaders of the League, warned of the difficult mission of being a platform for the free development of Albanian thought as a real force of progress. In all its issues, but also in the opening article of Lame Kodra, "The role of culture in today's Albania". it is clearly seen that the mission of this magazine exceeded the reflection of the literary activity in the country, but it was a cultural and political "square", and therefore it would close its activity very quickly, giving way to the other magazine, "Literatura nő", and which issued the first issue in March 1947, with a renewed staff, focused mainly on literature and with a new mission, which will be "the tribune where the problems of our literature, literary criticism and especially the encouragement for a wider and better literary production. But as great is the problem of production in the literary field, so is the problem of the literary direction, of a new direction which will give the quality to our literature of tomorrow". In this issue of the magazine, it was not by chance that the words of A. Fadejev were published "Comrade AA Zhdanov's speech and our most urgent tasks” held on October 2, 1946 in Moscow before the gathering of Soviet writers. Also in the next issue was published the article "Socialist Realism" by L. Timofejev. Even in the following issues, there are articles by Maxim Gorky and other Russian authors, publishing fewer and fewer Western authors.

A good part of the Albanian authors who collaborated with "Bota e re" are not seen in "Our Literature" with creations or critical articles. Chronicles of literary events speak of a great rapprochement with Russian literature and authors and the gradual installation of literature of socialist realization according to Russian practice. This cultural discourse is fully presented in the book "Semiopragmatics of socialist realization", authored by Ilir Yzeirin.

The year 1947 marked the critical moment of the conflict between "writers of the gun" and "writers of the mind", before finalizing the project that was approved at the Third Conference of the League of Writers held on October 9-12, 1948. This is evidenced by the best document that is being presented in this paper, entitled "Albanian literature in the period of the National-Liberation War"F. "Dhimitër Shuteriqi", No. 826, AQSH, File No. 185).

This document is stored in the personal archive of Dhimitër Shuterić, former president of the League of Writers, one of the main leaders of the group for the codification of the method of socialist realization in Albania. In 2009, this document together with other materials were submitted to the Central State Archive. The document has 13 typewritten pages, with accented Tuscan dialect, and is dated July 13. The year "1947" is written in handwriting. Yes, the alleged author of the material, Behar Shtylla (APS Archive, File no. 356), graduated in Italy in literature, who at that time was a high official of the Communist Party and later worked in the field of diplomacy.

In the Central State Archive, this document was registered without an exact date. Behar Shtylla completed three years of literature studies in Italy and worked during 1941 in the magazine "Skhëndija". This paper does not intend to deal with the authorship of the material, but it is easily ascertained that for its preparation, together with the author that appeared, i.e. Behar Shtylla, writers, who were part of the initiator group for the installation of the socialist method in Albania, collaborated.

The material makes a complete scan of the literary situation in Albania in 1947 and makes a classification of groups, seen from a strong ideological point of view. Here the new ideological concept for literature appears: "Even the literary process runs parallel to the general process, it is an integral part of it; even the traitors have their pro-fascist literature, the people in the fight against them create their anti-fascist literature"(F. "Dhimitër Shuteriqi", AQSH., No. 826, File No. 185). So, it is emphasized here that "literature is class literature"(F. Dh. Shuteriqi", File No. 185).

In this document, a classification is made into anti-fascist and fascist writers.

The second group is divided into: War criminal writers and Compromise writers.see the table). This classification is done by considering cultural groups as organizations that have a leader, have their members and supporters. Referring to the document, the post-war writers were classified as follows:

As can be seen from the table, an ideological criterion was followed for the classification of writers, where the group "fascist writers" includes writers considered nationalists, those who participated in the fascist government and the group of "neo-Albanian" intellectuals. In their grouping, the "compromise writers" included those who were close to the head of the National Front, Lumo Skëndo, and in the third group, the anti-fascist writers included all the writers who supported the war.

According to the document, “the writers who fall into the lap of fascism, become its vassals and servants, or accept the situation of occupation and write in this situation, are all connected in one way or another to the class of beylervert, bajrakts, merchants and the priests, in the class that today in the time of Turkey, that ruled in the time of Zog, that probed under fascism, are writers of capital and private property, inflated with chauvinistic feelings for the great Albania against the Greek, against the Greek, with the concept of the hierarchy of classes and the elite, the first who enjoys all the privileges and rules over the masses...."(F. Dh. Shuteriqi", File No. 185). Extreme measures are clearly warned against them and literary creativity, - their disappearance, - as it actually happened:

"Their work. The literary production of these people, for the most part, began before the occupation and is worth studying in that period. At the time of the National Liberation War, it is good that everyone was actively political in favor of the occupier, against the people. Their writings of the time have a publicity character - demagoguery and incitement for fratricidal wars, for predatory wars against neighboring countries, they glorify the occupation, they use fascist literature and politics, with Italian literature to inculcate the fascist and Italian culture in Albania. Should their work disappear?" (F. Dh. Shuteriqi", File No. 185).

For the group of "writers of compromise” it says: “these are distinguished from the former by a less visible political activity. Only this separates them because their layer, their spirit and their education connects them with the first" (F. Dh. Shuteriqi", File No. 185).

Against the group of pro-fascist writers are anti-fascist writers, like the new literature against the old, a literature that was born and developed with the war while their work included "speeches, tracts and political articles, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, poems, novellas, plays"(F. Dh. Shuteriqi", File No. 185).

At the end of this document it is stated: "New literature has a future ahead of it. She is foreign, this is ours. In the new period of the war for the construction of socialism, let the writers learn the literature of the National Liberation War and perfect the art of writing for our people in the new conditions of the war, in its current problems and aspirations, on relations the new political, economic and social created in Albania"(F. Dh. Shuteriqi", File No. 185).

Here's how Dhimitër Shuteriqi argued the status of some writers who were classified in the so-called group of "fascist writers": "Fishtë etc. we hit them as fascist and collaborationist in 1950 when there were such cases all over the world (Erza Pound was walked around in an iron cage, if I know correctly; Braziak was shot, and Celini could not enter France for 2-3 decades, but lived in exile, that I know for sure); in our case they acted differently, they didn't include them in the textbooks, they didn't reprint them..." F. "Dhimitër Shuteriqi", No. 826, AQSH, File No. 9). As for Mitrush Kuteli, he said: "In May 1944, - he found the day! That on May 1!, - in the 'Gazeta Letrare' published in Tirana, Kuteli talked about the 'writers with cobras' who had put their heads in the bag against the Nazis. It's stupid on stupid! Why? How dare he? Shevqet Musaraj was just publishing "The Epic of the National Front". Now not K. (Kuteli, - note. ed.), but the reeds also saw how the Nazi bankruptcy was precipitating: how dare K. come out and slander the 'writers with cobras' who fought Nazism? K. had to believe, as well as some colleagues of the newspaper in question, that the war would not end with the victory of the partisans, but with the victory of Balli, who would bring the 'pseudo' allies of the communists to power!" ( F. "Dhimitër Shuteriqi", No. 826, AQSH, File No. 9).

Referring to all the sources of the history of post-war Albanian literature, it seems clear that this document comes at a critical moment of debates between groups of writers and artists about the fate of Albanian literature and culture after liberation. Precisely at the time when the direction in which the Albanian national culture would develop at that time had not yet been decided, the document preceded what would happen to the entire literary process and the fate of writers in the following years.

The Third Conference of the League of Writers of Albania, held on October 9-12, 1949, was accompanied by fierce debates during the three days of its development. In it, two groups were outlined: Supporters of the socialist implementation method, represented by Shefqet Musaraj, Dhimitër Shuteriqi, Mark Ndoja, Kol Jakova, and the group that had reservations: Sejfulla Malëshova, Skënder Luarasi and Ymer Dishnica: In the three-day discussions PPSH had the representative of her, Bedri Spahiu, who opened and closed the debates of this conference.

In the finalization of the conference, it sanctioned the direction that Albanian literature would take, the new method of socialist realization according to the Soviet model, reorganized the League and changed the statute that was approved in 1945, "cleaned" its ranks, as it positioned itself towards the literary tradition and made its selection, determined the role of ideology in literature, strictly selected the topics that should be addressed by literature, selected the national form and socialist content of literature, the way of forming new literary talents, the role that criticism and self-criticism should have and the issue of the translation of foreign literature, where it was decided to translate mostly Soviet literature into Albanian" ("III Conference of the League of Writers of Albania October 9-12, 1949, Publication of the League of Writers of Albania, Tirana, 1950).

In the publication made especially for the Third Conference, only the discussions of Sejfulla Maleshova are summarized, where he opposes "demarcation line" in Albanian literature.

After this moment, the literature that developed in the Republic of Albania moved out of its natural historical bed, installing the new method of socialist realism, imported from the Soviet Union. Over the following years, socialist realist literature took shape the morphology hers, as a set of rules that had to be followed by writers, which included all the elements that had to do with the author, the work and the reader.

This fact that we are bringing to the reader proves a collaboration of the political structures and groups of writers who participated in the war, to intervene on the literary system, with the aim of annihilating a good part of the artistic production and punishing some of the main modernist writers of that time. Establishing the method of socialist realization in Albania was not made possible through a real process of theoretical or ideological debates for an engaged literature, - as had happened in many countries of the East, or as it had started in the 30s; or as it continued in the years 1945-45 (through the attitudes of Sejfulla Malëshova), - but through the mechanisms of extra-literary imposition, through the politics of the new regime. This is proven by the fact that Enver Hoxha, Nako Spiro and Qemal Stafa were placed at the head of the group of anti-fascist writers. Considering literature as "class literature", the so-called writers of the anti-fascist war annihilated other writers and gradually forced some of those who were considered "compromise writers" to embrace the "new literature", that is, to embrace the method of socialist realization.

In this way, the literature of socialist realization began its annihilating journey, which marked one of the most serious experiments, with extraordinary costs not only on the creative energies of writers but also in the atrophy of genuine literary values ​​and in the decline of the literary tastes of readers until the fall of the communist system in Albania. /Magazine "Palimpsest"/