The prose of Lumo Skëndos, a prelude to modern Albanian prose

By: Ymer Chiraku

As a literary personality, Lumo Skëndo (Mid'hat Frashëri, 1880-1949) would face two trials. The first was the intra-literary one, which had to do with himself, with the exigencies, with the taste and potency of his creative talent.

In the accompanying preface to his only literary work (in prose), "Ashes and ashes", published in 1915, he suggests that those texts included in that book are anyway creations that slept half-forgotten among the cards and collections of newspapers. Therefore, he reasons, not without some timidity, let time itself prove whether they preserve the embers of the first emotions, or whether the ashes of a fire extinguished forever have covered them.

It seems that the book passed the test of time distance, which was proved by the warm reception in the literary circles of the time, the inclusion of many of these works in anthologies and textbooks. But, more than that, this appeared in the role of this creativity as an influencing and initiating factor in the literary medium. In addition to the influence on Kuteli, as noted by a researcher (N. Jorgaqi), one could think that this influence goes even further, to Poradeci and others. Here, it is not the case that such creators, therefore, of this unusual format, lack other points of reference - on the Albanian and European level. The point is that L. Skëndo, for them, represented an authoritative personality, who embodied the great erudite of the time, the demanding publicist and publisher, the sharp translator and analyst, the follower of the tradition/spirit of Kristoforidi and Frashërlinje. Especially in his literary creativity, they felt with the intuition of a like-minded creator, a good-natured and prosperous Albanian material, in terms of language and style, and above all, this authentic atmosphere was harmonized, even with an emancipated European mentality, which it was required and expected to gradually become the trend of that literature, which, until then, was dominated by national pathos, fully justified by the circumstances of the time - when literature took over to awaken and convey the liberation movement of the National Renaissance.

Thus, many lyrical writings and many psychological distortions of man as an individual, his dramatic situations and sometimes his tragedy, are prominent elements in the prose of L. Skëndos, embraced and then followed by some other creators of the time, along with the phenomena of other aspects of literary discourse.

The second test, which L. Skëndos' creativity had to face, is the long silence that covered him immediately after the Second World War. This is a silence that lasted almost half a century. Unlike the first, the second proof has only extra-literary reasons. Nothing was enough to mitigate the capital punishment against him, to at least be mentioned, if only as a writer. Nor the fact that L. Skëndo had been the president of the Congress of Bitola (1908), then a minister in the first government after the declaration of Independence, head of some of the biggest newspapers and magazines of the time, among which Liria, Diturija, Kalendari Kombiar (a cultural and literary encyclopedia, as N. Ressuli called them). And in the end, the fact that he was the direct doormat of a big door entered history, like that of Frashërlinje, would not affect either. A very short segment of his political life, as chairman of the National Front party, was enough to finally leave him silent, or to mention him only in cases of denigration - this great personality.

But such long silences have a kind of chance. They are a test to measure the values, qualities of a personality. If time calls, reawakens this personality one day, then the silence, no matter how powerful or long, could not finalize anything.

The literary creativity of L. Skëndos, challenged both of these tests-traps, proving that that creativity, by no means represented a distant and forgotten relic, but was such an artistic document of the time, without which, it would be felt a significant gap was missing and many literary issues could not be explained correctly, if it was ignored and not taken into consideration. With the value of a node in the Albanian literary process, this creativity summarized almost entirely in one book, carries embers and active magma - from the troubled volcanic soul of the writer.

This prose, it can be said, opens the paths of genuine Albanian narrative prose. But it should not be limited only as a value within the inaugural role of a literary genre. More than that, it appears to us as an elaborate prose with coveted aesthetic levels for the time, far from the possible naiveties of a creator who had to walk through an almost non-existent tradition in this genre. The cultivation of genuine prose, for the spectrum of reflections and relationships between the characters it creates, for the compositional and discourse structures, has a more than necessary tradition. Thanks to his talent and broad culture, L. Skëndo compensated for this gap, making another challenge: he was trying to bring a modern spirit and vision to his prose. It was precisely this tendency that made this creativity have its admirers and followers in the ranks of future writers, among whom, e.g. M. Kuteli would openly announce that he had one of the stones of his literary education.

In a series of creations, but especially in that cycle of texts, which we could call poetic prose - or poetic etudes, conceived as quick brushstrokes to express an emotion quickly - but without penetrating finely, woven like lace despite all our stylistic eyes, it is noticeable in them, the attempt to draw the man in himself, as an internally subjectivized individual, with his passions and dramas. Written at the end of the century. 19th and at the beginning of the century 20s, they are like rays of light in those oriental environments, where the author lived and wrote about. So e.g. in the creation 'Her', one of the most impressive engravings that could have been made for a woman in Albanian literature can be observed. The adoration for the beloved, here seems to sum up the whole weight of the adoration of pilgrims and knights - of all times, for their superior earthly and heavenly symbols. Poetic prose 'Do you see it?', is the whole agonizing cry of the lonely man at the beginning of the century, seeking to drive away the addressless, universal darkness that is drowning him like a black pool:

Speak, friend, because I want to hear a human voice, I want to feel myself alive; let's talk, will this mourning last long?

Does this night have dawn, or are we in that night without breakfast? (Book: Ashes and ashes, T. 1995, p. 31).

The prose of this author has a flexible discourse, with stylistic colors and impressive messages, far from the naive stamps of the time, which appeared not infrequently, as a result of the recycling of well-known renaissance themes. The rich figurative language sometimes leads to overall symbolic and metaphorical conceptions, such as to the Ay mal creation, where the heights of Tomori symbolize the virgin domains of the Albanian race. According to the optimistic conviction of the author, they exist, but it is required that you can penetrate and reach them, exactly where he calls heaven, that is, a holy place. The combination of images and metaphors in the Old Man of Ylynec creates a gray tone and a state of nightmare, almost in the spirit of Dante's visions, where the circles of yesterday and today intersect. Thus, the author has avoided the emphasis and hymnic rhetoric of the time, to choose the path of critical examination, wanting and hoping a lot, but also doubting a lot and analyzing a lot; being enthusiastic, but also weighed down by a mountain of worries. By translating Lamartine and Hofmann, knowing well Baudelaire and in general the new tendencies of the European literature of the time, he undoubtedly, as far as his talent and circumstances allowed, assimilated and made many of those conceptual innovations his own, which gradually became circulating spirits and emblems in the literature of the c. 20th.

Although with many layers of lyricism and full of sensitivity, the prose of this author is oriented as a tendency by the realistic tendency. In a series of stories, he manages to create complete and reliable pictures, where the characters live in a naturalized way, in which the spatial and temporal dimension is felt. Apart from all this, without detailed lines, but with a spare and compact language. Therefore, the stories generally do not exceed 5-6 pages, although it always gives the impression that you have browsed much more, in terms of volume. So, the text managed to convey and store in the reader a maximum artistic information, within short texts.

The word, in the contexts of their placements and displacements in the discourse process, receives/gains a special evaluation in this prose writer. Thus, the writer manages to realize some aesthetic dominants, necessarily intended, such as: a kind of symphony in terms of sound and in terms of the rhythm and narration, as well as the circular narrative unfolding of the characters; external calmness with powerful internal details; the elements of nature – as an active decor in highlighting human relationships and situations. For the latter, it is enough to bring only a fragment from the story Old Man of Ylynec:

"... Next to me a stone wall, as if made by people of a different time, of a different world; and this wall was the one with striped stone pieces, with four chips, some small, some big. More places a plant, a moss, had come out of these cracks, had opened its green hands and was licking wind and light out of this prison."

So a plant, a grass, bursting through the stone of an ancient wall, opens its green hands and licks wind and light, as if mad with light, after a darkness of who knows how long. It is hard to find in the literature of this time such a necklace of metaphors, which releases vibrations of a shocking implied drama. It is truly one of those texts that any creator of today, even the most talented ones, would covet. As a whole, L. Skëndos' prose is one of those texts that continue to communicate with today's readers. Although created almost a century ago, they have not remained closed in themselves, ie. maintaining only the relationship with the reader of a past era. Based on the principle that literary texts are stationary in their form and moving in their meaning (G. Gulielmi), in the prose of this writer, a multitude of words and messages continue to be conveyed to the reader, therefore, the contact between theirs, which has also determined its continuation in time.

It is precisely this reason that, even after a very long absence, the work of this writer has deserved and secured its place in the context of Albanian literature. It should be rightly evaluated/defined, along with the prose of F. Konica, as a prelude to genuine Albanian prose, as a follower of modern trends in this prose, as a factor of veneration and influence on some talented future writers.