The beauty of Shkodra...

By: Bajram Mjeku

The most beloved greeting from my nana, when I was a child, but also later when I started to grow up was: You become beautiful as a boy Shkodre!

Well, in my childhood imagination, a certain belief was created that Shkodra only has boys, but not beautiful girls!

The beautiful Shkodran in the photo is Angjelina Logoreci-Ljarja, more precisely the mother of the actor and icon of Albanian cinematography, Rikard Ljarja.

Angjelina Logoreci was born on May 4, 1918 in Shkodër. She was the daughter of Pjetër and Marie Logoreci and was the sister of seven brothers. One of her brothers, Anton Logoreci, was an excellent student at the University of Cambridge, who in 1940 directed Radio London in the Albanian language. Some time later, Antoni was the head of BBC Radio, Albanian Language Section for the Eastern Europe Sector.

She was the granddaughter of Mati Logoreci and the great-granddaughter of the Archbishop of Skopje, Andrea Logoreci, and gave birth to two children: actor Rikard Ljarja and daughter Ernesta Ljarja, who lives in Canada. Angelina was married to Karl Ljarjen, who had finished his studies in German language in Vienna.

She grew up among prominent personalities and the noble Logoreci family had as housemates Father Gjergj Fishta, Ernest Koliqin, Frederik Shirokën, Luigj Gurakuqin and other prominent personalities.

Angelina passed away on September 11, 1981 in Tirana.

This photograph was taken during the thirties at Studio Marubi in Shkodër, which forces you to think long and go back, where the hands of the Albanian clock stopped more precisely.

Before the communist regime, the Albanian woman was treated as a noble and dignified being in the Albanian society and her rights were strongly protected earlier by the Canon and later by the Constitution of the Albanian State. For half a century that the communist Empire ruled, in Albania the Albanian woman was treated as a side worker, a cooperator and little more. The work went so far that the cooperative women arrived at the Political Bureau of Stalinist Albania!

In Kosovo and other Albanian countries in the former Yugoslavia, the Albanian woman was treated as a trampled and forgotten being, even qualified as a "slave", except for the small difference from the second half of the seventies and later.

But, in Albania, the most dangerous experiment took place when the Stalinist regime, trying to graft the young man, went so far as to force the Albanian woman to do the hardest physical work, and began to deform the Albanian race, the most beautiful in The Old Continent.

To write about the beautiful and native Shkodran Angjelina Logoreci-Ljarja, it is impossible not to write about her son, the great actor Rikard Ljarja.

When the icon of Albanian cinematography Rikard Ljarja passed away a few days ago, out of great sadness and not accepting his physical separation, I neither wrote about him, nor did I want to accept that he passed away. The only consolation for him, I gave to my precious friend Pjeter Logoreci from Shkodra, because Rikardi was his aunt's son.

I had coffee with Rikard Ljarja for the first time in Tirana in January 1996. I have never met any Albanian in my life who has such deep knowledge in the field of culture and politics as Rikard Ljarja. I have never heard of an Albanian having such great visions and such creative ideas for the political right as the actor Rikard Ljarja. Even today, I am convinced that if the right-wing Albanian parties across the border (if they are really right-wing), had received even a little consultation from Richard the Great, the two Albanian states would not have ended up in the state they are in.

Above all, Rikard Ljarja remains a great actor and on the scene of the Albanian film he looked as beautiful as His Mother herself in this photograph.