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  • International Byron Event: 14–18 September 2009: Tirana, Albania
  • Shobhana Battacharji

'Land of Albania! where Iskander rose'

The first International Byron Event of the Albanian Byron Society, 14–18 September 2009, marked the 200th anniversary of Byron's visit to Albania in 1809, from which he emerged with the poem that made him famous overnight. Irma Koliçi met attendees at Mother Teresa Airport in Tirana and saw them lodged in the comfortable Hotel Mondial in the centre of the city. There were six people from Ireland, two from France, one each from India, Japan, Scotland, Switzerland and Taiwan. And there was Dutch writer Tessa de Loo, whose book about her trip on horseback in the tracks of Byron was launched on 17 September.

On 13 September, Professor Koliçi, interpreter, translator and teacher at the UFO University (Universitas-Fabrefacta-Optime), and Flutura Açka, poet, novelist and owner of Skanderbeg Publishers, were the perfect guides for a tour of Tirana town centre, with its imposing National Museum and Opera House built during the communist period. Nearby is the oldest mosque in Tirana, where we were welcomed despite its being 'just at this season Ramzani's fast', for 'in Albania religious tolerance is the rule'. There is also an equestrian statue of the sixteenth-century hero, Skanderbeg, who led Albania to a few decades of independence from the Ottoman Empire. Byron refers to him as Iskander (the Turkish version) in Childe Harold. Behind the statue are elegant yellow government buildings. It is rumoured that three 26-storey buildings are to blot out the mountains and gracious vista of Skanderbeg Square. Where will the sellers of freshly roasted corn and the children's toy cars go? We went along the broad Bulevard Dëshmorët e Kombit, past the Parliament house, the Prime Minister's office, the President's Palace, the star-shaped memorial to Enver Hoxha, Albania's communist leader from 1944 to 1985, now being restored as the International Centre for Culture, the Peace Bell and the National Theatre, to the 'Block' where the communist elite lived, now the most expensive residential area. The boulevard ends at the Tirana State University with its statue of Mother Teresa, the newest Albanian national hero. On one side of the university is the Centre for Albanian Studies, a stadium and a Greek-owned McDonald's clone. On the other side is the National Academy of Fine Arts.

We collapsed into the comfort of the rotating Skybar in the 'Block', from where we could see Hoxha's villa (a spare, square building) and the gaudy, art deco Taiwan [End Page 166] restaurant. The mountains are a more or less continuous backdrop. We drank dry, tannin-tart red wine, 250 lek for a quarter of a litre. Books in English, available at the friendly bookshop in the Opera House, were the most expensive new items in Albania. A recent edition of Edward Lear's Albanian journal cost about 2000 lek, approximately US$50. The only expensive things in Byron's time were the magnificent Albanian costumes he bought for 50 guineas a set.

Registration took place at the Mondial Hotel. Dr Shpend Bengu, artist, graphic designer and photographer, had prepared a set of artistic illustrations and a brochure. Beautiful copper plates with embossed reliefs of Byron in Albanian costume had been made by Petrit Pashollari. Dr Bengu also designed the stupendous conference poster, miniatures of which were snapped up before most of us realised they were for the taking. Dinner followed at the Mondial's Paulo restaurant. One of the waiters was called Elvis.

The Albanian event's symposium, 'Byron and the Balkans', took place at the Tirana International Hotel in Skanderbeg Square. Traffic delayed the British ambassador. Everything thereafter was on time. The event's organiser, Professor Afrim Karagjozi, read out messages of congratulations and good wishes from Lord Lytton, Lord Strathcarron, Geoffrey Bond, John Clubbe, Ken Purslow and Charlie Robinson. Then the symposium papers began, and we were treated to excellent simultaneous translations in English and Albanian through headphones, as if we were the UN General Assembly. Enit Steiner (University of Zurich) unearthed Albanian identities from her close reading of Childe Harold...

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