The Myth of Enver Hoxha in the Albanian Cinema of Socialist Realism: An Inquiry into the Psychoanalytical Features of the Myth

Although the mythological status of Enver Hoxha became fundamental in the political identity of communist Albania from 1944 to 1990, the absence of the Hoxha character in the Albanian feature films produced during communism begs the question: why did Enver Hoxha exclude his character from feature films? Both his role model, Stalin, and his nemesis, Tito, were incarnated in feature films produced in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, respectively.¹ However, though Hoxha appeared in many documentaries, several requests by filmmakers to impersonate his character received negative responses.

To answer this question requires understanding the myth of Hoxha. Hoxha built his own myth by combining elements from the myths of the Stalin and Tito with idiosyncratic features suggested by the Albanian historical context as well as his own psychopathology. Whereas Stalin appropriated the archetype of the caring father and Tito appropriated the archetype of the die-hard military commander, Hoxha decided to personify the divine heroic son. The Albanian cinema helped generate a stereotype of the positive hero who still looked submissive to the ever-elusive divine image of the great leader. Although some elements of this myth might resemble the Stalin myth, it differs in that Hoxha did not appropriate a paternal role to his nation. By the same token, while his panegyrists often referred to Hoxha as “the legendary commander,” an idea appropriated from Tito, Hoxha himself looked uncomfortable in such a position.

Therefore, the Albanian political cinema of communism can be better understood as the reflection and constructor of a social reality dominated by Hoxha’s presence as a ubiquitous mystic divinity that supervised society. That divinity was the truth and the source of all social truths. Compared to him/it, every hero looks, or is designed to look, imperfect and also aware of his or her imperfection. Because perfection could rest only with Hoxha, everything different, even if it was inspired by or derived from his myth, could not be as perfect as the source itself. This deity character was routinely revealed to the masses in two forms: the figure of Hoxha himself and his institutional incarnation, the Party. The only symbiotic reference to the Hoxha myth was the Socialist New Man whose creation was promulgated by Hoxha as the ultimate goal of the party.

We find that myth archetypes provided by Freud and Jung could not encompass the complexity of the Hoxha myth. In order to analyze such a complexity, we deconstruct that myth and scrutinize the provenience of each of its elements. We perform such a task by relying on Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist methodology and analyzing each of its composing elements from a cinematic work perspective—that is, the way each of these elements informed, and was reflected in, films produced during the communist regime in Albania.

The Psychoanalytic Roots of Myth

Several disciplines and subdisciplines have dedicated their efforts to investigate the role of myths in human activity. Jung advised his fellow psychologists that myth is the road to enter deeply the human mind.²

Myths can be read literally or symbolically.³ Their enigmatic language supposedly hides a deeper meaning that can be uncovered only if its symbols are correctly interpreted.⁴ Freud viewed myths in two levels: the manifest or literal level, and a latent or symbolic meaning.⁵ In this latter level, the myth is about the fulfillment of mythmaker desires.⁶ From this perspective, Freud maintained that, like dreams and other expressions of unconscious contents, myths concomitantly reveal and conceal wishes that had been repressed, such as incestuous wishes.⁷ Based on this approach, myths offer ideal models of gratification; they hide the true meaning and block fulfillment, but at the same time expose the true meaning and provide fulfillment.⁸

Robert Segal, in his survey of myths, narrows the level of analysis by viewing autobiography, not biography, as the heart of the myth.⁹ In the same line, Otto Rank, a follower of Freud, argues that myths are created by adults by...