The Walls Behind the Curtain: East European Prison Literature, 1945–1990

Kasëm Trebeshina (b. 1926)

30 | albania Kasëm trebeshina (b. 1926) A highly esteemed poet, prose writer, and dramatist, Trebeshina had to wait until after the collapse of the Albanian Communist regime before being able to bring to light most of his literary works, which until the 1990s existed only in manuscript. Thirty years separate the publication of his first book, the poetry collection Artani dhe Min’ ja ose hijet e fundit të maleve (Artani and Minja or the Last Shadows of the Mountains, 1961), and the post-Communist volume of stories Stina e stinëve (The Season of Seasons, 1991). A native of Berat, Trebeshina left school in Elbasan in order to join the resistance movement during World War II. After the war, he studied at the Theater Institute in Leningrad but did not remain long. Trebeshina’s early enthusiasm for communism led him to become a member of the Communist Party and to join the Writers’ Union. But these affiliations did not prevent him from addressing a public memorandum under the title Promemorje (Pro memoria) to the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha on 5 October 1953, admonishing him on the perils of dictatorship and cultural censorship, stressing that the Writers’ Union was an organization “of free individuals and not a part of a feudal society in which feudal rights and obligations are practiced in the strangest way.”11 This act of daring and defiance—spectacular for its time and place—cost him seventeen years in prison, followed by twenty years of absence from the literary scene. He has since been embraced as an early champion of political and cultural freedom in Albania and as an important writer whose many works dating back to the 1940s and early 1950s have finally begun to reach the public. After the ice-breaking Stina e stinëve in 1991, Trebeshina went on to publish Koha tani, vendi këtu (Time Now, Place Here, 1992), Legjenda e asaj që iku (The Legend of Those Who Departed, 1992), Qezari niset për në luftë (Caesar Has Set Out for War, 1993), Rruga e Golgotës (The Road to Golgotha, 1993), Lirika dhe satirë: Shfletim i paqëllimtë kujtimesh (Lyrics and Satires: Aimless Leafing Through Memories, 1994), Hijet e shekujve (The Shadows of Centuries, 1996), Ëndrra dhe hije: Drama (Dreams and Shadow: A Play, 1996), Histori e atyre që nuk janë (The History of Those Who Are No Longer, 1995), Kënga shqiptare (The Book of the Albanians, 2001), Tregtari i skeleteve (The Skeleton Salesman, 2006), and Drama: Antologji personale 1937–2006 (Drama: A Personal Anthology 1937–2006, 2006). The following excerpts come from Lirika dhe satire: Shfletim i paqëllimtë kujtimesh (Tirana: Marin Barleti, 1994), 3, 4, 12–13, 14, 15, 17, 18–19, 63, 80, 86, and have been translated from Albanian by Harold B. Segel. albania | 31 from Lirika dhe satire Aisbergu (The Iceberg) An Iceberg from the Pole broke off, yearning to embrace the Equator. It made its voyage across the oceans, above the azure vault it swam both night and day . . . Kissed by the waves it slowly melted but hot passion returned as it swelled, and the Iceberg shortened its path, dissolving in order to freeze without knowing why! (Prison, 1954) Mediokrët (Mediocrity) They boast of the age and letters, pleased, always shameless, it seems genius itself and all the others can learn! Nothing knows how to compromise, garbage that time slowly tramples, 32 | albania comes from life and passes into nothingness, lives with noise, forgets its death! (1949) Pamje e përgjakur (A Bloodstained View) I have no calm night or day, except for the ancient songs I hear. I awaken with them at dawn, I sit with them in the evening. When darkness covers the place, the rivers and waves lament and the mountains, silent like graves, continue the silent discourse. The field is covered with blood and the bodies of fallen boys, the crows come and scratch, and eat, when the cuckoos have taken up the lament. Like a shadow there spins among them a girl with loosened hair, cadavers gaze by turns, tears flow until the dawning. She seeks the one who is not even known, neither wailing, nor understanding words, tranquility covers the Moon, it can be heard in the midst of tempests! And the songs that have never ended through the centuries I hear anew: in the heart they are reborn with me, in the heart...