Albanian author Ismail Kadare remembered by authors from Central and Southern Europe
Kadare became the symbol of how Albanians wanted to be perceived
Originally published on Global Voices
Kadare in his Tirana flat, now a museum. Screenshot from video “Former home of Albanian author Kadare becomes a museum | AFP” on the AFP News Agency YouTube channel. Fair use.
The news of Albanian writer Ismail Kadare's death on July 1 has circulated quickly, stunning global readers and fans, who also include many writers, some of whom are from Central Europe and the Balkans where he enjoyed a particular fame.
Ismail Kadare was born in Albania in 1936, studied in his country and the Soviet Union, spoke Russian and French fluently, and produced a large body of novels that tackled sensitive issues such as autocracy and relations with the Soviet Union and China. In 1990, he managed to leave his country for France, where his books became widely translated and published across the world, and where he achieved a cult following among francophone readers. He was nominated 15 times for the Nobel Prize in literature. After 1991, he seldom returned in Albania but died at the age of 88 in Tirana.
In this 1988 video (in French) of France's cult TV show about literature, “Apostrophe,” he elaborates on his relationship to Albanian identity and his own writing:
Global Voices interviewed writers from Central Europe and the Balkans to reflect on Kadare's legacy.
Gazmend Kapllani. Photo by Stephanie Mitchell, used with permission.
Gazmend Kapllani is a polyglot Albanian–American author and journalist who lived for over twenty years in Athens, Greece. He now lives in Chicago where he directs the Albanian and Southeastern European Studies Program at DePaul University. His last novel “Wrongland” is now available in English. He shared his reaction with Global Voices over an email:
Ismail Kadare is a writer of enormous talent who lived and wrote in the age of extremes, under regimes that hated talented writers like him. That’s why he and his work constitute a kind of paradox. That doesn’t mean that Kadare was a dissident. One could say that the regime and the writer, in their everyday interactions, got along mostly on good terms. But that doesn’t define the core of Kadare’s work. What defines his work is his unmatchable intuition as a writer. Kadare had a deep knowledge and intuition of what one might describe as the “Albanian collective soul” and “Albanian collective psyche.” From this point of view, he must be thought in the company of Balkan writers like Ivo Andrić or Nikos Kazantzakis. He knew the weaknesses and the nightmares, the tragedies and the dreams, the failures and the virtues of Albanians and their tumultuous history. He mastered the modern art of the novel. He knew how to make a forgotten and isolated small nation and language at the Mediterranean crossroads between West and East attractive and meaningful to Western readers — or at least to Western critics. He achieved that under impossible circumstances that will continue to generate discussions, controversies, and debates. That’s why his outstanding work should be understood as a paradox and at the same time as Noah's Ark of modern Albanian literature and language.
Margo Rejmer, photo used with permission
Another author who also sits at the crossroad of different cultures of Central Europe and the Balkans is Margo Rejmer, a Polish writer and journalist who lived extensively in Romania and Albania and wrote two non-fiction books about her own experience as a Central European observing two societies deeply traumatized by their Communist past, “Dust and Blood” and “Mud Sweeter than Honey,” both awarded by numerous literary prizes in Poland. Rejmer lives between Warsaw and Tirana, and in a Facebook post that she wrote and gave permission to translate and republish, she says:
Kadare był najważniejszym pisarzem Albanii i jednym z najważniejszych pisarzy Bałkanów. Był Albanią – w ojczystym kraju stał się legendą za życia, pisarzem-kolosem, autorytetem, którego niewielu odważyło się kwestionować. W Gjirokastrze, gdzie się urodził, mógł przejść się za życia ulicą swojego imienia, a centralnym punktem na mapie miasta był Dom Kadarego, muzeum, które odwiedzali wielbiciele jego twórczości z całego świata.
Mistrz – piszą dziś Albańczycy, bolejąc nad śmiercią ukochanego pisarza. Gigant. Legenda. Ambasador narodu, jego symbol. Ale też: francuski szpieg. Komunistyczny sprzedawczyk. Ani dysydent, ani ofiara systemu. Więc kto?Żaden inny pisarz nie wzbogacił tak albańskiego języka, nie przekroczył jego granic, łącząc wysokiej klasy język literacki z kulturą oralną, wprowadzając do literatury lokalne dialekty i nowe słowa, tworząc teksty, których poetyckość była tak wyrafinowana, że odsyłała do metafizyki. Nikt tak jak Kadare nie uchwycił albańskiego ducha i nikt tak jak on nie grał pieśni pochwalnych na nacjonalistycznych strunach.
Albańczycy głośno go kochali i po cichu nie znosili, krytykując za megalomanię i za to, jak po 1991 roku nie oponował, gdy za granicą kreowano go na dysydenta. Tymczasem Kadare w czasach komunistycznych był twórcą wybitnym, uznanym i pokornym. Będąc pisarzem i obywatelem najstraszniejszego reżimu komunistycznego w Europie – manewrował. Napisał i „Czerwonych paszów”, poemat gloryfikujący dyktatora Envera Hodżę, i Kafkowskie z ducha arcydzieło „Pałac snów”, w którym genialnie pokazał okrucieństwo, bezwzględność i absurdy albańskiego totalitaryzmu. Jedni mówią, że uniknął więzienia, bo umiał ułożyć się z władzą. Inni – że to jego talent obronił go przed kratami. Być może i jedni, i drudzy mają rację.Kadare opowiadał światu Albanię w taki sposób, jak sami Albańczycy chcieliby siebie widzieć. Mówił o wielkości i dzielności starożytnego narodu, podkreślał wagę honoru w kulturze albańskiej. Chciał, by Zachód Albanię dostrzegł i podziwiał. Jego bałkańskich opowieści słuchał cały świat – przetłumaczono je na 45 języków.
Albańczycy zajmujący się kulturą, podkreślają dziś, że Kadare nie znalazł swojego czytelnika idealnego, bo stał się spiżowym pomnikiem za życia, a jego twórczość rzadko kiedy była analizowana krytycznie i w pełni rozumiana. Być może teraz, po śmierci legendy, przyszedł czas, by opisać ją na nowo.
Kadare was the most important writer of Albania and one of the most important writers of the Balkans. He embodied Albania — in his home country he became a legend during his lifetime, a colossus of a writer, an authority that few dared to question. In Gjirokastra, where he was born, he could walk down a street named after him during his lifetime, and the central point on the city map was the Kadare House, a museum visited by admirers of his work from all over the world.
“Master” is the word many Albanians use to describe him today, as they mourn the death of their beloved writer. Giant. Legend. The nation's ambassador, its symbol. But also: French spy. Communist sellout. Neither a dissident nor a victim of the system. So who was he?
No other writer has enriched the Albanian language so much, crossed its borders, combining high-class literary language with oral culture, introducing local dialects and new words into literature, creating texts whose poetry was so refined that it referred to metaphysics. No one captured the Albanian spirit like Kadare, and no one played songs of praise on nationalist strings like he did.
Albanians loved him loudly yet hated him silently, criticizing him for his megalomania and for not joining the opposition after the end of Communism in 1991, even though he was portrayed as a dissident abroad. Meanwhile, Kadare was an outstanding, recognized and humble writer during the communist era. Being a writer and a citizen of the most terrible communist regime in Europe, he maneuvered. He wrote both “The Red Pashas,” a poem glorifying the dictator Enver Hoxha, and the Kafkaesque masterpiece “The Palace of Dreams,” in which he brilliantly showed the cruelty, ruthlessness and absurdities of Albanian totalitarianism. Some say that he avoided prison because he knew how to deal with the authorities. Others say that it was his talent that saved him from prison. Perhaps both are right.
Kadare told the world about Albania in the way Albanians themselves would like to see themselves. He spoke about the greatness and bravery of the ancient nation and emphasized the importance of honor in Albanian culture. He wanted the West to notice and admire Albania. His Balkan stories were read all over the world — they were translated into 45 languages.
Albanians dealing with culture today emphasize that Kadare did not find his ideal reader because he became a bronze monument during his lifetime, and his work was rarely critically analyzed and fully understood. Perhaps now, after the death of the legend, it is time to describe it anew.
When in my teens I started creating my own library, Kadare's novel “The General of the Dead Army,” translated into Serbian, was one of my first books. At that time, I most probably didn't understand the author's messages. Later, for the sake of my own writing, I returned to the issues of dying at the time of war. I found many answers to my questions in the novel. The writer's life is also inspiring, because it bears witness to the notion that even in the harshest tyranny, one can escape — into writing. And change everything. This seemed like an important message for all of us who lived in one-party states.
In neighboring North Macedonia, the Association of Writers of Macedonia issued the following statement on their Facebook page: Unchanged: In neighboring North Macedonia, the Association of Writers of Macedonia issued the following statement on their Facebook page:
Денес, во 88 година од својот живот, светот го напушти Исмаил Кадаре, најголемиот албански писател на ХХ век, автор на повеќе книги проза, поезија и есеи, автор на сценарија и на пиеси. Својот најпознат роман „Генералот на мртвата војска“, го објавил на возраст од 26 години. Неговиот лик и дело ќе останат силна инспирација за голем број автори членови на Друштвото на писателите на Македонија. Вечна му слава.
Today, in the 88th year of his life, Ismail Kadare, the greatest Albanian writer of the 20th century, left this world. He was an author of many books of prose, poetry and essays, screenplays and plays. He published his most famous novel, “The General of the Dead Army,” at the age of 26. His character and his works will remain as strong inspiration for many authors who are members of the Association of Writers of Macedonia. Eternal glory to him.