| Purpose of this thread is to explore the life and poetry of pater Gjergj Fishta. With an emphasis initially on "Lahuta e Malsis" or "The Highland Lute," his epic poem published in 1937. He's from the same region of northern Albania as my parents. When dad was preparing for escape from Albania in 1956, knowing he'd be swimming with my mom, his brother, sister-in-law and 3 children amongst them, across the River Drine, packed 1"X1" black and white passport type pictures of his mom and siblings, a few pix of my mom's family, and Fishta's "Lahuta e Malsis." It survived their 5 year journey to the United States which included dad's{Baci's, Pjeter Shpendi} 3 year imprisonment in the former Yugoslavia. Most fortunately, for Lahuta's survival, they found/arrested him while working on a farm with Lahuta at the refugee camp. By this time he'd committed much of this 15,000+ verse poem to memory. Baci says it was reciting Lahuta exerpts and imaging my mom and then only son, Zef, that gave him sustenance to hang on during the most trying days.
Among my most dear childhood memories is Baci giving us albanian language/history lessons using his copy of Lahuta as the text. Needless to say, life was quite stressful in those early years for my folks. Taking time to revisit the words of his intellectual and political hero and share them with his what totaled 5 children and his brother Kol's 6 kids, brought Baci much joy. The most special memories are of Baba{what we kids called uncle Kol}, breaking out the cifteli, with his plaintiff tenor voice, belting the words out from memory. They'd proceed in a 'call and response' mode. Then mom and aunt Katarina would join in...truly balm for their souls.
Because Albania isolated itself even more so from the Western world after Enver Hoxha took power, banning and burning whatever publications and people threatening his regime, it has been quite difficult for me to locate authentic literature(non-propoganda) of even major historical figures like Fishta. I've yet to locate a link to this, but Baci tells me that Hoxha was so intimidated by the power wielded by Fishta that he had his body exhumed and bones burned to absolutely erase traces of him. The demise of communism, the growth of the internet and the Albanian-educated diaspora disseminating what they know, now make it possible. I'll be eternally grateful. As I will be most to Baci for passing on a part of my heritage and people that is more often a butt of jokes and satire of the western world.
Finally, I grew up listening to Baci and his other diaspora friends and relatives sharing detailed accounts of Albanian history. As I grew older was skeptic about their accuracy. Most of these people, including Baci, had not a day of formal education. Woe be I, when I later learned how accurate they were! My father never compromised(to this day) his innate intellectual sophistication and life-long zeal in the pursuit of truth. On his first return to Albania in 1993(he insisted on doing it alone), he brought his copy of Lahuta to continue the history lessons with his never seen before nieces and nephews. I now have to work on getting the Lahuta back!
The following is what appears to be an accurate general bio of Fishta from the Albanian-Canadian diaspora. Baci, my fact-checker!
By far the greatest and most influential figure of Albanian literature in the first half of the twentieth century was the Franciscan pater Gjergj Fishta (1871-1940) who more than any other writer gave artistic expression to the searching soul of the now sovereign Albanian nation. Lauded and celebrated up until the Second World War as the ‘national poet of Albania’ and the ‘Albanian Homer,’ Fishta was to fall into sudden oblivion when the communists took power in November 1944. The very mention of his name became taboo for forty-six years. Who was Gjergj Fishta and can he live up to his epithet as ‘poet laureate’ half a century later?
Fishta was born on 23 October 1871 in the Zadrima village of Fishta near Troshan in northern Albania where he was baptized by Franciscan missionary and poet Leonardo De Martino (1830-1923). He attended Franciscan schools in Troshan and Shkodra where as a child he was deeply influenced both by the talented De Martino and by a Bosnian missionary, pater Lovro Mihacevic, who instilled in the intelligent lad a love for literature and for his native language. In 1886, when he was fifteen, Fishta was sent by the Order of the Friars Minor to Bosnia, as were many young Albanians destined for the priesthood at the time. It was at Franciscan seminaries and institutions in Sutjeska, Livno and Kresevo that the young Fishta studied theology, philosophy and languages, in particular Latin, Italian and Serbo-Croatian, to prepare himself for his ecclesiastical and literary career. During his stay in Bosnia he came into contact with Bosnian writer Grga Martiƒc (1822-1905) and Croatian poet Silvije Strahimir Kranjcevic (1865-1908) with whom he became friends and who aroused a literary calling in him. In 1894 Gjergj Fishta was ordained as a priest and admitted to the Franciscan order. On his return to Albania in February of that year, he was given a teaching position at the Franciscan college in Troshan and subsequently a posting as parish priest in the village of Gomsiqja. In 1899, he collaborated with Preng Doçi , the influential abbot of Mirdita, with prose writer and priest Dom Ndoc Nikaj and with folklorist Pashko Bardhi (1870-1948) to found the Bashkimi (Unity) literary society of Shkodra which set out to tackle the thorny Albanian alphabet question. This society was subsequently instrumental in the publication of a number of Albanian-language school texts and of the Bashkimi Albanian-Italian dictionary of 1908, still the best dictionary of Gheg dialect. By this time Fishta had become a leading figure of cultural and public life in northern Albania and in particular in Shkodra.
In 1902, Fishta was appointed director of Franciscan schools in the district of Shkodra where he is remembered in particular for having replaced Italian by Albanian for the first time as the language of instruction there. This effectively put an end to the Italian cultural domination of northern Albanian Catholics and gave young Albanians studying at these schools a sense of national identity. On 14-22 November 1908 he participated in the Congress of Monastir as a representative of the Bashkimi literary society. This congress, attended by Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim delegates from Albania and abroad, was held to decide upon a definitive Albanian alphabet, a problem to which Fishta had given much thought. Indeed, the congress had elected Gjergj Fishta to preside over a committee of eleven delegates who were to make the choice. After three days of deliberations, Fishta and the committee resolved to support two alphabets: a modified form of Sami Frashëri’s Istanbul alphabet which, though impractical for printing, was most widely used at the time, and a new Latin alphabet almost identical to Fishta’s Bashkimi alphabet, in order to facilitate printing abroad.
In October 1913, almost a year after the declaration of Albanian independence in Vlora, Fishta founded and began editing the Franciscan monthly periodical Hylli i Dritës (The day-star) which was devoted to literature, politics, folklore and history. With the exception of the turbulent years of the First World War and its aftermath, 1915-1920, and the early years of the dictatorship of Ahmet Zogu, 1925-1929, this influential journal of high literary standing was published regularly until July 1944 and became as instrumental for the development of northern Albanian Gheg culture as Faik bey Konitza’s Brussels journal Albania had been for the Tosk culture of the south. From December 1916 to 1918 Fishta edited the Shkodra newspaper Posta e Shqypniës (The Albanian post), a political and cultural newspaper which was subsidized by Austria-Hungary under the auspices of the Kultusprotektorat, despite the fact that the occupying forces did not entirely trust Fishta because of his nationalist aspirations. Also in 1916, together with Luigj Gurakuqi, Ndre Mjeda and Mati Logoreci (1867-1941), Fishta played a leading role in the Albanian Literary Commission (Komisija Letrare Shqype) set up by the Austro-Hungarians on the suggestion of consul-general August Ritter von Kral (1859-1918) to decide on questions of orthography for official use and to encourage the publication of Albanian school texts. After some deliberation, the Commission sensibly decided to use the central dialect of Elbasan as a neutral compromise for a standard literary language. This was much against the wishes of Gjergj Fishta who regarded the dialect of Shkodra, in view of its strong contribution to Albanian culture at the time, as best suited. Fishta hoped that his northern Albanian koine would soon serve as a literary standard for the whole country much as Dante’s language had served as a guide for literary Italian. Throughout these years, Fishta continued teaching and running the Franciscan school in Shkodra, known from 1921 on as the Collegium Illyricum (Illyrian college), which had become the leading educational institution of northern Albania. He was now also an imposing figure of Albanian literature.
In August 1919, Gjergj Fishta served as secretary-general of the Albanian delegation attending the Paris Peace Conference and, in this capacity, was asked by the president of the delegation, Msgr. Luigj Bumçi (1872-1945), to take part in a special commission to be sent to the United States to attend to the interests of the young Albanian state. There he visited Boston, New York and Washington. In 1921, Fishta represented Shkodra in the Albanian parliament and was chosen in August of that year as vice-president of this assembly. His talent as an orator served him well in his functions both as a political figure and as a man of the cloth. In later years, he attended Balkan conferences in Athens (1930), Sofia (1931) and Bucharest (1932) before withdrawing from public life to devote his remaining years to the Franciscan order and to his writing. From 1935 to 1938 he held the office of provincial of the Albanian Franciscans. These most fruitful years of his life were now spent in the quiet seclusion of the Franciscan monastery of Gjuhadoll in Shkodra with its cloister, church and rose garden where Fishta would sit in the shade and reflect on his verse. As the poet laureate of his generation, Gjergj Fishta was honoured with various diplomas, awards and distinctions both at home and abroad. He was awarded the Austro-Hungarian Ritterkreuz in 1911, decorated by Pope Pius XI with the Al Merito award in 1925, given the prestigious Phoenix medal of the Greek government, honoured with the title Lector jubilatus honoris causae by the Franciscan order, and made a regular member of the Italian Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1939. He died in Shkodra on 30 December 1940.
Although Gjergj Fishta is the author of a total of thirty-seven literary publications, his name is indelibly linked to one great work, indeed to one of the most astounding creations in all the history of Albanian literature, Lahuta e malcís, Shkodra 1937 (The highland lute). ‘The highland lute’ is a 15,613-line historical verse epic focussing on the Albanian struggle for autonomy and independence. It constitutes a panorama of northern Albanian history from 1858 to 1913. This literary masterpiece was composed primarily between 1902 and 1909, though it was refined and amended by its author over a thirty year period. It constitutes the first Albanian-language contribution to world literature.
In 1902 Fishta had been sent to a little village to replace the local parish priest for a time. There he met and befriended the aging peasant Marash Uci (d. 1914) of Hoti, whom he was later to immortalize in verse. In their evenings together, Marash Uci told the young priest of the heroic battles between the Albanian highlanders and the Montenegrins, in particular of the famed battle at the Rrzhanica Bridge in which Marash Uci had taken part himself. The first parts of ‘The highland lute,’ subtitled ‘At the Rrzhanica Bridge,’ were published in Zadar in 1905 and 1907, with subsequent and enlarged editions appearing in 1912, 1923, 1931 and 1933. The definitive edition of the work in thirty cantos was presented in Shkodra in 1937 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the declaration of Albanian independence. Despite the success of ‘The highland lute’ and the preeminence of its author, this and all other works by Gjergj Fishta were banned after the Second World War when the communists came to power. The epic was, however, republished in Rome 1958, Ljubljana 1990 and Rome 1991, and exists in German and Italian translations.
‘The highland lute’ is certainly the most powerful and effective epic to have been written in Albanian. Gjergj Fishta chose as his subject matter what he knew best: the heroic culture of his native northern Albanian mountains. It was his intention with this epic, an unprecedented achievement in Albanian letters, to present the lives of the northern Albanian tribes and of his people in general in a heroic setting.
This article comes from ACLIS - Albanian Canadian League Information Service - A logistic office of Albanian Canadian League
albca.com
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