By Assoc. Prof. Klejd Këlliçi
Part Two
Memorie.al /At the turn of the 1990s, many Albanian families faced stories that were at times traumatic, especially as children – many of them already grown – discovered that they had brothers and sisters ‘abroad’. For Albanian society and the Albanian family, which had preserved strong traditionalist elements even during communism, this was bound to be a traumatic event, although it quickly turned into a moment of joy, as fathers came to know and meet the children left behind in Eastern countries after the break with the Soviet Union. These now-extended families, once part of the Albanian fantastic imagination about the foreign world, only emerged in the 1990s as an unavoidable part of Albania’s opening to the world.
Continued from the previous issue
Just as with a parent, the leader is given two essential pieces of information: social background and family. I.K. writes that his wife is of peasant origin and is a seamstress, a person of the simple class, and that she has no other relatives in the Soviet Union. R.C., a candidate for party membership, similarly writes that his wife is ‘exactly like an Albanian… mature and very kind’, a distinguished worker who fulfills the conditions to be accepted into socialist society.
The authors of the two letters state that in the decision to marry (in the first case) and to become engaged (in the second), they had made their partners known to the Albanian authorities. R.C. writes that the secretary of the basic party organisation called his wife, according to directives, and “she was informed about everything”, meaning about what awaited her in Albania.
Beyond the pure desire and love, the letter writers emphasise their spouses’ wish to become worthy and loyal citizens of the Albanian state. This loyalty is also expressed by the girls themselves, who show through their letters the first effects of their transformation into Albanianised subjects, where the main element is the language, while the structure corresponds to what has been described as “Bolshevik speech”. Many of the female letter-writers write in Albanian, perhaps helped by their husbands.
The letters, especially those of Soviet citizens, show great structural similarity to those of the men, which proves the same ‘humus’ in which they were prepared. The sincere love of the Soviet woman I.B. for her Albanian husband pours out onto the latter’s family and then onto the Party of Labour, therefore she emphasises: “I dream of becoming a worthy member of the Party of Labour of Albania”.
Upon the women is claimed the transformation of a country and society that preserves intact and transformed the early features of Stalinism. Continuing his wife’s letter, R.C. writes that his marriage will be a great victory for the party, implying precisely the transformation – not only the ethnic transformation of the woman, but also her political surrender, her acceptance of the Party’s correct path in the ideological clash with the Soviet Union.
Completely opposite to the letters of Soviet women are those from other Eastern countries. H.D., a Czechoslovak citizen, is content to write a simple request in which, besides the hope of realising the marriage, she and her husband would create a family where love for both countries would reign. V.B., also Czechoslovak and an accountant in an agricultural cooperative, declares she ready to come and build socialism in Albania, as she would do in any other country, as long as the aim and objective of socialist societies remain the same.
The appeal is made in the typical language of internationalist socialism, rather than as an unconditional surrender to Albanian socialism. The woman finds it surprising that a marriage between two citizens coming from societies built on the principle of love for one’s fellow man is not allowed. The only paternalistic nuance of the letter is the appeal to Enver Hoxha’s sensitivity and his love for ordinary people, just like the letter-writers.
To build as authentic a rapport as possible, the girls and women try to distance themselves from those Soviet women who have left, abandoned their husbands, and returned to the Soviet Union. As if to touch the sensitivity of a society on the cusp of modernity regarding family and the role of women, Soviet female citizens strive to shed their identities and associate themselves with Albanian ones.
Responses, solutions, and the ambivalent state!
The responses to the letters are neither systematic nor organised in the relevant file. The vast majority of letters sent to Enver Hoxha receive no reply – at least no personal one. They are forwarded to the relevant authorities, organs of the Central Committee of the PPSH, or transmitted to the appropriate centres with which the letter-writer had been in contact. Letters addressed to Hoxha, specifically those of the students, are clearly their last hope for solving the problem. Specifically, they write that besides the official responses rejecting the issuance of visas or marriage permits by the official organs, they receive no other explanation besides refusal or failure to reply. Similarly, one must examine how correspondence between the two parties works in order to understand the dualistic structure of the Albanian socialist state.
The vast majority of letters or petitions are catalogued and sent – if not for information – to E. Hoxha’s secretariat, even though institutional practice makes clear the non-negotiable obstacle of forbidding marriages and the arrival of Soviet or Polish women in Albania. They are often accompanied by two responses: the official and the unofficial, the referral to competent authorities – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Albanian embassy in Moscow – as well as the informal guidance given to these institutions not to permit or accept such requests.
In the second case, it is clear that the relevant institutions cannot act or refrain from acting without proper guidance on how to handle cases, even though official practice is clear, especially after the directives that gradually blocked marriages or transfers of foreign citizens to Albania from 1958 onward, when Albanian-Soviet relations began to cool.
After a long letter in which H.G. intervenes to ask that his student son be allowed to marry a fellow Polish student, he is summoned to the Central Committee, where he is informed about the refusal to grant the marriage and given reasons that he rejects. For the Albanian state, foreigners are a constant source of concern, especially Soviet women, and even more so those who marry military personnel. The reasons are those of paranoia and insecurity, but also of the almost total breakdown of communication with the Soviet Union and other Eastern countries.
However, this does not mean that the letter-writers give up or retreat easily. The strategies for achieving their goal – reuniting with their spouses – are varied: from presenting and declaring the spouse’s loyalty, stripping her of any connection to her country of origin, and unconditionally accepting the socio-political reality in Albania, to demanding without supplication the denied right to marry. The letter-writers address not only Enver Hoxha but also other authorities, and as noted, Hoxha remains the last and most delicate possibility to explore.
If it is easy for the authorities to produce negative responses based on legal grounds or orders, for the leadership this is not easy. Few cases are recorded – more than three or four petitions addressed to Enver Hoxha – where doubt is repeatedly expressed that the previous letters, being unimportant, never reached their destination, and for this reason letter-writers in some cases insist on their requests. They even offer alternatives for solving the problem when it is clear to them and they understand that they will not be able to be reunited.
Although Enver Hoxha, or his secretariat, claim they are unable to reply to the letters, they instruct the relevant organs to deal with them and even try to stop the letter-writers from writing. Thus Hoxha writes in red pencil in the margin: “…the person should be enlightened, or work centres and basic organisations should be informed, and they should advise the letter-writer to give up the appeals.” On the other hand, the refusals are justified as a form of protection and responsibility on the part of the Albanian state towards its citizens. A former Albanian female student in Poland manages to marry a Polish citizen but is not allowed to move to her husband.
In the logic of Albanian paternalism, despite the preaching of equality, the wife was supposed to go and work where her husband worked. In T.B.’s case, her transfer to Poland is not allowed. Enver Hoxha, faced with T.B.’s letters and constant requests, writes in red pencil in the margin the justification for preventing the girl from leaving to join her husband, under the pretext of responsibility for protecting his own citizens. Protection in this respect operated in relation to suspicions and paranoia about the behaviour of Albanian citizens – especially women – in Eastern Bloc countries.
Soviet women or women from other Eastern countries living in Albania are seen as a political problem, and for this reason new arrivals are forbidden, especially from 1958 onward. Paranoia about foreigners is present everywhere, and moreover, it intensifies in the case of marriages, especially with Soviet women. Many of them have lived in Albania for years, and in the context of the cooling of relations between the two countries, they become highly suspect and potentially hostile subjects.
In a conversation that Albanian officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have with the second secretary of the Soviet Embassy in Tirana, many concerns are expressed regarding Soviet women and the frequent contacts the embassy has with them through the “Soviet Club”. The speculations of the Albanian officials, though unspoken, relate to the paranoia of espionage and the opportunities that the presence of Soviet women gives diplomatic officials to meet them anywhere and anytime. For this reason, forms and means of obstruction are found, ranging from harassment to expulsion.
After a letter from a Soviet woman separated from her Albanian husband, Kadri Hazbiu, the Minister of Internal Affairs, writes to E. Hoxha presenting the tactics and practices followed with foreign women, especially those who have not yet acquired Albanian citizenship. The minister writes that there are two ways to deal with foreign women, particularly those without Albanian citizenship: the first was infiltration or granting leave to go to the country of origin and then refusing the entry visa.
Interaction with the letter-writers is thus informal, and rather than a negative response – at least from the Central Committee – meetings are offered with the interested parties, or suggestions are given to other institutions to persuade the letter-writers to give up their request. Such are also the suggestions Enver Hoxha himself makes in the margins of letters, as advice to the authorities that must respond to them. In the case of an Albanian female citizen who wishes to marry an East German, he writes: “not to be allowed”, casting doubt on the letter-writer and her true intentions. Likewise, the directive concerning a Soviet woman married to a general of the Albanian army, Tahir Kadareja, who was condemned after the Tirana Conference (1956), is clear: “To be purged from here, and sent back to her own country!”
Clearly, and despite the absence of a personal response from Hoxha, the Albanian authorities were not only aware but also had clear guidance on how to deal with the letters. The former had a private character, the latter a public one, showing the essence of the modern and the collective good, not the private goal. The nature of the letters of students or other citizens regarding marriages with foreigners falls into the category of private petitions, through which what is requested is not a right but the direct favour of the authority exercising sovereignty.
H.G., the father of one of the students, claims that an injustice has been done to his son and that many of his friends have meanwhile brought their wives from the Eastern countries and that only Enver Hoxha can resolve the situation. P.G. insists that the marriage be allowed, since no rule has been broken, and moreover, the obstacles are not of a legal nature but are merely directives and should not hinder this legitimate right.
While most petitions try to touch the leader’s familial sensitivity, in rare cases they turn into instruments for denouncing the shortcomings of Albanian institutions, the prolongation of administrative processes which are themselves the cause of the obstacles. S.I. addresses Hoxha to ask for help but also to accuse the Albanian embassy in Moscow as intentionally responsible for hindering and not allowing his wife to come to Albania.
Letters written to the leader are not easy undertakings; they are always positioned as final attempts by the letter-writers, or they reveal the fatalism of the trouble that has befallen them and identify Enver Hoxha as the sole solver of their problems. This form coincides with a kind of guarantee that the letter-writer requests from the letter-recipient – a guarantee of non-punishment for a request that he feels incapable of judging as worthy of being taken into consideration by Enver Hoxha.
Conclusions
It is not possible to establish a clear link between the letters and the fate of many of the students, whose requests to bring their wives to Albania were rejected. Many give in to the constant pressure they receive through counselling from the central party organs themselves, the basic organisations, or work centres. The suspension and severance of relations with the Soviet Union also cut off the possibilities for spouses to communicate.
This also happened with women from other Eastern countries with whom, although formally Albania had diplomatic relations, private contacts were strictly monitored by the State Security. Some of them were convicted years later, as in the case of the “group of Polish agents”. It is difficult to say whether there is a direct connection between their requests to marry foreign women and their subsequent persecution! Naturally, the letters and exposure to the authorities would play a role in this.
At least four former students who tried to bring their wives from Poland to Albania at the turn of the 1960s were convicted in 1975. Throughout this period, as cited by the historian Lalaj, some of them tried to maintain contact with their wives through indirect channels, and for this they were surveilled by the State Security. The attempt to maintain ties was a sufficient indicator to be persecuted by the state authorities. Many of them abandoned all hope of ever seeing their wives and children again, and almost all went on with their normal lives, remarrying.
For some of them, having had such a relationship would be a “stain” that could turn into a political sin, and others would never mention it. Some managed and were fortunate enough to keep their wives in Albania, living a comfortable life within the logic that they could always be subject to some possible persecution by the state authorities./Memorie.al
