From MËRGIM KORÇA
Part Three
Memorie.al / The impetus that drives us to view the historical period including the years 1939–1945 with a broad, fundamental, generalizing, and fully scientific perspective requires that we illuminate and then also rely on historical facts that have not only been left in oblivion but also deliberately distorted by the historians of the dictatorship period. Therefore, we are obliged to begin our analysis by first defining the basic, genuine scientific criteria regarding the use of linguistic terms without deforming their meaning, without allowing subsequently also erroneous interpretations (inclined by the impetus of a political ideology character), which in turn inevitably lead to completely wrong conclusions.
Continued from the previous issue
We will necessarily return to all these gathered historical facts later. In continuing the analysis, we cannot but shed light also on a fundamental moment that speaks volumes regarding measures of a national character, on the one hand, as well as concealment of reality and distortions, on the other. As a distinguished patriot and also as a proven linguist, before taking on the duty of prime minister and, precisely on April 20, 1940, Mustafa Kruja, together with his colleagues Ernest Koliqi, Karl Gurakuqi and others, was an initiator and co-founder of the Institute of Albanian Studies, also initially chairing the Scientific Council of that institution (a function which he handed over to Prof. Ernest Koliqi when he was appointed Chairman of the Council of Ministers).
The Linguistics Section of that Institute, taking into account the prior efforts of the Literary Commission of Shkodra in 1916 and also the support given to a normative Albanian language throughout the Zog period, subsequently following the path of its predecessors and raising even higher the achievements up to that time, after discussions and deliberations, had reached the conclusion that the spoken idiom of the city of Elbasan should be legislated as the normative Albanian language. I reiterate, the spoken idiom of the city of Elbasan, which best encompassed the common features of the various dialects of the South, Central Albania, and also of the North of our country!
Thus, it was chosen as the most suitable idiom to be the normative language of the Albanian State. I add on this occasion that Xhevat Korça, who was a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute of Albanian Studies, upon becoming head of the Ministry of Education, by document no. 61, dated February 20, 1942, ordered all schools of Albania that the normative Albanian language, from that day onward, to be studied in our schools, would be the spoken language of the city of Elbasan, and the basic official textbooks for teaching the Albanian language would be the Syntax and Albanian Language textbooks of Father Justin Rrota.
By this fact, the aim of the extremely national policy of the “Kruja” government is clearly and distinctly seen, which, under the circumstances of fascist occupation, set a condition and removed Italian as a compulsory language in Albanian primary schools, and on the other hand deepened its aim by legislating the normative Albanian language.
We have emphasized this moment only to point out to unbiased and honest researchers that when the Albanian Language Orthography Congress (November 20–25, 1972) was held, how it was applauded by the regime’s conformist linguists, and subsequently also by the historians of the dictatorship, as the foundation that unified the official Albanian language for the first time, completely ignoring the fact that not just a few, but precisely thirty years earlier, under foreign occupation, the act of unifying the Albanian language into a nationwide normative language was carried out!
And today, in the eleventh year of our 21st century, and in the twenty-first year since the collapse of the communist dictatorship, the sincere and by no means rhetorical question arises: will the day ever come when historical truths are told just as they were, all of them, neither with embellishments nor with distortions? Precisely, based on this aim we have set for ourselves to analyze, we continue with the presentation of facts, never mentioned by researchers of the communist dictatorship period.
When Francesco Jacomoni proposed to the leaders of the Italian state that the Verlaci government, as unsupported by the majority of the Albanian people, should be replaced by a government led by Mustafa Kruja, the Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano, on November 10, 1941, wrote in his Political Diary (Rizzoli edition, October 1990, page 556): “This is a further concession to the extremists of Albanian nationalism.”
If we were to start only from this assessment of the Foreign Minister of the Fascist Italian Government, where he in his subconscious not only did not consider the takeover of executive power in Albania by Mustafa Merlika Kruja and his comrades as a success of the fascist regime, but on the contrary considers it a concession to the extremists of Albanian nationalism, that would be an argument as well as an indisputable and extremely powerful proof to counter communist propaganda which, regarding that category that Galeazzo Ciano called extremists of Albanian nationalism, called them collaborators with Italian fascism (?!)
And if it remained at that, just a sporadic slander by the Albanian communists, it would indeed be an evil, but ultimately not very significant. But there is always a “but”, because throughout 47 years of dictatorship, day after day, month after month, year after year, and decade after decade, the labels “collaboration” and “collaborationist” were hammered in, from an extremely pejorative and only pejorative point of view, that concept became so deeply rooted that even to this day it is no longer discussed, and this linguistic term is understood only and exclusively in its negative sense! (???)
We now come, narrowing the circle of reasoning as well as drawing logical conclusions, driven by reaching a synthesis of them, sifted here step by step. Having treated above the stance of the Albanian Communist Party led by Enver Hoxha regarding the position taken with respect to the annexation of Kosovo and its inclusion within the Yugoslav federation, we continue with another documented fact that sheds light on a broader aspect of the stance of the Albanian State in its relations with Tito’s Yugoslavia.
On December 15, 1947, at the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Albanian Communist Party, in the presence of Marshal Tito’s envoy, Sava Zlatić, Enver Hoxha declared (the minutes of that meeting are kept in the State Archives – note M.K.): “… Now that we have eliminated this obstacle (Nako Spiru – note M.K.), we must make up for lost time and carry out as quickly as possible the DE FACTO unification of Albania with Yugoslavia in all fields (party, economy, army, etc.), because Albania cannot survive as an independent state, let alone build Socialism, WITHOUT UNITING WITH YUGOSLAVIA…”!
On this occasion, we cannot avoid two major assertions regarding how COMMUNISM has been defined by two well-known personalities on the international stage, and the readers of these lines may draw their own mutual conclusions regarding how Marshal Tito viewed communism and how Enver Hoxha viewed, from his perspective, the same ideology:
Mao Tse Tung asserted: “COMMUNISM IS NOT LOVE, COMMUNISM IS A PRESS TO CRUSH THE ENEMY”!
(Tito sent his emissaries who formed the A.C.P. [Albanian Communist Party], they planted the ideology of the elimination of the patriotic and extreme intellectual class, and also of the leading clergy, in order to disarm Albania from them, because; DEATH FOR THE HOMELAND SEEMED ALMOST LIKE EASY TO THEM!)
John Kennedy: “THE MIND THAT LEADS THE COMMUNISTS IS THE IDEA THAT WHAT IS MINE IS MINE, WHAT IS YOURS IS OURS”!
(Enver Hoxha, the typical example of the extreme egoist, loved Albania, but he loved it as he made it… entirely his own property, personal property. As he told the peasants of Librazhd in his house: “… trample this prayer rug with your feet… do you know whose it was? Shefqet Verlaci’s!”).
We now leave aside the issue of Albania-Yugoslavia relations, treated above with references to archival documents regarding Enver Hoxha’s stances toward the Kosovo problem. But also more broadly, regarding Albania itself, and we continue with a document, a document that when squeezed, bleeds the blood of Albanian intellectuals! And this document is the letter of the Albanian red dictator, addressed to his ideological father Josif Visarionovich Stalin on February 21, 1951 (after 22 Albanian intellectuals had been arrested without prosecutorial warrant and shot, without any prosecutorial claim or court decision, for a dynamite charge thrown into the courtyard of the Soviet Embassy in Tirana, as a result of which only some window panes of the building were broken), in the name of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania:
“… The despicable attack that the fierce enemy of our people and of the Soviet Union carried out against the Soviet Legation in Tirana on 19-02-1951 at 19:47, throwing dynamite into the Legation’s courtyard, has struck us right in the heart of our Party and our people.
This terrorist political act was directed against what is most dear, most precious, and most sacred to our people, the Soviet Union, which is everything for us and without which there was not and cannot be life for our people and our Party. Comrade Stalin, we have not been vigilant enough.
We, Comrade Stalin, swear to you and to the glorious Bolshevik Party that we will inform our Party and our people of this very serious matter caused by our lack of vigilance.
This despicable act of the enemy has enraged us immensely against the fascist traitors of Belgrade, Athens, Rome, and the internal reaction, their tool. Comrade Stalin, our Party will be merciless against the enemies of the Soviet Union”!
And what makes Enver Hoxha’s statement addressed to Stalin even sadder is his assertion to Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister: “… on this occasion we arrested 150 people, executing 22 of them, but in fact we do not know who were the authors of the bomb throwing.”
Following this letter, two questions naturally arise for our historians of the dictatorship period, regardless of whether they knew the fact of the so-called “bomb at the Soviet Embassy in Tirana” or not, and how they knew it, it is important to clarify:
1 – After the collapse of the communist dictatorship, have they searched and read this document addressed to Marshal Stalin by Enver Hoxha, in the name of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the P.P.Sh.?
2 – And the investigative file No. 1687 – A – of the State Security Directorate, as well as that No. 64 dated 27-02-1951 of the Judicial Decision on the basis of which those 22 victims were sentenced to death by firing squad, ONE WEEK AFTER THEIR EXECUTION HAD IN FACT BEEN CARRIED OUT – have the gentlemen historians seen it, yet they continue and remain silent in this direction? Why do they remain silent before a SACRIFICE of 22 human victims on the red altar of the Kremlin?
Along this path, I cannot but add that, during a conversation with one of the historians (current scientific staff of the Institute of Historical Studies of the Academy of Sciences), in order to justify before me the fact that the said Institute cannot keep up with the diversity of issues raised and requested to be studied by them while also maintaining as objective a stance as possible towards collaborationism during the occupation of our country, he pointed out to me that in that institute, only one historian deals with the study of the period of World War II!
Even just this fact (if it is fundamental) suffices to convince me that late, very late, if ever, the said institute will get to the forefront of the issues of our Nation’s history (at least as far as rewriting the history of the years from 1939 to the end of 1945 is concerned). Thus, with great regret, I am forced to admit that the treatment, deliberation, and judgment of the problem of COLLABORATIONISM in general (including collaboration in the interest of the homeland, traitorous collaboration, as well as political opportunism) as a practical timeframe are effectively shifted to the GREEK CALENDS!
But this is the sad reality that conditions the treatment of the problem of collaborationism in its entirety with delay, thus allowing the mentality even today to continue and be channeled along that rut defined by the communist historians! Nevertheless, regardless of the capacities of the scientific institutions of our country, it is the duty of each one, as much as possible, not to fail to contribute, however modest, in this direction. Therefore, also… we continue.
During the period of the flourishing of unconditional submission to the Soviet Union, one of the sad stains of that time was also the entire history of the creation, administration, and continued existence as a former rudiment of the submarine fleet, Pasha Liman. Only the examination of the testimonies of the former commander of that naval base, Dashamir Ohri, with his assertions about how Albania bore not insignificant level expenses and also bore all the responsibilities that followed as a result of the secret underwater operations of submarines that were officially Albanian, but effectively followed plans and implemented directives of the Soviet Naval Fleet Command, in accordance with Soviet political interests in the Mediterranean, leaves no room for any contradiction in this regard!
We have cited this Soviet base in the Mediterranean, precisely because it was an active and operational base of the Soviet Union, of fundamental importance but at the same time a not insignificant link of political collaboration, with the subordination of our national interests to Soviet interests, diametrically opposed truths to the propagandistic masking that was given to that base by the literature and artistic cinematography of the dictatorship era … after we broke with the U.S.S.R. and aligned with China! As above, in the wake of the total sacrifice of our national interests and blind submission to foreign interests! / Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
