Dashnor Kaloçi
Memorie.al publishes two archival documents issued by the Central State Archive in Tirana (fund of the former Central Committee of the ALP), which contains two letters of the journalist and writer of Cham origin from the village Markat of Saranda, Bilal Xhaferr Hoxha, where the first one dated 13 July 1969 is sent to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Enver Hoxha, while the second letter is the one that Bilali left at the border line before fleeing to Greece, on 30 August 1969. The first letter sent to Enver Hoxha, among other things, he wrote: “If anyone has a golden conscience towards the working class and the Party, I have pearls, because I come directly from the heart of the working class, where I grew up, worked and I work as a worker and I learned from her ”. While in the letter he left in the border area shortly before the escape, among other things he writes: “After waiting in vain for two years, I am being forced to flee Albania, but I never ” ?!
CHAPTER XI
This short document that we are publishing in this part of the book is the card of the letter-complaints sector near the apparatus of the Central Committee of the ALP, (Card of Registration and Registration of Letters), where based on the practice on which the administration operated has registered the letter sent by Bilal Xhaferri to the Address of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, Enver Hoxha. Also, in that card, after listing the generalities of the person sending the letter, a brief summary is recorded about the main problem that the letter writer has and raises to the address of the Party leader. And at the end of the card is placed the note that the letter writer presented to get the answer and what answer was given.
The document is published according to all the data of the type card (form) and the relevant notes that have been made by the clerk of the paper sector. And the most important thing in this file is the answer given to the letter writer (Bilal Xhaferri) when he went to get the answer. According to the document, it reads: “He came to the meeting and was told that he received the answer at the meeting where he made self-criticism.”
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF ALP.
General Branch Alf. B.
Section of receptions, letters and complaints Nr. 28.
Dt.13.7.1969
LETTER REGISTRATION AND RECORDING CARD
Name, fatherhood, surname. Bilal Xhaferr Hoxha. Situation in the Party …….
Address: NBSH ‘8 Nëntori’ K Sector Kulla, Sukth… District (city) Durrës.
To whom is the letter addressed…. Comrade Enver Hoxha… was read by…
The issue he raises: He complains that since he rose against Kadare’s novel “Dasma”, a great war has been waged against him. He was immediately told that he was the son of a shot ballist, and then the publications he had sent to the press were banned, he was fired, and so on.
He writes that he does not even know his father and states: If anyone has a golden conscience towards the working class and the Party, he has pearls, that he comes directly from the heart of the working class, because he grew up, worked and works as a worker and was learned from her. I beg Comrade Enver to give a verdict on this issue.
His discussion of the novel “Wedding” is written and can be viewed. Announces that he defends his discussion.
Order given by the relevant department or director….
Actions to review the case ……
Granted for implementation… ..Organi… date…
Receipt signature or no. of departure.
Deadline for implementation. Repeated letters or requests.
He came to the meeting and was told that he had received the answer at the meeting where he made self-criticism. 03/24/1969
(Fund 14. Ap. Central Committee of the ALP, (Structure) File 584-585. Year 1969. Fl. 1-180-214)
CHAPTER I XII
This letter, dated August 30, 1969, is also one of the most important documents in this book, the so-called “Bilal Xhaferri case” that has been much talked about for years, as it sheds light on a distant event, which has been discussed and continues. to be discussed occasionally in the daily press.
The document in question contains the letter that Bilal Xhaferi left on the border line with Greece, somewhere near the clone (near his village, Markat in the district of Saranda), at the last moment before his escape. Bilal’s letter is sent to Hysni Kapos, the secretary of the Central Committee of the ALP, which covered the organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat (Ministry of Interior, State Security, Prosecutor – Investigator, etc.), together with a cover letter bearing the signature of the former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs at the time, Feçor Shehu.
Also, this letter was sent to Ramiz Alia, as Bilal Xhaferri had been a writer and these issues were covered in party ways by him, as secretary of the Central Committee, for propaganda, art and culture. This document, like all the others preceded in the pages of this book, sees the light of publication for the first time, but the existence of this letter has been known, as it has been found by the villagers of the border area, who went to help of the border post to work the clone and has been handed over to the competent authorities.
And this thing, the fact that Bilal Xhaferri left a letter on the border line was also mentioned in the press, but what that letter contained was never made known.
The letter in question with Bilal’s writing, which is in the Central State Archive, is quite wrinkled, as it has been torn from an outdated cement bag and is barely legible. It must have been kept in Bilal’s pocket, to be thrown in the first instance if it were to be dictated by anyone during the escape, without passing the clone. But it was typed by the Ministry of Interior when it was sent to Hysni Kapos and from the archive microfilm it is quite clear to read.
Given its content and quite clear and careful writing, it hints that Bilal did not write it in a hurry, quickly somewhere on the border line a few moments before the escape, but before he got there. So, the letter seems to have been made by him after he thought about it for a long time, despite the fact that his condition in those moments when he was leaving the homeland, was quite depressing ?!
Two very interesting things are clearly noticed from reading the letter. First; in none of its lines does Bilali express love for the Party and Comrade Enver (he never mentions the word Party), which we encounter in his first letter to Enver Hoxha. This fact shows best that the words he said about the Party and Comrade Enver, saying among other things that: “if there are proletarians, I am the pearl of the Party”, were not his conviction. So, it is clear that those expressions in the letter sent to Enver, were just a subtly thought-out trick by him, to win the heart of the communist dictator, so that in the best case he could be rehabilitated, or in the end he would win. what could he lose from what he had lost, such as work, housing, society, treatment by the state, or even the right to publish!
The second: is that Bilal realized that he had made a mistake by attacking Kadare in that way in the Writers’ League, and perhaps this is what he means when he says in the letter: “I made a tactical mistake”, but according to him, he has done without malice.
Like the other archival documents reflected in the pages of this book, we are publishing this in full and without any changes or cuts.
Information of Feçor Shehu sent to Hysni Kapos, for Bilal Xhaferri’s letter
Comrade Hysni
I am sending you the letter of Bilal Xhaferri, who left it at the border line at the time of his escape to Greece.
Tirana, on 16.IX.1969
With respect, Feçor Shehu
Ramiz
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF ALP
Tirana
Dt. 09/20/1969
I waited almost two years for you to look at my case. I have addressed you twice with a letter if it is in vain. Finally, after these two difficult years of patience and after a whole life that passed me by waiting, hoping that you would support me and treat me properly, after losing all connection I had with literary life, with the people, with my art to whom I also devoted myself, I decided to leave the homeland and emigrate where I could to foreign countries.
You expelled me, I was put in the condition of a man who has only one thing left: to jump on the wheels of the train: and now, struggling with life and death, I am trying to exist still alive and I am escaping, which is me it looks like I’m jumping under the wheels of a train. I am not implicated in any political issue with any kind of foreign power, with any kind of organization, with any kind of person. I am just following my bitter fate.
I am a man who has given proof that I love this country, I love this people and I tried to do something in life, trying in the field of literature in the most difficult conditions, although after a tactical mistake of mine, I saw malicious, you completely deprived me, denied me, exterminated me alive as a writer. However, again I will remain who I was, a man who loves his people and homeland to the end and never betrays this people and has a homeland, even though he may emigrate far away.
Of course, only I am responsible for my action. No one else of my people, of my relatives, of my friends and acquaintances knows and can not blame you for my affair. For the practical possibilities of escape, I was forced to take with me only one man, Selfo Hoxha. He left the family only because he thinks that if I escape, he will definitely be arrested, after the State Security organs will remember that I escaped with his help. They put him in front of the dilemma: to either come with me or denounce me, he decided to come, because his life has become hard in the village where they see him as an enemy.
August 30, 1969
Bilal Xhaferri
Central State Archive. Yes there. Funds 14. Ap. Central Committee of the ALP, (Structure) File 584-585. Year 1969. Fl. 1-180-214.
This article is taken from the book “Denounced Kadare” by the author, Dashnor Kaloçi, published by UET-PRESS, Tirana, November 2015/Memorie.al
