Memorie.al / The Albanian communist regime committed inhuman crimes against religious clergy, and especially against the Catholic Clergy, unheard of before in history. The drowning alive of Dom Aleksandër Sirdani in a latrine pit by communist criminals constitutes one of the most hideous crimes that occurred during the communist regime in Albania. At a time when the communist dictatorship had invaded the North to subjugate opponents of the regime, the clergy, prominent families, and any individual who did not comply with the communist regime, a campaign of terror against the civilian population and multiple crimes took place in the town of Koplik, in Malësia e Madhe.
During the period from July 28 to August 29, 1948, in the capital of Malësia e Madhe, 56 men and women were massacred, beaten, killed, and tortured, and four men of renown and particular influence in Malësia were killed without trial: Taro Keqi, Nikë Mark Rexha, Dom Aleksandër Sirdani, and Dom Pjetër Çuni. This violent massacre was carried out by the communists at the Koplik investigation center.
The worst fate befell Dom Aleksandër Sirdani, who, after being beaten and tortured to death, was drowned by the communists in a septic pit while he was still alive. Dom Aleksandër Sirdani is one of the most prominent names of the Catholic Clergy in the 1930s. The Jesuit priest was a poet, folklorist, ethnographer, and publicist. After studying at the Saverian College, he continued his studies in Innsbruck, Austria. Following his ordination as a priest, he celebrated his first Mass on April 24, 1916.
Dom Aleksandër Sirdani served as a parish priest in the Parish of Shkrel, in the villages of Reç, Shkrel, Bogë, Dedaj, Bzhetë, and surrounding villages. In addition to his religious mission, like every Catholic priest, Dom Aleksandër Sirdani cared for the culture and ethnographic heritage of the population where he served, writing about legends, myths, folk tales, proverbs, traditions, and even the ancient superstitions found in the villages of Malësia e Madhe.
The murder of Dom Aleksandër Sirdani was calculated by the communists. It came precisely at a time when the dictatorial regime was liquidating the main leaders of religion in Albania and when it was changing the religious statute of the Catholic Clergy, severing it forever from the Vatican and placing it under the dictate of the Albanian communist regime.
After destroying religious assemblies, closing printing houses and religious schools, and confiscating religious and literary publishing centers, and after arresting the main leaders and governing structures of religion in Albania, the communists moved on to the execution of priests in remote villages in northern Albania. The goal of the communists was clear: the total eradication of religious institutions and religious ideology.
Violence, terror, persecution, and merciless killings were the panorama that accompanied the governance and approach of the Albanian communists toward their opponents. On July 26, 1948, after Dom Aleksandër Sirdani led Sunday Mass in his parish in Bogë – where he harshly criticized the communists and their reprisals, especially in Northern Albania – he was arrested a day later. He was abused along the entire road from Bogë to the Investigation Center in Koplik, where he arrived physically shattered by the animalistic violence.
The witness to his death, Father Anton Luli, has testified that after the communists beat him to death, leaving him disfigured, in his final gasps of life, he had asked for water to drink. Meanwhile, the communists, in a sign of primitive revenge, drowned him alive in the septic pit of the investigation center. The main literary works of Dom Aleksandër Sirdani included: “Shqyptari i vogël” (The Little Albanian), “Kallxime popullore” (Folk Tales), “Fjalë ari” (Words of Gold), “Legjenda e gjethes së purrinit” (The Legend of the Leek Leaf), “Frati i ri” (The Young Friar), etc.
In the 1930s, Dom Aleksandër Sirdani was a very powerful voice in the religious press of the time, such as “Leka” and “Hylli i Dritës”. After a long canonical process, Dom Aleksandër Sirdani, along with other martyrs of the Catholic faith in Albania, was declared Blessed by the Vatican on November 5, 2016. The brutal murder of Dom Aleksandër Sirdani is a painful event of the terror and hell experienced by the religious clergy in Albania for half a century.
The communists carried out the most terrible revenge and reprisals, especially against the Catholic Clergy, as they were clerics educated in the best universities in the West, while the communists were ignorant in comparison. Religious ideology did not align with communist ideology, and the communists were sworn enemies of the ordained religious. The murder of Dom Aleksandër Sirdani constitutes a page of animalistic shame against a patriot, cleric, writer, and great Albanian. / Memorie.al
