By Gani Qarri
Memorie.al / Qerim Arifi was born on February 22, 1946, in the city of Presheva or, better said, in the capital and heart of Eastern Kosovo, a hearth that continuously produced prominent intellectuals and creators, with whom he honored himself and all our ethnic lands, as well as names that forever remain in the hearts of Albanians and the memory of our entire nation. He was born as the only child of two young parents, Ramiz and Safete, who unfortunately lost his mother when Qerim was only 3 years old, while his father, as the only man in the house, who had to work and fight for survival, not having the opportunity to take care of a minor childlike little Qerim, was taken in by his uncles to raise him and for about 7 years, his grandmother (the poet’s mother’s mother) took care of the future sublime creator, professor and journalist, Qerim Arifi.
Qerim completed his primary and secondary education in Preševo, and the ‘Normal’ school and the Faculty of Philosophy, branch of English Language and Literature, at the University of Prishtina. After graduating from the faculty, equipped with the knowledge and diploma of a young professor of English from the University of Prishtina, Qerim Arifi returned to his homeland and for several years, worked and contributed without sparing, for the education and professional training of Albanian semi – high school graduate students, at the high school-gymnasium “Skënderbeu”, in Presheva. For the young professor, pedagogue and renowned intellectual from Presheva, there was nothing more impressive, more special honor and greater pleasure, than when he saw, with his own eyes, every day, how the new generations of autochthonous Albanians grew up and were educated healthily and were inspired rightly and rose nationally, who from the school-gymnasium where he taught, generation after generation, emerged as students, teachers and leaders of educational, educational, administrative and political institutions and entities, not only in Presheva and the surrounding area, but also in Kosovo where he made a good name and left an indelible mark.
They were the worthy successors and followers of the high Albanian national traditions, visions and ideals, sons of the toil and sweat of parents who yearned for more light, equality and dignity and ethnic rights and human freedom, long-suffering authors of endless sacrifice and indomitable suckers of contemporary, primary, secondary and university education in the native Albanian language, as was the professor, journalist and poet and creator of painful and selfless experiences, Qerim Arifi. Qerim was an icon of his time, who lived and worked with endless zeal and dedication, as a luminary and sublime transmitter of the sacred national ideal, which was the ideal of all generations of that time, as the best proof that only pure patriotism and the light of indigenous Albanian maternal knowledge could preserve the language, traditions and identity of the Albanians, as well as the core of the nation in those ethnic lands, unjustly left outside the borders of Kosovo, where Qerim himself was born and raised.
It was his patriotic action, with which he tirelessly taught and enabled the new generations educated by him, with colleagues who, with high desire and unquenchable will, also gave their personal and collective contribution to the continuity of Albanian living, as well as to advance the efforts for freedom, rights and full national equality, for the Albanians oppressed and trampled upon for centuries and decades, in their native lands, by occupiers and savage anti-Albanian regimes, such as the Serbian chauvinist occupying regimes. But the UDB, seeing the deep national devotion and selfless didactic commitment of Qerim Arifi, to convey the feelings and instill national inspiration in the new generations and his students, began to be concerned about the patriotic inclination and unyielding patriotism of the young pedagogue, and therefore would do everything possible to prevent the distinguished professor and journalist from Albanian Presheva from achieving all that he had been educated and prepared for and had dreamed of with all his heart, turning it into action, for his country and his fellow countrymen. Thus, according to reliable references from Qerim’s birthplace, the UDB had managed to infiltrate, even into the married life of the poet and this great patriot and nationalist, destroying his dreams, plans and future and shortening his life, leading to his premature death.
Escape from Presheva and settlement in Prishtina
Threatened by Slavic-communist paranoia and the difficult social situation that the young professor was facing every day, Qerim Arifi was forced to seek the help of his compatriots in Pristina and although in those difficult and difficult times for all Albanians, Kosovo itself was suffering and groaning under Serbian occupation, even under those critical conditions and circumstances, with limited possibilities for action, he did everything he could and achieved for the Albanians who were unjustly and unwillingly left outside the borders of Kosovo, especially for the Albanians of Prševo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, Montenegro and Ilirida, giving everything within his possibilities and capacities, for salvation from the worst, support, employment, education and advancement in their educational, professional and administrative and political processes.
So, to remove him from the oppressive atmosphere in Presheva, from which his father’s life was in danger, Qerim Arifi would be advised to leave high school and be given employment at the magazine “Zëri”, which at that time was the most admired magazine in Kosovo, while also providing him with housing and accommodation for a normal life, in the capital of Kosovo, Pristina. But tired of the problems that had arisen with his partner in his homeland, due to suspicions of her connection with the UDB, for a while Qerim lived alone in Pristina, while after a few years, he also took his close family, thinking that the problems that arose in Presevo would remain bitter memories of the past, just as the poet had been promised by the “men” with mustaches of speech and assembly, but that nevertheless, in addition to not turning out as he had been told, the internal problems worsened even more, which also led to the premature death of the well-known journalist and creator.
So, according to what people from the poet’s circle in Presevo say, at a time when in the capital and other cities throughout Kosovo and abroad, wherever Albanians lived, dissatisfaction continued and student demonstrations expanded, with demands for the advancement of Kosovo’s political status in the Republic, the UDB was put on alert, due to the increase in the persecution of intellectuals with patriotic tendencies and after an explanatory – internal family discussion, due to the poet’s suspicions, for the re-coquetry of his partner with UDB members, Serbian and Albanian-speaking police officers in the service of the UDB, without delay, entered Qerim Arifi’s apartment, rolled him down the stairs, kicked and punched him and beat him so much, in the middle of the sunny day, deliberately hitting him, with all their strength, on both sides of the kidney area, until he fainted and began to bleed from his nose and mouth oral.
This misfortune and extremely brutal beating, according to references from people close to the journalist and creator and the time of reflection of his sad state of health, which the poet himself describes in his famous poem, entitled: “In My Room…..”, the barbarity against him, by the Serbo-Slavic UDB, must have occurred at the end of 1981, or the beginning of 1982, an attack from which, unfortunately, Qerm Arifi’s emaciated body would never recover. Even due to the severe injuries he had suffered, from which he could no longer stand up, his uncles, with the help of the organization where he worked, were forced to send Qerim for treatment in Struga, but unfortunately this did not help him at all, because his kidneys were damaged to such devastating extent that their functioning had completely ceased and he was forced to go on dialysis.
And as if all the misfortunes he had experienced were not enough, unfortunately even dialysis would not keep the poet alive for long, so in the moments when he saw that the day was quickly approaching when he would be forced to say goodbye to this life and leave this sinful world, Qerim Arifi had asked to be returned to Pristina, to the city he loved so much, where he was able to live as a human being and an unabashed Albanian, where he had colleagues and friends with whom he could speak freely, examine the situation and deal with situations, as well as study the possibilities and make projects on how to help the Albanians in his homeland.
Unfortunately for the poet, it was already too late for everything and without delay, he would close his eyes forever, departing from this life, in 1990, in Struga, from where his body would be brought and buried with high honors by his colleagues and collaborators in Prishtina. Qerimi was a professor, journalist, poet, translator and creator of noble blood, who remains an eternal value of our most worthy creative, educational and national history, a prominent intellectual and prophetic missionary, with original autochthonous roots, born and raised in the heart of Eastern Kosovo, who from that macabre event, remained bedridden, until the moments when he closed his eyes forever.
A multidimensional creator and great patriot, who gave everything of himself for education, culture, dignity and a better future for Albanians, sparing neither himself nor his life, so that subsequent generations could achieve as much progress as possible in the process of knowledge and education and enjoy without restrictions the human and national rights and freedoms that belonged to them in their native places and lands, where they lived and still live today. But despite all that the poet did for the country and the people of his nation and land, unfortunately the creator Qerim Arifi suffered and struggled so much and to such a sad extent that even the pains in his body had lost their meaning.
And without delay he would die very young, like a second Migjen, although from another corner, but not too distant geographically from the common Albanian homeland. A legendary poet, distinguished professor, pedagogue and journalist, with all the virtues of an exemplary teacher and an outstanding and unique national author and creator, who after suffering and suffering, much more than any other creator, just because he was a patriotic creator and prominent Albanian intellectual, unjustly and through no fault of his own, seemed to be forgotten by everyone, even by the pagan gods themselves…?!
Marathonomach sentenced to death, not by God, but by evil and morally unbridled people and the enemies of the nation, who unjustly drove Qerim into an indescribable hysteria of horror and sadness, left alone at the height of misery, lying in the dark, half alive and half dead, without anyone’s help, where he had no more, where he could go worse, so that he could not ask anyone for a morsel of bread, or a drop of water, experiencing for his own life, the 9th circles of Dante’s hell, yet without escaping into eternity. Although the great Noli, in the poem “Marathonomach”, described the arduous running of the messenger, who would bring the joyful news of victory to the people, these two lines of his poem, with the aforementioned title, are very much in line with the miserable situation of the poet Qerim Arifi.
“You have a wound, if you don’t tell me,
Sweat and blood drips on the ground”
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Qerim Arifi was a deliberately victimized martyr, who despite all his dreams of becoming a “marathon runner”, who conveys good and great news about the victories of the Albanians, the nation and the homeland, he was ruthlessly destroyed, by those who did not expect him nor deserved him and he had no one to tell or show his wounds and sufferings to, tortured in the saddest way that is human, that even in the last moments of his life, he had no one to share the pain he felt, nor express the longing accumulated in his soul that tormented him, accompanied all the time with curses for death, as soon as possible, by the one who, in fact, should have been near him and cared for him, even in his suffering and worst moments, even when the creator went through similar moments as in these lines, of sublime Nolian poetry.
“The throat is like a gyryk that blows,
From the volcano flames and smoke.
Whatever it sees and whatever it gasps,
The heart breaks its ribs”!
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Hold on, Marathonomak, the great Noli would say! But our distinguished poet and creator Qerim Arifi had no one to console him, to tell him; hold on and be a strong man, nor to feed him with inspiration and kindness, and instead of help and comfort, he received curses for death, as the poet himself points out, in his sad poem with the title; “In my room….”, where he expresses in chilling detail the terrible state of the pre-eternity, while he let out groans from the suffering and agony of his difficult and labored breathing, becoming even more exhausted by the inhuman response: “You still haven’t woken up, sir….”?!:
I’ve been short of breath for a year and a half, I take aminophylline without calculation
“In my room there are the aromas of newspapers and illness, the sheets are bloody.
I could spit on them every time urea collects in my throat.
But no one comes to remove them. In my blasphemous room.
No one wants to enter. He says to me: “Have you not yet woken up, my lord?”
In a word, the forgotten Migjen of Presheva and all of Kosovo, who had sworn even before the hell of all the difficulties and the life full of suffering that he went through, to see only dreams of sunshine and pure light for his homeland, his birthplace Presheva, Bujanovac, Medveđa, ethnic Albania and the entire Albanian nation. The icon of the indomitable intellectual, pedagogue and distinguished Albanian creator, who after immense suffering and hardship, died young and at a time when he could offer many more creations, with even more mature and affirmative content than ever before, leaving his dreams half-finished and leaving this “false” world prematurely, at the age of only 44, which made his early and difficult demise even more painful.
Well-known professor of English, prominent creator and poet exemplary, and dignified journalist, born right in the heart of Eastern Kosovo, who worked and suffered so much, for whom, unfortunately, suffering had become an inseparable part of life, a contagious disease, and a dream that never left him, until the last minutes. Qerim Arifi remained not only one of the eternal “sleepless” for his life, but also the eternal sufferer of this ethnic Albanian land, almost forgotten by everyone, especially after his passing into eternity, who knew better than anyone else, the wounds of captivity, the suffering of his compatriots and the sorrows of the entire occupied Albanian land, feeling strongly in his heart and experiencing deeply in his soul, the fire of pain of the Albanian oppressed under occupation.
Even though his life situation always remained difficult and one of the most difficult for a productive and talented creator like him, even in the most critical moments of the difficult life he went through, no one came to break the silence and enable the survival of the iconic poet, so that he would not die so young, or so that his name would resound even after death as a cry of national immortality! Qerimi had become the most trampled part of these pains and the most innocent victim of the occupation virus, which wiped out the best intellectuals and patriots of the nation from these autochthonous Albanian lands, who although he tried until the end, not to submit to the paranoid haters and bad luck, which unjustly struck his life, he was defeated by immoral people, collaborators of the occupier and criminal spirits, it is even said that one of the policemen who beat him to death, also became the poet’s “partner”, post-mortem, in marriage…!
The quagmires that turned the creator’s life into horror, a life spent in the world of crime and terror, described only in Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno”, where the poet was reduced to a hated, despised being and transformed into a half-corpse raped to the limits of inhumanity and existential catastrophe, when even the request to moisten his throat, parched by the disease that burned him, with a drop of water, was met with the torturous response; “You still haven’t woken up, my lord”?! According to the New Testament, hell had 7 circles, but as if the sufferings “prescribed” in the “Testament” for man were not enough, Aristotle increased the number of circles from seven to nine and his idea was later taken up by the Italian thinker and writer Dante Alighieri, as if he knew that through these tragic circles, the innocent soul of our distinguished and immortal national creator, Qerim Arifi, was also condemned to pass.
But although Qerim remains the most martyred professor, journalist, poet and intellectual from Presheva and Eastern Kosovo, his difficult life and terrible, macabre and premature death have been written about at least, if not at all?! Even the long-suffering Migjeni from Preševo and the most realistic “character” of Migjeni’s poems of misery, from this autochthonous Albanian region, whose pedagogical, journalistic, poetic, literary and patriotic commitments remained only cycles of dreams and desires unrealized until the end, in the murdered soul of Qerim Arifi, from which his life became wormwood, as if it were not enough that he died prematurely and in the most painful way possible for an unfortunate intellectual, alas, he remained forgotten even by his countrymen and compatriots!
Moreover, the few and extremely shallow writings about the life and work of Qerim Arifi seem to have been made intentionally, very short and very incomplete, so that perhaps even after death, he would remain condemned by the living and a guilty guardian, without any fault, even in eternity, forgetting that Qerim was defeated by bad luck, and prematurely killed by sold-out and degenerate people, so that his national and creative ideals would not reach the end nor be fully realized, to suffocate the spiritual feelings of the professor, journalist and translator of the bright creator from Preševo, prematurely.
Although there is not enough information about the life and work of the creator Qerim Atrifi, it is said that he began to be interested in poetry from his early youth, while Qerim’s first publications date back to the early 1970s, with the impressive book “Kujtime”, whose works are mentioned to have been included in several anthologies and biographies of writers, while the writings of this fascinating creator have also been translated into foreign languages. Qerim Arifi, although after completing his higher education, he worked as a professor at the “Skënderbeu” gymnasium for several years, in his hometown of Presheva, spent most of his work and short life as a journalist at the “Zëri” magazine in Prishtina, which at that time was one of the most beloved magazines in Kosovo. Professor, journalist, creator and poet Qerim Arifi also worked on translations from Albanian to English and vice versa, not ceasing his worthy creative activity until he died of a stroke in 1990 and was buried in Prishtina.
Qerim Arifi’s most famous works:
- “Memories”, published in 1970
- “Nocturne”, published in 1983
- “Fatamorganë”, published in 1984
- “Closed in an Urn”, in 1987
- “Requiem for the Castle”, – Presheva, in 1988
Translations: “Four Quartets”, by Eliot
The work translated into Albanian by Qerimi Arifi is the famous poem by the distinguished British Nobel Prize winner, Thomas Stearns Eliot, “The Four Quartets”, which is also known by the title “The Burnt House”, and is divided into 4 titles: (Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding). While to better empathize and understand the ordeal of suffering that this unfortunate poet experienced, I am placing here one of Qerimi Arifi’s most touching poems, in which it is described in the most tangible way, in what macabre conditions he spent the last years of his illness, which were also the most difficult sequences of his life.
In my room there is neither cleanliness nor health!
“I’ve been short of breath for a year and a half; I’ve been taking aminophylline without counting,
Please, doctor friend, who will be the intravenous one because my muscles
are exhausted and now it seems to me that the snake is biting me, not taking injections. And they don’t end…!
Yes, apart from you doctors, nurses and the smell of alcohol
no one else enters my room. All that remains is to count the stars in the endless nights of the black sky, that’s how I measure my littleness
Your Majesty! In my room there are the aromas of newspapers and illness, the sheets
with blood. I can spit on them every time urea collects in my throat,
but no one comes to remove them. No one wants to enter my blasphemous room
. They tell me: “Have you not yet lost your hair, Your Majesty”?!
(“Kodra e Diellit”, 1983)
In honor of the professor, poet and unforgettable creator from Preševo, it is said that the “Qerim Arifi” award has been established, cultural events are held and literary associations and groups named after him have been created, but what inevitably catches the eye and leaves much to be desired is the fact that very little, if anything, has been written about his painful life and sensational creations and worthy work. Even though today there are poets, writers, journalists, etc., who receive awards, recognition and decorations, including the award that bears the name of “Qerim Arifi”, now over 32 years after the poet’s death, the life and biography of this brilliant national creator, were left to misery, with content so shrunken and terribly lacking, that one wonders if everything is done intentionally and by order, for the neglect of the work and major work of Qerim Arifi even over 3 decades after the death of this humble Migenian creator?!
And consequently, to put it mildly, the impression is created, not to say the conviction, that even those who created the “Qerim Arifi” award seem to have done so more to decorate each other than to elevate and honor the name and work of the creator with writings about him, since until now, they have not published even a few single lines about the precious work and creativity, the difficult years, nor the manner of the macabre death of the poet Qerim, which had become a bitter and difficult daily life for the most worthy patriots and patriots, throughout the Albanian lands under occupation.
So, in the end, the insurmountable question inevitably arises, that; were these really the only writings of the creative icon of Presheva and Eastern Kosovo, Qerim Arifi, after his departure into eternity, or the prose and poetry texts that he may have left in manuscript, as well as the many books that he is said to have had in his personal library, all ended up where they should not have been, where they had no place and did not deserve such a massacre. Eternal memory and endless respect for the life and work of the teacher, professor, journalist and prominent creator from Presheva, our unforgettable patriot and compatriot, Qerim Arifi! Memorie.al
