From Eugjen Merlika
– The Pen of Albania’s “Unwritten Histories” –
Memorie.al / On February 23, 2026, in Detroit, USA, within his family, the publicist, historian, researcher, and talented engineer Mërgim Korça passed away. Born in 1932 into an intellectual Korça family, he was named “Mërgim” (Exile) because his father, Xhevat Korça, the first director of the state gymnasium of Shkodra, having taken up arms at the age of 17 to be part of the patriotic band of Themistokli Gërmenji in the struggle for an independent homeland, was at that time a political exile, forced to leave Albania on Christmas 1924 after the return of Ahmet Zog from Yugoslavia.
That Albanian name, as at that time there was a certain tendency among Albanian nationalists to give such names to their sons, the deceased bore with dignity and honesty until the last moments of his life, fortunately a long one (94 years). His father, who returned to his homeland in 1939 after the fascist invasion, was a patriot dedicated to the fate of his country; he participated in the Nationalist Government of Mustafa Kruja as Minister of Education, during the period of the unification of Albanian territories (1941–1944), where he distinguished himself in continuing the mission of former Minister Koliqi, in the opening and organization of Albanian schools in the “Liberated Lands.”
As a friend and collaborator of the Head of Government, he worked with extraordinary zeal and energy in the development of national education, primarily in the regions severed from the mother trunk in the autumn of 1912 – a very dark phenomenon that conditioned all of Albanian history in the twentieth century and remains unresolved to this day, after more than a century. As a consequence of this activity, Xhevat Korça was arrested by the violent organs of the communist regime and sentenced to many years in prison by “People’s Justice” in 1945. In 1959, he died in Burrel prison, where he had initiated a hunger strike.
Mërgimi lived in communist Albania and, as seen on the back cover of his book “Unwritten Histories,” studied in the field of mechanical engineering. Thanks to his will and creative ability in that field, he managed to obtain the scientific title of “Distinguished Worker of Science and Technology.” But with the alienation of the political system in Albania, he moved to the USA, near his only brother, Genc, who held a high position as General Director of Industrial Hygiene in the USA.
There, Mërgimi, who was around sixty years old, began a new life in a free society, and had the opportunity to work in various fields, such as journalism, the Albanian language at university level, teaching Albanian, foreign languages, historical studies, etc., presenting himself as one of the brightest minds in the intellectual life of the Diaspora, and even of all post-communist Albania.
As a result of that activity, he left his people an invaluable legacy, primarily in journalism and historical studies, in which he was one of the most distinguished voices in uncovering historical truths that had been distorted and massacred for half a century by the communist regime in the fields of culture, studies, and historiography.
Among his distinguished works, I have thought to re-present some of his journalistic writings, collected and published in the volume “Unwritten Histories,” published in Tirana in 2005 by “Media Enter” under the care of journalist and publisher Mr. Mero Baze.
I believe that the initiative to republish his writings from decades ago is a sign of honor and respect for his rare contribution, in the interest of illuminating many aspects of Albanian reality over the centuries, primarily that of the independent state, up to the present day.
Wishing Mërgimi’s white soul the ultimate happiness in the eternity of God’s Paradise, whom he loved and served throughout his earthly life, I envision his meeting in the World of Truth with his family members and the multitude of figures from many fields of Albanian life, who have awaited him with a sense of gratitude and appreciation for his mind and hand, which brought their lives and works into the light of truth.
I hope that the same feelings and thoughts will also be produced in the minds of young Albanians who will have the chance to read or reread his writings, after decades.
“UNWRITTEN HISTORIES”
Mërgim Korça
DEDICATION
“This volume of analyses, writings, and considerations, interwoven also with first-person memories, I dedicate to my late Father, XHEVAT KORÇA.
I feel a moral obligation to him for this dedication because, although he dedicated his entire life to his Homeland, which he loved more than even his family, throughout the dictatorship he was labeled a traitor to the country and nothing but a traitor.
When anniversaries of the Shkodra Gymnasium were celebrated, Albanian television would show the photograph of that gymnasium’s teaching staff, which had in its center a blotch made with copying pencil, which truly masked the face of the founder as well as the first director of this gymnasium, Xhevat Korça – and also the viewer’s curiosity.
An exception was the photograph of Themistokli Gërmenji’s band, where the 17-year-old Xhevat Korça did not have his face masked because… they did not know it was him, and so every November 28, we, his family members, had a pleasure watching on the television screen the fighter for independence whom the dictatorship denied, distorting history as continues to this day!
On the other hand, I feel this dedication to him also due to the fact that many events and circumstances that I recall throughout the texts of my writings, I know are a consequence of being his son, and thus I have experienced them; and He, from the Hereafter, would condemn me severely if I were to distort them. His orientation, his compass, was justice, even to his own detriment!
Therefore, I too have put into writing my views, my memories, and my considerations, constantly guided by the orientation of how my father would judge me!”
THE SINCERE TESTIMONY OF MËRGIM KORÇA
If there is ever a balance between what should have been written and what should have been erased from Albanian letters, in relation to Albania of the fifty years of communism, this book would remain. I have great doubt that in any country of the Eastern Bloc, the regime enjoyed the comfortable fate it had in Albania.
For Albanian communism, thousands and millions of pages were written to keep it standing, and almost nothing to illuminate its darkness after its fall. Albania is almost the only country that has not documented its greatest historical accident.
Mërgim Korça wrote these pages with the concern of a first-hand citizen, to leave his testimonies in our libraries. Having the fortune to be the son of Xhevat Korça, he has the opportunity to bring forth his memory closely, also regarding figures anathematized by communism, and especially the geniuses of Albanian letters, the great Albanian clerics, Catholics, Bektashis, or Muslims, as well as other figures of Albanian politics and the state of the 1940s.
His book differs from an ordinary memoir book, even though it relies mainly on his cultural, family, and political memory. He does not undertake everything. He undertakes only something that he has known and experienced personally and within his family. For this reason, in this book you find writings that break taboos about the positive role of Albanian governments during the Second World War, just as you find shocking facts about the fate of some great names in Albanian history.
With the same calmness to draw his testimony in colors, you find disappointments with friends indoctrinated by communism, just as you find real evaluations of former communists who managed, during communism, to overcome dogma in relation to society.
In this respect, Mërgim Korça’s writings are not a strained effort to present communism as it should be presented, but an effort to present it as it was, with all its nuances. And these pages convince you of the regime’s anti-values more than the black-and-white films or the colored memoirs that treat communism as a telenovela for nostalgics.
Mero Baze
Mërgim Xhevat Korça is a mechanical engineer. He has designed and implemented original agricultural machinery systems, some unique of their kind. He has defended studies also in the field of engines. As a result, he has been honored with the highest title in the scientific field: “Distinguished Worker of Science and Technology.” Alongside science, Mërgimi, influenced by his father, had a lifelong passion for language and literature.
For fifty years, he did not write a single line under the conditions of the dictatorship that ruled Albania. After the fall of the communist regime, he immigrated to the USA, where he still lives today. He has dedicated himself to analyses of a historical character, aiming to shed light on historical truths that were distorted by communist ideology, which interfered in every cell of the social sciences.
Among his most important studies are the analyses he made of major intellectual, religious, and patriotic personalities who were trampled upon and slandered by the ideologues and penmen of the communist dictatorship. Worth highlighting are the writings about Father Gjergj Fishta, His Grace Baba Rexhepi, Father Anton Harapi, Bishop Irine Banushi, His Grace Imam Vehbi Ismaili, etc.
He has also made analyses of historical events, such as the Great Highland Uprising of winter 1945. Likewise, there are many writings and interviews about Martyrs of the Nation, not neglecting also well-weighted and objective judgments even about criminals who, more and more frequently, continue to be presented as “heroes.”
His writings are characterized by two features: first, by the solid foundations and the veracity of the well-sifted facts he presents. On the other hand, he is distinguished by the impartiality of the researcher who tries, step by step along the path he guides the reader, to steer him away from the spite and prejudices that, as a legacy of the dictatorship, have disfigured the history written to this day. In the USA, he has succeeded in becoming part of the pedagogical faculty of Wayne State University. / Memorie.al
