By Elsa Demo
– Edison Gjergo was not born to be a hero, but an artist –
Memorie.al / Interview with Islam Spahiu, former political prisoner, translator from several languages, friend for 30 years with Edison Gjergo, the famous painter who was imprisoned by the communist regime and suffered for years in the Spaç camp. The year 2009 marked the two anniversaries of the painter’s birth and deaths, which, like everything that seeks to come to light, once passes through a deep darkness. The time we are living in is a deep, cultural and spiritual darkness.
Mr. Spahiu, when did you meet Edison Gjergo?
In 1957-’60, I worked as a set designer at the newly created State Stage. My workplace was near the People’s Theater; Next door was the Writers and Artists’ League Club. So, by frequenting that club, I had the opportunity to meet many artists and writers of that time, among who was Edison Gjergon.
At that time, as far as I remember, he worked as a painter and made advertisements for films that were shown in the capital. He was young and stood out for his refinement in clothing and seriousness in behavior. We happened to sit at a table, each with a glass of alcohol in front of us. How we suddenly passed into a joyful intimacy.
What connected you?
Much later, I read this aphorism by Nietzsche: “Sharing joys, not sharing sufferings, makes a friend”! And this phenomenon occurred between us. We, it seems, suffered spiritually the same way and to avoid bitterness, we sought its opposite: joy. And this was given to us by a deep communication of ideas. After that, we could hardly wait for the opportunity to meet.
At that time, I was engaged in the study of Dante and passionately reread the “Divine Comedy”, in the original. I managed to memorize a song, and some verses that I liked the most. With this enthusiasm, I recited them to Edison, who was delighted and several times asked me to repeat them. Personal confidence passed into family confidence. My mother loved him very much, calling him; “mother’s son”.
I found the same warmth in his family. In addition, there I found a social level, which aroused my admiration; a civic family characterized by patriotism and intellectualism. Edison’s father, an economist, had completed the relevant studies at the University of Bucharest. At that time he was retired and, not only that, withdrawn from public life, because he was disappointed with the political life in the country.
His mother was a teacher who enjoyed prestige. His brother, Aleko, a former chemical engineer, but also thrown into social life, through his passion for sports, became known as an announcer, commentator and broadcaster for football matches. Edison continued his studies at the Institute of Arts.
But in that family, there was not only a spirit of general culture, but also of musical art. The whole family, starting from its head, knew classical music well. Edison, regardless of theory, in this regard, practically stood above the level of an ordinary professional. I think that this advantage was also given to him by his temperament, extremely sensitive, which led him to unusual depths. He was never shallow.
What does this mean?
He was deep, he even liked mystery. Where there was something almost incomprehensible, he became enthusiastic. Not being in harmony with the environment, he suffered spiritually and only spiritually. Not being able to bear it anymore, he looked for a way out of there.
He tried his hand at the art of painting, but this seemed to be punished. Then he gave in to drinking; so he drank, drank, drank…! And in this state, he created his best works, just like Modigliani, his most beloved painter.
Who were his friends?
He didn’t have many. Among the closest was the famous translator, Robert Shvarc. The latter, before publishing his translated works, gave them to Edison, who, as we humorously said, devoured them. He had a keen intuition. This is how he enriched his soul.
Tell us something about Gjergo in the studio?
It was not just a workplace, but a “refuge”, as I used to call him with a laugh. In other words, a refuge to escape from a hostile environment that observed, investigated, and gossiped about him. In the studio, he created an intimate environment, where he developed ideas and dreams that he then put on canvas.
Friends would come there, but there were also persecutors, spies, and observers. However, he did not want to believe such lowliness. In addition to painting, classical music was felt there. He had studied at the Higher Institute of Arts, where students had never seen a single original work of world art.
You mentioned that Edison did not know any foreign languages. So, where were his sources located?
Surprisingly, he knew modern art well. Considering the hermetic isolation, the ideological quarantine that characterized the dictatorial system. Foreign magazines began to arrive at the National Library, but only scientific ones, such as; “La semaine des hôpitaux”.
One day I came across the art magazine, “Les jardin des arts”, but this did not last long, because they immediately removed it. However, I was given a lucky opportunity: a relative of mine worked in an office where all the foreign press came, and this one was aimed at the leadership. I took advantage of this opportunity and for about five months, I was going through such magazines as; “Epoka”, “Paris Match”, “Stampa”, but what was more important, I secured the art magazine, which I mentioned above.
Edison had also received a television, and finally, the opportunity to see and hear, what was almost impossible, reached here. And, so, in this “climate”, Edison created his free and forced works. Forced were those that he had to exhibit. And although such, his paintings stood out for a subtle and modern sensitivity, of color. This was easily noticed, for those who knew and felt the painting.
You have also mentioned him as the man who encouraged you to translate Dostoevsky!
He encouraged me to translate Dostoevsky’s “White Nights”. Likewise, Kandinsky’s “The Spiritual in Art”. When I published the latter, I dedicated it to his memory.
Which works of his do you like?
“Well 542” and “Epic…”, I was a witness when he was making “Epic…”, even in its conception.
When do “shadows” appear on the horizon?
Together with Isuf Kazazi, who had been a pianist at the Opera and Ballet Theater, we became three. In our free time, we would be together almost always. But this situation would not last long.
The witch hunt against the “class enemy” in the seventies reached madness. Every movement, every word of anyone was controlled. The superstition of persecution was called “revolutionary vigilance”; the one who did not denounce was considered worse than the enemy.
But man, after all, needs communication and, consequently, friends. Our trio caught the eye of the Sigurimi. In fact, we noticed some “shadows” following us, but we paid no attention to them. One thing was going to be taken away from the “triad”: I would be fired from my job (I was a teacher at the time) and interned in Belsh, Elbasan. When I was released, they called me to the Internal Affairs Branch and asked me about Edison.
There I saw that they were surveilling him, as they usually did before arresting someone. I informed Edison. So what were we to do? Isuf had been removed from the Opera and was now a simple worker in a company (he was considered “declassed”, as was said for those belonging to large families; he was even the nephew of Qazim Mulleti).
How did the arrest happen?
One day in January 1975, we had arranged to meet in the flowerbed on “Elbasani” street. When I went at the appointed time, I found Isuf, but not Edison. We went to his studio on “Kavajës” street. Since the studio was on the fifth floor, we hurried up and went out onto the sidewalk opposite and called out to Edison.
The reaction was evident only from the moving window shutter. We, not suspecting anything – strange this! – climbed the stairs of the building. At the studio gate, I found the doorman of the Writers’ Club, F.C., who pretended to fix the broken door lock.
As soon as he saw me, he pushed the door open, revealing the shocking scene. In the middle of the studio, they had made a pyramid-shaped pile, with the studio’s staff, on which a person was sitting with a pad and pencil in his hand. On the four sides of the studio walls, other Sigurimi agents were lined up, among whom I recognized the secretary of the Writers and Artists’ League. As soon as I entered, the one sitting at the top of the improvised pyramid asked me rudely:
– “What are you doing here?”
– “Edison Gjergon.”
– “Why?”
– “I wanted to meet him.”
– “Why?” – he repeated.
– “Just because I have a friend.”
– “He’s not here…”!
– “I see…,” I said, very offended. – Okay, can I leave?”
– “Free”! – he said, as if ironically.
– Could you sleep peacefully after that?
And indeed, I was “free” for a while. After an intense persecution, a year later, I too would be arrested, when I was working as a designer at the Brick Factory in Vora.
When did you meet next?
At the investigator. They would bring Edison tied up to me, to confront us. We accepted the close friendship that bound us, but not the accusations that they had prepared. I, of course, would also be punished and sent to the Spaç camp, where Edison was, but we were no longer bound together. I have only myself to blame for this.
Edison did his best to get along with me; he expressed his desire to two camp comrades, who were “iron” and therefore later fell as heroes: Xhelal Koprencka and Fadil Kokoman. Edison spent more time with the latter.
Among other things, they were also connected by their love for classical music. Fadil had graduated as a journalist in the Soviet Union, but he had a broad cultural horizon. And so, through these two and some others, we were informed about each other, and, so to speak, we communicated anyway.
What happened to him in the camp?
He was isolated, badly oppressed by allergies, by the dregs of society that made up that demonic collective there. They had assigned him the job of painter, in the military-political room of the camp command. And if you looked at the stands with propaganda writings and figures, you could feel the exquisite taste of a painter, undoubtedly great, there too.
Why all this resentment towards Edison?
I am writing my memoirs and the relationship with Edison occupies a special place. I will talk about it at length there. For now I say: “I am the only one to blame for this”. Even when we were released, around 1982, we were unable to connect anymore. The material difficulties of living were already weighing us down, because they were not giving us work.
He started working as a painter at the “Teaching Tools” company. And finally, the unexpected thing happened that was shocking to me. I was drinking with my friend K.F. when I received the horrified news of Edison’s death. And it was precisely this sublime moment that was the blow that revealed to me what was hidden inside me. I realized that he had been my dearest friend.
This was the greatest spiritual punishment for me. I don’t know how, except when I saw myself in the bosom of his family, his mother and his brother, Aleko. I saw him off, I said goodbye to him for the last time, but the wound I received on this occasion has not yet healed. It hurts me every time I think about it.
Did Edison Gjergo have a declared stance against the regime?
He believed that communism had been brought to power by backwardness; his anti-communism had a human form. In our country, anti-communism seems to have been created by those who took their house or land. Edison was not born to be a hero, but an artist. He burned brutality. That time wanted heroes.
Who was the convicted painter, Edison Gjergo?
-According to his family-
Aleko Gjergo was one of the two sons of Vangjel and Kornelia Gjergo. He was four years younger than his brother, Edison Gjergo. He was a pharmacist by profession. Edison was for him a man who never understood reality, because he did not want to understand it. “What he did not know at all was politics. Paradoxically, it was precisely for politics that he was convicted. He was accused of “agitation and propaganda, through painting”!
Aleko remembered that there was also a report by the League of Writers and Artists, which spoke of Gjergo’s painting as; an anti-popular, anti-national painting. It was a report by Dritëro Agolli and Kujtim Buza. He also remembers, from others, because he himself was not there, that Edison said in court; “I do not understand what you mean by socialist realism. For me, painting is painting.”
– “He always said about most painters that they don’t understand painting,” – adds his brother. He remembers every exhibition as a big nightmare. Would Edison’s work be accepted or not?! He called the Portrait of Mrs. Çurre (People’s Heroine) a work of socialist realism. “Well 542”, from 1967, would not be accepted.
“I remember a big beautiful flame and small people. I cut it into four. Whereas in “Epic…”, it is the blues period, by analogy with Picasso, who has a blue period”! His “Skënderbeu”, from 1968, was also not accepted. But with “Epic…”, he had the peak of fame, for better or for worse.
“Epic of the Stars…” was realized at a time when there was certain liberalization in the arts. Together with Edi Hilë, Skënder Kamberi, and Edison Gjergo, etc., it seemed that there was a new modern generation in painting. In this context, he was arrested: bourgeois family, he himself was constantly in contradiction with the leadership of the Writers and Artists’ League, making half-hearted self-criticisms”!
Aleko does not know anything for sure about what happened to his brother’s confiscated works. The ones he knows that are left are under the copyright of his wife and daughter, Eda. Eda bears the name of her father, whom she never knew. She was born three months after Edison Gjergo’s death.
She lives with her mother, with whom she emigrated to Italy in 1991. She has an extraordinary inclination towards exact sciences, specifically towards astrophysics. Three years ago, the Italian press would talk about a 17-year-old who had co-authored with Margherita Hack, the book, “This is how the stars speak”. Memorie.al
