Memorie.al / Has the poet Lasgush Poradeci met Enver Hoxha? How much truth is there in the memories that the dictator’s wife, Nexhmije Hoxha, propagated after his death, about Enver’s compassion and love for writers and artists. Ismail Kadare, in an interview a few years ago, said: “Someone like Lasgush Poradeci would tremble in his grave if he read what was written about him. The greatest living poet of the entire era, he lived for 40 years as dead, he was so marginalized, forbidden, oppressed. And Mrs. Hoxha tries to fill our minds with how much Enveri loved her and how often she was interested in him”!
In the book of memories; “Unsaid truths about Lasgushi”, published in 2000, the poet’s contemporary and friend, Tomi Mato, witnesses the non-meeting between Lasgushi and Enver, in 1983. In this account, the poet’s version of the meeting is given early, when Enver Hoxha had not yet become a dictator and when he was at the Tirana Lyceum; he was distinguished among the young people for his inferiority complex.
FACE TO FACE
A joyful summer day in Voloreka (Drilon). Residents and their families have lunch under the shade of trees. Among them, Lasgushi with his daughter moved a little aside. Bring a bottle of wine, diluted with spring water. No one knew that from moment to moment, the Leader would be there with his wife, followed by the escort. It was the summer of 1983. Tomi Matos remembers this day well, and recounts it in the book “Unsaid truths about Lasgushin”.
While the crowd began to sing “Enver Hoxha sharpened his sword”! And shout “Party-Enver, we are ready whenever”. People flocked to shake his hand, while the bodyguards pushed to make way for the “horseman”.
Both with canes in hand, old boll. Upon hearing the news and the cheers of the crowd, Lasgushi separated from the crowd, but did not leave. He didn’t think long, whether to stay or run away, since no one had any doubts whether he wanted to meet Enver or not. In the euphoria of the crowd, one could think that this reaction was normal, for its blatant, cold and capricious nature. But no one had seen or heard.
The summer of 1983 was the only public chance, where they both happened spontaneously, in the same place, one in the crowd, the other outside it. The poet has cast his eyes and left him to his own devices, although it is difficult to distinguish him, in that glare. “Enveri and Lasgushi, rested for 20 years together in Pogradec and they don’t drink coffee together”, writes Tomi Mato, in his story, “Has Lasgushi met the dictator”.
Just after that day, he had asked the poet if they had ever met after liberation. Instead of comments, Lasgush Poradeci had told the simple fable of meeting this “queer”, 43 years ago, at the Tirana High School.
Year 1937, AN ENVERIT AUTOGRAPH
“We met at the high school in Tirana, in 1937. I was 12 years older; I was the most educated, while Verua came from Paris, like “tabula rasa”. Colleagues mocked her: “Tutkun”, they told her. Your feet, not your head, went to Paris. They squeezed the brains of the whores…”! I felt sorry for him. I accompanied him, you understand, I felt sorry for him, so I accompanied him, because the others had left. One day, where did he find my two books; “Dancing with the Stars” and “Star of the Heart”.
He told me a few poems by heart and begged me to write something with my own hand in the book and he would have it as a memory, from the man he found when the others left him. I wrote to him. He hugged me and invited me home for dinner. He invited me three times, but I didn’t come”!
This was the confession that Lasgushi made to the author Tomi Mato in 1983 and two years later, Enver Hoxha dies. But it is the wife, (Nexhmija), faithful after death, which reviews and takes care of her husband’s cult, where only through hypnosis could he be seriously endangered. And it was the intellectual minds, the ones that had been threatened and had the highest pressure from him, that from moment to moment, could explode.
When the Palace of Culture of Pogradec was to take the name “Lasgush Poradeci”, after his death in 1987, in the city museum, a letter from Nexhmije Hoxha arrives, with the title: “From the memories of friend Enver, for Lasgush Poradeci”.
It was written there: “I was interested in Lasgushi, near the friends of the Party, and they told me that he is in good health…! I knew him before the war, when I was a professor at the high school in Tirana…! He was depressed by Zog’s regime, that’s why he preferred to live alone. He used to come out and join us”!
But to the surprise of those who knew the situation, the letter bore the date August 28, 1981 and was becoming known, when a person had really died, while the work of the poet, along with him and himself, had just begun to live.
MEETINGS PROHIBITED
Lasgush Poradeci was well versed in the German language, apart from the fact that he had translated works from Goethe, Schiller, and Heine. As planned up to this point, censorship against him, even meetings with German artists visiting Pogradec, were forbidden at the last moment. In the story of Tomi Matos; “Why didn’t Peter Oberi meet Lasgush Poradecin”? A friend of the poet during his years of study in Graz, Austria, it is said; how they “can’t” meet.
Lasgushi had insisted and waited for his friend in his “tower”. But the First Secretary and the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the district had issued health reasons for Lasgushi, who was waiting for his friend like an apple seed, from moment to moment.
Peter Ober “was convinced that Lasgushi could not wait, but he can’t visit either”, while he regretfully said: “I wish health to my dear friend. We are old. I wanted to meet him and cooperate with him, as I have respect for his money. I’m sorry we didn’t meet in this world. Maybe I’ll meet him in the next world!”
In 1978, a group of German artists came to Pogradec. During their performance, they were first impressed by the old man in the white cone, shouting “Bravo, bravo”! Out of curiosity, they had learned that he was the greatest living Albanian poet. The next day, when both sides had agreed to mature, their meeting was cancelled.
From Dufi Lasgushi had expressed: “These government officials look at me as a fool, as an enemy and not as an academic advisor. Wonder! Why have they created this opinion?! They immediately put me in the office and I let them go like that. Yes, I don’t shame him, but I respect Poradec”!
THE WRITERS’ CONNECTION CHANGES MINDS, IN 80 ANNIVERSARIES!
It was the season that found him at home in Tirana. He turned 80 that day. Writer friends had visited him throughout the day, while the next day, the ceremony would take place at the League of Writers and Artists. That day is described by Tomi Mato, present with a group of Pogradecars, at the poet’s house.
“There is a knock on the door. Nafija opened it and Luigj Mazi (administrator of the League) entered. After greeting Lasguš and us, he began to speak with a shyness and sadness that did not bring optimism: ‘The League sent me, t’ I inform you Mr. Lazar, that tomorrow for secret reasons, the ceremony of celebrating your 80th birthday is cancelled!
But Lasgushi, who wouldn’t trade this moment of friendship for anything, who had christened it “Barku i Saint Mary”, not even with the celebration of the League, had made it “Happy”, with brandy and songs.
When the poet closed his eyes, on November 13, 1987 and his body had traveled from Tirana to Pogradec, “from above”, an order was given that there should not be “excessive” ceremonies by the Pogradec people, from those whom Lasgushi had called in joy and happiness “Womb of St. Mary”. All customs were done in Tirana. Memorie.al
