Kujtim Buza – afterart

Kujtim Buza, Kleanth Dedi, and Dhimitraq Trebicka, “Përmendore të Heroizmit Shqiptar” [1973]

Today’s post is a scan of Kujtim Buza and Kleanth Dedi’s Përmendore të Heroizmit Shqiptar [Monuments to Albanian Heroism], (Tirana: Shtëpia Qëndrore e Ushtrisë Popullore, 1973), with photographs credited to Dhimitraq Trebicka. This publication presents documentation of monuments constructed in Albania through the early 1970s. Most of the monuments and memorials appearing in the book were constructed during the socialist era, although some (by sculptor Odhise Paskali) date from earlier periods.

Like Mircea Grozdea’s Arta monumentală în România socialistă [1973], Veneta Ivanova’s Българска монументална скулптура: развитие и проблеми [1978), and Juraj Baldani’s Revolucionarno Kiparstvo [1977], Përmendore të Heroizmit Shqiptar represents a socialist nation’s viewpoint on the history and development of its own monumentality. Published in 1973, the book comes precisely at the historical moment when socialist Albania turned decidedly against ‘foreign influences’ in art and culture (after a period of openness and in some cases experimentation in the late 1960s, a period during which the country had also aligned itself ideologically with China’s cultural revolution). In the 1960s and 70s in particular, a huge number of monuments were constructed in Albania (in many cases to correspond to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of liberation from fascist forces, in 1969).

The Four Heroines of Mirdita Monument. By Fuat Dushku, Dhimo Gogollari, Andrea Mano, and Perikli Çuli. 1971, Rreshen. [now destroyed].

These memorials included both lapidars, architectural and sometimes sculptural ensembles that were dedicated to the martyrs and heroes of the National Liberation War (the Second World War), as well as traditional figurative sculptures commemorating Skanderbeg, independence from the Ottoman Empire, the War of 1920, and so on. Monuments existing prior to the socialist period, especially those commissioned by the regime of the Albanian interwar leader King Ahmet Zogu, are absent–with the exception of works created by Odhise Paskali, whose messages were considered to be purely nationalist, and therefore ideologically amenable to the project of socialist nation-building in Albania. (The opening text by artist and critic Kujtim Buza and historian Kleanth Dedi discuss the memorial landscape prior to the rise of socialism as a blank slate, primarily attributing the rise of materialized history in Albania to the socialist regime. This is of course inaccurate–several memorials from prior regimes were destroyed by the socialists for ideological reasons.)

Relief from the Lapidar dedicated to the collectivization of land. By H. Beqiri, 1962. In Gore, Lushnja.

*Unfortunately, the version of the book that I scanned was a misprint and included a section of repeated pages. Thus, some images (for example, of the martyr’s cemeteries in Librazhd and Fier) only appear as thumbnails in the back of the book, but not as full-sized photographs. At some point, I will scan these pages from another copy of the book, but for now they are not present.

“Gjithmonë i Ri dhe i Freskët”: Nëndori 1:1, 1954, and Nëntori 30:1, 1984

Today’s post is a brief interlude between the two rambling sections of my extended consideration of realism and contemporaneity in Albanian art. This post is also a ‘double feature’; it includes partial scans of the very first issue of journal Nëndori [later Nëntori], the monthly publication of the Albanian Union of Writers and Artists, and of the 30^th anniversary issue of the journal.

At the time Nëndori first began publication, it replaced Letërsia Jonë [Our Literature], the monthly journal-length publication primarily produced by the Albanian Union of Writers (although it occasionally featured content related to the visual arts). At the time, the Unions of Writers and Artists were separate entities, and Nëndori, like Letërsia Jonë, primarily focused on literature, poetry, and translation. By the 1960s, however (at which point the Unions had joined into one), the journal began to feature illustrations more regularly and to deal with issues related to the visual arts more frequently. From the beginning, however, Nëndori dealt with the broad spectrum of Albanian cultural production, including theater, music, and film, as well as literature and the visual arts.

As the introductory section of the journal makes clear, the year 1954 (as the tenth anniversary of liberation from fascism and as the fourth year of Albania’s first ‘5-year plan’ period) represented a particularly important year in the young socialist nation’s progress towards joining the transnational network of socialist modernity.

Thirty years later, in the January, 1984, volume of Nëntori, several of socialist Albania’s noted cultural figures (including Dritëro Agolli, Kujtim Buza, and Aleks Buda) published short reflections on the journal’s importance for the development of the discourse on Albanian arts and letters. The volume also contains the announcement for the 3^rd Congress of the Union of Writers and Artists, as well as the notes from the Directory Council’s plenary session laying out points for discussion at the upcoming Congress.

Happy reading!

Të Thellojmë Njohjen e Jetës

This is the sixth in a series of posts containing PDFs of texts that may be of interest to those studying Albanian socialist realism. Initially I had planned to write thorough descriptions and analyses of the content of the documents, but I barely have the time to scan them, much less write extensive commentaries.

Today’s volume is an excerpt from the April 1975 volume of Nëntori, featuring the discussions at the Plenum of Albanian Union of Writers and Artists of that year. The proceedings, written by critics such as Dritëro Agolli, Kujtim Buza, Sterjo Spasse, Pipi Mitrojorgji, and others, often deal with the intellectual results of the 4th Plenum of the Central Congress and the influence of the National Exhibition of figurative arts devoted to the 30th anniversary of liberation.

The art in the issue is devoted to the 30th anniversary of the Forcat e Kufirit and the Policia Popullore. The cover features a great painting by Pandi Mele, which in turn features a Lapidar!

Happy reading!