Nëndori – afterart

“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!

Krijimi i Organizatës së përbashkët “Lidhja e Shkrimtarëve dhe Artistëve të Shqipërisë”—Nëndori 11, 1956

This is the eleventh in a series of posts containing PDFs of texts that may be of interest to those studying Albanian socialist realism. I am still in the process of planning several posts with actual content—that is, analysis, rather than simply more scanned texts—but they are still some ways off, so I’m going ahead and posting more scans for the time being.

Today’s (again, rather short) post contains selections from the November 1956 issue of Nëndori. The selections discuss the creation of the collective organization “The Union of Albanian Writers and Artists” [Lidhja e Shkrimtarëve dhe Artistëve të Shqipërisë] Formerly, the two organizations—the Union of Writers and the Union of Artists—had been separate, and the issue contains the text the text of the decision announced by the Council of Ministers to unite them under one roof.

Also of interest is the “Kronikë Kulturale” section from the back pages of Nëndori, which briefly details, among other events, the opening of the first exhibition of Soviet art in Albania (and also the first exhibition of foreign figurative art in the country, according to the editors). The show opened in Tirana in October 1956, in the premises of the “Society for the Friendship of Albania and the USSR” [Shoqëria e Miqësisë ‘Shqipëri—BRSS’].

Happy reading!

“Aktiviteti i Lidhjes deri më sot…”: 1955 Plenum of the Union of Albanian Artists

This is the tenth in a series of posts containing PDFs of texts that may be of interest to those studying Albanian socialist realism. I am still in the process of planning several posts with actual content—that is, analysis, rather than simply more scanned texts—but they are still some ways off, so I’m going ahead and posting more scans for the time being.

Today’s (rather short) text is some selections from the March 1955 issue of Nëndori, the monthly journal of the Albanian Union of Artists. The issue contains the texts of some of the talks given at the annual plenum of the Union, as well as a summary of the events and discussions that took place. Given that the Union had been in existence for only about two and a half years at this point, it is particularly interesting to read painter Foto Stamo’s assessment of “The Development in the Figurative Arts” at this early stage in socialist Albania’s cultural project.

Of equal interest is Baki Kongoli’s “Activity of the Union of Artists from its Beginning till Now,” which summarizes the Union’s work in the preceding two years. In part this overview is notable because it specifically makes note of the help given by outside artists and cultural producers (such as composers, painters, and sculptors from the Soviet Union) to Albanian artists. Even more interesting, however, is the fact that Kongoli’s assessment of the Union’s efficacy largely takes the form of a collective self-critique. In contrast to later plenary speeches, which would assert the endless successes of the Union and of Albanian culture in general, the middle section of Kongoli’s speech is grim. For example, he writes: “Ne mund të themi me keqardhje se konferencat dhe leksionet me karakter ideoprofesional nuk janë ndjekur jo vetëm nga anëtarët e Lidhjes por shpesh herë edhe nga anëtarët e komitetit drejtonjës.” No one has been doing their job. No one has shown up to the meetings. None of the annual goals have been met. In fact, not only were the goals not met, but the following year no one even tried to address what hadn’t been done the year before. No one has made contact with artists in communities outside of Tirana. …and so on and so forth.

In perhaps the most damning sentence, Kongoli writes “Nuk është përfituar sa duhet nga eksperienca e artit sovjetik.” Reading these early assessments of Albanian culture reminds us that the assertions of complete cultural independence—of a kind of socialist cultural apex ex nihilo—that would characterize later socialist discourse in Albania in publications like Nëndori were not always the norm.

Happy reading!