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Gjirokaster Martyrs’ Cemetery and the 75th Anniversary of Liberation

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Gjirokaster Martyrs' Cemetery - 18th September - Liberation Day 75 years

Gjirokaster Martyrs’ Cemetery – 18th September – Liberation Day 75 years

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Gjirokaster Martyrs’ Cemetery and the 75th Anniversary of Liberation

Details about the lapidar, and some of the history, of the Gjirokaster Martyrs’ Cemetery (ALS 376) were posted some time ago. However, on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Gjirokaster from the Nazi occupation I was fortunate enough to be, again, in the city.

The Nazi’s were forced from the city by the Partisans, under the leadership of the Albanian Communist Party (that was later renamed as the Party of Labour of Albania) on 18th September 1944. That date is still considered important, even through all the changes and the anarchy that hit Gjirokaster significantly during the 1990s, as the main street in the new town is still called Bulevard 18 Shtator (18th September Avenue).

On that date in 2019 a small celebration was organised both at the cemetery itself and in the theatre in the new part of town – but much less than it would have been during the period of Socialist construction. However, the event did follow certain aspects which were common of such occasions between 1944 and 1990.

There was a march from the centre of the new town to the cemetery (which is on the edge of town on the national road that heads towards Tepelene (and hence Tirana) in the north and the Greek border at Kakavija towards the south) where a short ceremony took place and this was followed a short time later by a cultural performance/speeches in the town’s theatre.

As I have said this was very low key, the rest of Gjirokaster carrying on life as normal, something which would not have happened in the past. Such an anniversary would have been a public holiday and the celebration would have been much more formal and with events taking place all over the town.

However, there are a few points I would like to emphasis from my observation on the day, which include how things were done in the past and how they were done in 2019.

It was obvious that those who still identify themselves with the Socialist past in Albania were those who wore a red scarf around their necks. This was part of the ‘uniform’ of the Partisans. This I have pointed out in many descriptions of the lapidars which have appeared on the page under the heading of the Albanian Lapidar Survey.

The military presence existed but on a much reduced level – just really a couple of officers in regular, i.e., not dress, uniform. Whether it was seen as an obligation I can only surmise. During the Socialist period the military presence would have been in the form of the People’s Militia which consisted of both men and women.

Proud Relative

Proud Relative

The tradition at ceremonies in the Martyrs’ cemeteries always consisted of children from the Young Pioneers standing at each of the tombs and during the ceremony a single red carnation would be placed on each tomb. As time passed it would obviously mean that many of the martyrs would not have any surviving relatives who might be able to place flowers on the tombs. By having the Young Pioneers do so, in a formal and organised manner, it meant that none of the anti-Fascist fighters were forgotten and left out. In 2019 it was again young people who brought baskets of flowers and then placed a single flower on each tomb – but these were older children, in their teens, rather than the younger, primary school children, who would have carried out the task pre-1990. (But someone ‘forgot’ to count the tombs as at the end of the flower distribution there were still quite a number without a flower.)

Child distributing flowers

Child distributing flowers

There was very little ‘formality’ during the 75th Anniversary celebration at the cemetery. People tended to mill around rather than stand in any formal manner. If you want to draw comparisons then the fact that this is being written on 11th November provides an easy and almost direct comparison.

At 11.00 on Remembrance Sunday (in the United Kingdom) in the centre of London at the Cenotaph there will be a very formal presence of politicians and aristocracy. After the Minutes’ Silence there will be a very formal and organised laying of wreaths and then a march past of veterans. To do otherwise in Britain would cause an outcry of indignation from various sectors of the population and media. For people to just walk by and see who had left the wreath at the Cenotaph during the Minutes’ Silence would be considered disrespectful. That was virtually what was happening in Gjirokaster on 18th September 2019.

I’m not saying that is either good or bad. It’s just to remind readers that countries have various ways in commemorating their dead in past wars. It should also be remembered that, in theory if not really in ultimate practice, in the early 1940s the so-called ‘Allies’ were supposed to be fighting on the same side and that the defeat of Fascism was the aim of all the countries. So perhaps people should remember this when they start to make judgements on the past in Albania.

Without significant help from any other army of the major warring Allies the Albanian people were able to liberate themselves from both the Italian Fascist and German Nazi invaders. In some respects that was their greatest crime – at least in the eyes of the British and the Americans. It meant they weren’t beholding to any external power and would fight to maintain the independence they had gained on 29h November 1944. It was for this reason that the British threatened and made attempts at ‘regime change’ in Albania even before the sound of the cannon fire had disappeared in the distance.

But back to the ceremony on 18th September 2019.

One small event that caused a local stir was the presence of an older man who help a portrait of Comrade Enver Hoxha, in a glass frame, high above his head in front of the images of the eight heroes/heroines of Gjirokaster depicted on the lapidar. He drew the attention of the media present as well as a number of onlookers. Though a single incident it was good to see that the spirit of the past still exists within the city.

Holding Enver High

Holding Enver High

Hopefully, readers will be able to get an idea of the event from the pictures in the slide show below.

Event at the theatre

Much of the celebration that continued in the theatre an hour or so after the ceremony at the celebration went over my head as a non-Albanian speaker. However, it was possible to get the general tone in that the Liberation of the town from the Nazis 75 years previously was still an event that needed to be remembered and commemorated.

(This is despite the fact that in Tirana Park, in the capital, there’s a monument to the Nazi fallen – put there to please the so-called democrats of Germany and, no doubt, in a bid to curry favour with a principle player in the European Union – which Albania is desperate to join and which (even though it goes against all the logic of the EU Constitution). This is likely (bizarrely) to happen in the not too distant future. High level talks are taking place in 2021 – when the rest of the EU is starting to implode – and the only reason I can see for this is the huge mineral resources that have so far remained untapped in the (at the moment) relatively inaccessible part of the north east of the country. But how many other countries that fought the Fascists in the Second World War have monuments to the dead of the invaders?)

As part of this celebration there was a small exhibition of Socialist Realist Art in the entrance to the theatre – examples which are included in the slide show below. Some of these had been brought down from the Museum in the Castle for the occasion – and can be seen in the badly maintained and positively dirty museum at present. Others seems to have come from storage – as was the picture of Persefoni and Bule, the two so-called ‘Hanged Women of Gjirokaster’, two young, Partisan women, in their early twenties, who were publicly hung in the main square in the old town on July 17th 1944. This particular picture has been added as an update to the post on these two brave young Communist fighters.

Persefoni and Bula - G Modhi 1966

Persefoni and Bula – G Modhi 1966

Also in exhibition was a brand new, and very fine, tapestry of the Liberation which, I assume, was made specifically for the 75th Anniversary. The artist has signed their name SC – but I have no further information to date.

18 Shtator 1944 - SC - tapestry

18 Shtator 1944 – SC – tapestry

Update on the cemetery

I took the opportunity of a quiet moment to have another visit to the cemetery to try to get an idea of what the Anti-Fascist National Liberation war was all about. I had missed them in the past but was slightly surprised to see that (although there are many young people remembered on the tombs) there were two children of 14 (Sulo Hysi (1929-1943) and Kristo Cavo (1929-1943)) and one 16 year-old (Celo Sinani (1928-1944)) who also fell in the struggle for liberation.

Kristo Cavo

Kristo Cavo

I have been having difficulty in tracking down someone in Gjirokaster who might know exactly who is represented amongst the eight heads which are depicted on the lapidar. In the cemetery there are a few tombstones which carry a red star as well as the name of the individual. These will be officially Heroes of the People. Two of those, Bule Naipi (1922-1944) and Persefoni Koadhima (1923-1944) are the so-called ‘Hanged Women of Gjirokaster’ and are the young female faces on the lapidar.

I am assuming that of the other Heroes of the People whose tombs are in the Martyrs’ Cemetery – Themo-Vasi (no dates), Celo Sinani (1928-1944) and Muzafer Asqueria (1918-1942) – might well be also depicted on the panel but if so I’m not sure which they are.

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Martyrs’ Cemetery, Gjirokaster

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Martyrs' Cemetery, Gjirokaster

Martyrs’ Cemetery, Gjirokaster

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Martyrs’ Cemetery, Gjirokaster

There are a lot of mountains in Albania and they played a role in the success of the Communist led Partisan çeta (guerrilla groups) in defeating first Italian and then German Fascism. For that reason most of the Martyrs’ Cemeteries in Albania tend to be high above towns, in the surrounding hills, as is the case in Tirana. On my first visit to Gjirokaster I was, therefore, scanning the hills above the old town looking for the tell-tale signs of a white lapidar indicating the location of the cemetery.

It wasn’t until details came out in the Albanian Lapidar Survey that I learnt that it was located at probably the lowest part of town, right beside the place where the long distance buses drop off and pick up. I had stood beside it a number of times not realising what was behind the trees. In the past the vegetation hadn’t been so dense (and there was probably more care taken on basic maintenance) and buildings wouldn’t have been constructed so close, but things are different now.

Like a number of lapidars the Martyrs’ Cemetery monument in Gjirokaster has gone through changes, developments, since it was first constructed in the 1960s. The earliest picture I have found is one taken in 1969.

Martyrs' Cemetery, Gjirokaster, 1969

Martyrs’ Cemetery, Gjirokaster, 1969

It’s not a very good picture (unfortunately, to date, the only one I have been able to find from the period of major lapidar construction) but on this we can see that the general, architectural, aspect is the same as it is today. What is different is the design on the right hand panel. I’ve been told by Vincent from the ALS that the original wording on the panel was LAVDI DESHMOREVE, TE LUFTËS N.C. The N.C standing for Nacional Çlirimtare, there not being enough room for the complete words – but understood by all who saw it. This translates as ‘Glory to the Martyrs of the National Liberation War’. That was all in 1969. (And if you look really hard you can make out those letters.) Some time later (and I would hazard a guess at 1983, when the Education, Partisan and Music and Dancing Monuments were constructed) the frieze of the faces and Partisan fighters were added. And, since the Albanian Lapidar Survey made their visit in the summer of 2014, the monument has been ‘cleaned and restored’.

A common aspect of Albanian monuments (and which provides the generic name of ‘lapidar’) is a soaring monolith, more often than not surmounted by a star. Not all present lapidars have this aspect but it was from this that the monuments got their name. Here there are two, which start out at the base further apart than they are at the top. Through the construction of a sloping section up to the height of the panel they are brought closer together and then a section links them together.

The column on the left is narrower than its companion but is a couple of metres taller. The column on the right is painted red and it would seem that has always been so. That can be seen in the indistinct 1969 picture above and also from the colour picture (below) taken sometime in the 1970s of a commemoration event. This was a little bit unusual. Although through recent renovations more colour has been introduced to many of the lapidars from the evidence I’ve seen the vast majority, at their inception, were just bare and unadorned concrete, at times concrete faced with stone tiles/slabs or white plaster.

At the top of the red column is a black double-headed eagle. This represents the Albanian national flag. Perched on the very top is a red star – but the present star is not the original. As can be seen in the historic pictures the original star was much larger. The restoration of a smaller version is a sign of the changing politics and the need for its replacement is a demonstration of the vandalism that occurred in the 1990s where the star (the symbol of Communism) was the target of reactionary ire.

The concrete of the structure is faced with tiles made from the local limestone and is in a much better physical condition than a number of lapidars I’ve seen.

It’s the panel to the right of the columns which tells a story.

Martyrs' Cemetery - Gjirokaster

Martyrs’ Cemetery – Gjirokaster

The panel has images which are slightly unusual. On the extreme left hand side, immediately next to the red pillar, two men are depicted. Both are armed but what makes this unusual is that they are not in any sort of uniform. One of them is wearing a bandana around his neck, which would have been red and indicates that he is a Communist, but apart from that they are dressed as civilians.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. The Partisan army was not a state army. It didn’t have a huge infrastructure to supply it with all the equipment that a modern army normally uses. At the time that the Albanians were fighting the Fascists who had invaded the country the British were producing the uniforms but the soldiers weren’t involved, to any great extent, in the European theatre of war until most of the fighting to break the fascist power had been done. It’s just that in most of the lapidars that I’ve seen so far the fighters, overwhelmingly, are in some sort of uniform. Pictures of the guerrilla groups taken at the time indicate that uniforms were not always available to all.

Typical Partisan Group

Typical Partisan Group

To the right of these two partisans are the faces of eight partisans, 6 men and 2 women. This is again an unusual presentation of the story. The only other place I’ve come across the disembodied faces of clearly defined individuals is on the lapidar in Ngurrez e Madhe, to the south of Lushnje. So these are almost certainly actual images of particular people either from the Gjirokaster area or who died there.

Unfortunately, at this moment, I’m unable to identify them all but I do have an idea of some of them. To my mind the two female images are that of the ‘Two hanged Women’, Bula Naipi and Persefoni Kokëdhima.

Bula joined the youth wing of the Albanian Communist Party very soon after its foundation in November 1941. The first meeting of the Party cell in Gjirokaster was held in her home (when the country and the city were under the occupation of the Italian Fascists) and she was soon a member of the Party’s Regional Committee. She worked clandestinely organising support for the Partisans and was betrayed by the nationalist collaborators when she returned to her neighbourhood of Dunavat, close to the castle in Gjirokaster. She was captured and imprisoned in the Castle.

Dunavat - Gjirokaster

Dunavat – Gjirokaster

Persefoni was born in the village of Qeparo, on the coast between Himarë and Saranda. Not so far as the crow flies but there’s a few mountain ranges in the way. She was part of a Partisan group and was captured when she got wounded. She was also imprisoned in the castle.

After being tortured (giving no information) they were ‘tried’ by the collaborator organisation Balli Kombëtar and sentenced to death by hanging. Persefoni was 20 years old, Bule 24.

After liberation they were both declared “Heroine i Popullit” (Heroine of the People).

From pictures I’ve seen I think that Persefoni is the face at the top left and Bule the one in the bottom right.

Following that line of thought (that all the eight are People’s Heroes) I think that the face at the very bottom is that of Fatu Dudumi (Berberi). He was another Partisan fighter who was born in Gjirokaster.

Palorto - Gjirokaster

Palorto – Gjirokaster

He joined the Partisans in 1943 but in June of that year he fell in the mountains at night and was captured, unconscious, by the Nazis. After suffering the normal torture at the hand of the Nazis he was transported to a concentration camp in Thessaloniki in Greece. Early in 1944 he was murdered by being hung in that camp. He was only 17 years old.

The only other one I think I can identify now is the face in the top right, the male with the moustache. If you look you will see that he is wearing a flat cap, the sort that was common during the 19th century, and the cap Çerçiz Topulli is often depicted wearing. The problem with this theory is that if it is him it’s not a particularly good likeness. He was born in Gjirokaster and spent most of his adult life fighting the Ottomans for national independence. He was killed in 1915 in Shkoder, in the north of the country, but in 1936 his remains were brought back to the city and he was buried in a plot a few hundred metres from the Martyrs’ Cemetery (Enver Hoxha in attendance). There’s also a statue of him in the square that bears his name in the old town.

Çerçiz Topulli - Gjirokaster

Çerçiz Topulli – Gjirokaster

But if it is not him I’m not sure who it is. A common ‘problem’ when looking at the lapidars is that a person could be commemorated in more than one place; where they were born, where they fought in an especially important battle, and where they died. That wasn’t a problem during the Socialist period as all the information would have been to hand. Since the early 1990s that information has either been lost or if it does exist deep within different archives. So nowadays we have to complete the jigsaw by trying to find some of the pieces from different parts of the country. For example, Persefoni is not named on any of the Girokaster lapidars in different parts of the town but is in her place of birth of Qeparo.

(I’ll attempt to fill in the gaps when new information comes to light.)

The rest of the panel holds 4 images of Partisans. A male and a female in uniform and two men in ‘civilian’ clothes. All of them hold a rifle, three of them are standing and the male on the extreme right is kneeling. The uniformed Partisans have a star on their caps and are wearing a bandana, indicating their status as Communists. They have ammunition pouches around their waists and the woman has another across her shoulder.

One of the other men is dressed in the clothes of the mountains, with a loose cape across his back and is wearing the footwear of the mountains (I started to develop a bit of a foot fetish during my May 2015 trip in using the differences in footwear as an indicator of the background of the fighters). The Partisan who is kneeling, grips his rifle with both hands, the butt resting on his knee, is dressed in town clothes of the 1940s.

This bas-relief lacks the dynamism and sense of movement of some of the other lapidars but demonstrates that there were no strict rules laid down on how the events and individuals commemorated were depicted. No uniformity which is supposed to charcaterise Socialist societies (from those who know nothing of them and just trot out regurgitated anti-Communist propaganda without thinking) but quite a lot of experimentation in different forms and messages being conveyed.

The graves themselves are slightly overgrown and not cleaned as they would have been in the past but there is obviously some periodic maintenance being carried out. I thought that some of these cemeteries would have been pristine up to 1990 but as can be seen in the picture of a celebration prior to that date the grass was allowed to grow even during the Socialist period. (Here I’m obviously bringing my northern European prejudices to bear. One time in Tirana I saw the grass at the German Fascist Memorial being cut with a pair of scissors and bottled water used to clean the gravestones in the English Cemetery. Albanians celebrated their dead in a different way.)

Martyrs' Cemetery, Gjirokaster

Martyrs’ Cemetery, Gjirokaster

In looking at the names on the gravestones one thing you notice is the youth of so many of the fighters, many of them barely out of their teens (as was the case with the three of the ‘People’s Heroes’). Also there’s one to Astrit Toto. That name is on the memorial in Dema, Saranda and I assume it’s the same person.

Although it’s not the case in all Martyrs’ Cemeteries I’ve visited here in Gjirokaster there have been a few post-1990 additions. Normally, if they have been buried in these cemeteries to the fallen of the National Liberation War, they would have had some military or police connection. (The extreme example of desecration of an historical location is the Martyrs’ Cemetery in Tirana where there seems to be the ambition to fill the empty space with monarcho-fascists.) Here in Gjirokaster it looks as if a few partisans have been ousted to make room but I don’t know the exact details around such an eviction.

How to get there:

The steps to the cemetery go uphill, through the trees and bushes, on the left hand side of the road if walking north, just at the place where the buses and furgons depart, at the bottom end of Bulevardi 18 Shtatori.

GPS:

40.08600097

20.14256098

DMS:

40° 5′ 9.6035” N

20° 8′ 33.2195” E

Altitude:

207.5 m

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The ‘Hanged Women’ of Gjirokastra

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The Hanged Women - Gjirokastra

The Hanged Women – Gjirokastra

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The ‘Hanged Women’ of Gjirokastra

Tucked away at the top end of Sheshi Çerçiz Topulli (Square) in the old part of Gjirokastra is a small statue which you could easily miss. Next to the potted plants in front of the Tourist Information Office is a white stone statue, of the upper body, of two women. This is a representation of Bule Naipi and Persefoni Kokëdhima who were executed by the German Nazis in 1944. From that time they became known as the Hanged Women of Gjirokastra.

Both of the women were in their early twenties when their country was invaded by the Fascists and, like 6,000 other women (out of a Partisan force of 70,000) they decided to take up arms to drive the invaders from their land.

bule

bule

Bule was born in Gjirokastra town and apart from the statue in the main square she is referenced, as a ‘People’s Heroine’, on a monument in the Dunavat area of the town. She was a member of the youth group of which Qemal Stafa was the leader so it would seem that she had adopted the Communist ideology at an early age.

persefoni

persefoni

I’m not sure where Persefoni came from but apart from the monument to her death in Gjirokastra she is mentioned on the monuments in Qeparo Fushë (which is on the Adriatic coast), Kardhiq (in the mountains to the north-west of Gjirokastra) and Përmet (in a couple of valleys over to the east of Gjirokastra). This would seem to indicate she had been a Partisan for some time and had been involved in quite extensive sorties against the Fascists.

The exact circumstances of their capture I’m not aware but it seems they were captured at more or less the same time, imprisoned and then the German Nazis decided to make an example of these young and courageous women in an effort to deter others from opposing their occupation. These terror tactics are common in the history of imperialism.

A favoured tactic by the Nazis throughout Eastern Europe was the public hanging of those who had been fighting against them on being captured and, according to the statistics, this was even more common when women were concerned. The intense military opposition to the Fascist invasion in countries such as Albania and the Soviet Union meant that there are no pictures of women walking arm in arm with the German invaders in Tirana and Moscow (as you do in Paris). What we do get, however, are hundreds of pictures of young women hanging from the gallows in public squares.

These were not the executions that might take place in those countries where capital punishment was, or still is, the case. Everything was done by the Fascists to turn the occasion of the killing of an individual into a lesson in politics. There would be no, or very limited, process of law. Many of the executions were carried out summarily and even if there was the pretence of a trial the outcome was known before it had begun. Almost always they would be public executions, carried out in a main square, with the rest of the population forced to watch. Here the aim was to both strip the victims of their dignity and give that added spice to the terror instilled into the onlookers.

Neither was the execution the clinical affair that was eventually meted out to those German Fascists found guilty at the Nuremberg Tribunals of 1945-9. Those who were dealt with by Albert Pierrepoint would die in seconds. This would have been in ‘ideal’ circumstances. However, on the streets of Gjirokastra on July 17th 1944 Bule and Persefoni would have been stood on a stool under a low and flimsy gallows, with a thin piece of rope around their necks tied in a crude slip knot and then strangled to death when the stool was kicked away. As in the case of most of these lynchings the two women faced their fate with dignity and a continued hatred of the enemy. It was the practice of the Nazis to leave the bodies hanging for as long as possible to hammer home the message but as they were murdered in the summer they would have been cut down quite quickly. (This is just one of the reasons I am opposed to the German War Cemetery in the park behind the University in Tirana.)

The two young women were murdered in the square where the statue now stands.

Now the statue in Gjirokastra’s main square is not one of my favourite examples of Socialist sculpture. In fact I can think of no other I find less pleasing. I don’t yet know who was the sculptor but I don’t think it’s one of the best, or most appropriate of monuments, to two brave, young women.

They appear thin and haggard. Their faces are gaunt and their eyes seem to be bulging out of the sockets. The facial expression says nothing, unsmiling but not telling us anything else about how they might have been thinking. Compare this lack of expression with, for example, the statue to the Partisan in the centre of Tirana. He’s angry (sometimes I think a little bitter – and that’s something coming from someone who harbours a lot of anger) and you know that immediately you look at his face. You don’t get any emotion from this statue, not even a sensation of dignity. Also, there’s a problem with the location. It’s pushed to the edge of a car park, close to a building, as if it’s only there on sufferance (which it probably is) and doesn’t permit the viewer to consider the monument for what it represents.

But in a study of Socialist Realism these two Communist martyrs allow an analysis which has not been possible to date. Not only is there a statue in the location of their deaths but their fate has been represented in a number of media which suggest a number of interesting ideas.

As far as I’m concerned a better sculpture is one created by Odhise Paskali in 1974. This is called ‘The Two Heroines’, which I think is a better title than ‘The Hanged Women’. (Since I first came across this story and related art works I’ve always considered that there’s something cold and almost impersonal in referring to such courageous women in such a way. It seems to say that their short lives are determined solely by the manner in which they died.)

The Two Heroines - Odhise Paskali

The Two Heroines – Odhise Paskali

(The original of this statue is in the corridor of the old Gjirokaster Castle Prison. It was from this prison that the two women were led downhill to the main square of the old town for their public execution. It can be seen by going upstairs to the Armaments Museum – which has some interesting examples of Socialist realist Art (both paintings and sculptures). The entrance to the prison is off this part of the museum.)

This is more sympathetic to the situation. They look like young women and have determination etched on their faces. It’s a head a shoulders view of the two women and they are joined by their hair. By doing so it tends to go against reality as Persefoni was much taller than Bule but here they are on the same level. However much I consider this to be a better statue there is an important aspect which I think is bizarre. That is the addition of the noose around their necks.

Why? It again defines the women by their deaths. This is just crass Catholic Christian imagery and should have nothing to do with Socialist Realism. If you were to visit Catholic churches in Spain and Italy you would encounter countless paintings and images where the Christian martyr would be depicted alongside the cause of his/her death, normally with an enigmatic look on their face. I don’t understand why this should appear in the country to have declared itself an atheist state, as Albania did in Article 37 of the 1976 Constitution. This is why there’s always a need for a Cultural Revolution to monitor how the society and its history are being represented. ‘People’s Heroes/Heroines’ might be martyrs for the cause of independence and communism but there’s a fine line between that and the idea of Christian martyrs.

There’s another image that seems to follow the approach adopted by Paskali and that’s an engraving by Safo Marko.

Bule and Persefoni

Bule and Persefoni

This is a triptych. On the left is an image of Bule involved in a demonstration in her home town. As a member of the youth groups this is what she would have been doing before heading for the hills and joining the Partisans. On the right is an image of a female Partisan, armed and marching through the hills. This could represent either of the women. The problem comes with the central, bigger panel.

Here the two women are depicted, in chains, standing before a very large tree, two nooses hanging from one of the lower branches. This repeats the Christian idea of martyrs together with the instruments of their death but with the added problem of creating a ludicrous scenario. They were killed in the main square of an old fortress town built there because what was in abundance was a lot of stone. No way could such a tree exist in that environment. The scene suggests that the murder took place in the countryside.

Another engraving, this one more in the spirit of Socialist Realism, is by Lumturi Dhrami.

Heroinat Bule Naipi e Persefoni Kokëdhima

Heroinat Bule Naipi e Persefoni Kokëdhima

Here we know we are in Gjirokastra with the image of the castellated tower on the horizon and the cobbled streets along which the execution party is walking, downhill towards Sheshi Çerçiz Topulli. The two women are in the centre foreground, one in profile the other looking out of the picture. There’s determination on their faces. They know what is about to happen but there’s an impression of ‘so what?’.

They are surrounded by German soldiers but also in the picture are Albanian collaborators, these would have been members of the fascist-nationalist of Balli Kombëtar who allied with the ‘nation of Aryans’ as they shared similar racist and anti-progressive beliefs.

There are also two paintings I’ve seen depicting Persefoni and Bule. The first one I’ve yet to identify the painter and I’m sorry it’s such a fuzzy image.

The 'Hanged Women' of Gjirokastra

The ‘Hanged Women’ of Gjirokastra

What’s interesting about this painting is that I’ve seen photographs where the image was being used in classrooms to tell children about the event in 1944. This is not an exceptional painting (although I’ve only seen a poor reproduction) but is simple in that we have four individuals, the two restrained women and two Nazi guards taking them to their execution. The castle walls form part of the background and in the foreground we can see the bayonet of one of the invaders, the greyness of the soldiers uniforms in contrast to the colours (muted but colours nonetheless) of the women’s clothing.

The final image I’ve come across is a painting by Pavllo Moçi simply called ‘Persefoni and Bule’ which is in the collection of the Duress Art Gallery.

Persefoni and Bule - Pavllo Moçi

Persefoni and Bule – Pavllo Moçi

This depicts the two women in a prison cell, holding hands as the door of the cell is opened by the Nazi guards to take them to their death. Persefoni is on the left and has her right arm in a sling. Bule is standing defiantly with her legs slightly apart as if ready to fight against all odds. Light coming through the door shines on them, highlighting them against the gloom of the cell itself, with the guard in shadow, all demonstrating where the future lies.

On the walls they have scratched the letters VFLP representing “Vdekje Fashizmit – Liri Popullit!” (“Death to Fascism – Freedom to the People!”) which can be seen on the Heroic Peze monument, at the junction of the Tirana-Duress road, and the Peze War Memorial in the Peze Conference Memorial Park, among others.

The two women defiant to the end!

'The Hanged Women' - Gjirokaster (Andrew Andison)

‘The Hanged Women’ – Gjirokaster (Andrew Andison)

The ‘renovation’ or ‘restoration’ of Socialist lapidars in Albania is, at best, a hit and miss affair. Often it just takes the form of a quick coat of whitewash over a monument to hide the ravages of time and the weather. This seems to have been the approach in Gjirokastra during the early part of 2017 – and the result can be seen above (thanks to Andrew for sending through a copy of his picture).

If there was no proper cleaning of the mould before the coat of paint was applied the statue will revert to it’s previous state soon after an Albanian winter.  

Update November 2021

Currently the Çerçiz Topulli Square in the old town of Gjirokaster is being dug up and an underground car park is being constructed. This work will go well into 2022. As part of this work the statue of the Two Hanged Women (pictured at the head of the post) has been removed. It is not known whether it will return once the construction work is complete. It probably will as the present local government in Gjirokaster does seem to have a sense of history. It can only be hoped that when the statue returns it comes with an explanation of what it represents. Most Gjirokastrians won’t know the history, even less any visitors from other parts of Albania or the rest of the world.

Also I am adding here another painting representing the day of execution of the two young Partisans. Paintings from the Socialist Period of Albania’s past may not be on permanent exhibition but they are still (at least some of them) in public hands and in storage – although not always stored in the best of conditions.

Persefoni and Bula - G Modhi 1966

Persefoni and Bula – G Modhi 1966

This telling of the story is by the artist Guri Modhi (1921-1988) who also was the painter of ‘The Partisan Oath’ (1968) which has been part of the permanent exhibition of Socialist Realist Art in the National Art Gallery in Tirana for many years. (At present the gallery is displaying virtually everything from the store-rooms and it is not known what the permanent exhibition will be once this display comes to an end.) This was on display in the theatre in the centre of the new town on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of the city on 18th September 1944.

Lavdi Shqiperise - Gjirokastra

Lavdi Shqiperise – Gjirokastra

One positive aspect of the location is that the two women are looking over towards the wall which forms part of the local government building. On this, picked out in large letters in relief, are the words ‘Lavdi Shqiperise’ – ‘Glory to Albania’ or ‘Long Live Albania’. Even though I had looked at this carefully it didn’t register that there’s something wrong. There’s a lack of symmetry. Why are the words so far apart and what is the ‘scar’ between them? It has been brought to my attention that the space (where someone has worked hard to obliterate what was there before) almost certainly contained the words ‘Partise se Punes e (Shqiperise)’, PPSH or the Party of Labour of Albania (PLA).

This is just another example of the vandalism that swept the country after the counter-revolution of 1990. The reactionaries still try to present themselves as patriots but if it were not for the Communists in the National Liberation Front in the war against fascism then the country would have only the sort of independence it has at present, that is, one where millions have to work abroad; foreign NATO troops crawl over the country like flies; local industry and agriculture is at a pre-capitalist stage; young Albanian women populate the brothels of Europe; and the country begs to be let into the ‘big boys’ club of the EU.

I’ve not come across this type of inscription (whether in its original or vandalised form) in any other town in Albania. It is partly obscured by trees and any vehicle that might be parked on that side of the square can block the view so it can be easily missed.

More on Albania ……