Bas Relief and Statue at Bajram Curri Museum

Posted on 30/07/2016 by Michael

Bas Relief – Bajram Curri

Bas Relief and Statue at Bajram Curri Museum

The early Albanian lapidars were relatively simple affairs, uncomplicated memorials to those who had died in the National Liberation War against Fascism and for Socialism. Come the Albanian ‘Cultural Revolution’ – starting in the late 1960s – the intention was to use such monuments in a much more educational manner as well as establishing a distinctive Albanian identity. This meant that artists who had been educated and trained under the Socialist regime were encouraged to depict events and memorials in a much more figurative manner. Examples of this approach are seen in the Musqheta monument in Berzhite and in the Peze War Memorial. As the Cultural Revolution moved into the 1980s a new approach developed. This was one where the monument told a story which had developed over time, showing a continuum of the struggle. This is seen, in a truly monumental manner on the Drashovice Arch (close to Vlora) and in the Albanians Mosaic on the façade of the National History Museum in Tirana but also on the more modest, at least in size, bas-relief and statue in the north-eastern town of Bajam Curri – although it also presents some new questions of the meaning of Socialist art.

It appears that the Museum, bas-relief and statue were considered as a whole, all being constructed in the mid-1980s. The Museum was looted in 1997 and there has been no efforts to re-open it in the intervening years. Whether the looting was prompted by greed or political revenge I can’t say. Neither the bas-relief nor the statue – which carry a significant political message themselves – do not seem to have been damaged in any way. The area also doesn’t display the same sort of neglect that plagues so many public spaces throughout Albania. Since my first visit in 2011 a small cafe has been opened in the area behind the bas-relief but the area hasn’t degraded in any significant manner.

Bajram Curri – Looted Museum

The Bas Relief

This sculpture is a visual representation of the history of the struggle for independence over the centuries and ends with the situation in the country at the time it was completed – moving forward with the construction of Socialism. Such a depiction obviously draws parallels to how the Church (in Western, Christian societies) decorated the interiors of their buildings in an effort to ‘educate’ the illiterate ‘faithful’.

This was not the case in Albania, the battle to combat illiteracy being one of the first success of the Socialist state, a goal which was achieved by the early 1950s, such an achievement being even more impressive taking into account the recent history of the country and the threat to its very existence that it faced from antagonistic neighbours (first Greece, after the re-establishment of the Fascist collaborationist monarchy) and then, from 1948, the renegade Yugoslav Federation) as well as the two imperialist powers of Britain and the United States.

At the same time the visual representation reinforced the message the Party of Labour was attempting to inculcate amongst the people, that their independence had been hard-won and if they wanted to go forward then it would take more and even greater effort, against vicious opposition and enemies, in the future.

The story reads from left to right.

The fight for independence

In the top left hand corner are two standing men. The one at the rear is holding a spear, his hand quite high up the shaft, and in his left hand an escutcheon, a triangular-shaped shield, although only part of it is seen as the other warrior hides most of his comrade. This other fighter has his right hand on the hilt of a short sword, seemingly in the process of drawing it. The sheath is hidden behind a small, round shield. Both the shields have studs around the perimeter, providing greater strength. The round shield also has an image in the centre, although it’s difficult to say exactly what it represents. The different shaped shields indicate the different roles these two fighters would play in a battle, a difference from defence and offense.

Both of them are sporting large, bushy moustaches and the one in the front has long hair, tied at the back. It seems that for a long time in Albania’s history of resistance to foreign invaders abundant facial hair was considered a sign of virility and is so depicted in older paintings and then up to the age of early photography. The spear bearer has his head covered with a qeleshe (the, normally white, brimless, felt cap). The sword bearer is bare-headed and has his jacket open and loose.

They are marching forward, as if advancing towards the enemy, with both their right legs shown in front of them. On their feet they wear the opinga shoes, the ones that have the toe slightly bent upwards, a type of footwear that was common in Albania for centuries.

These two men represent the fight for Independence from the 15th century when the national hero, Skenderberg, was leading the battle against the Ottoman Turks. Skenderberg as such is not depicted here but as in many Albanian lapidars neither is he totally absent – as we shall see later.

The next figure, to the right of the first two soldiers, I find slightly problematic. Here we have a man on a horse in the act of firing a primitive rifle. I assume this is now bringing us closer to the present day, to the battles that took place in the 19th century, going by the look of the weapon. He is upon a large horse, the head of which obscures the earlier mention fighters, and gives the impression of movement as if it were in the middle of a charge.

What is problematic about this image is that Albania is a mountainous country and virtually all the successes of the Albanian fighters for independence on the battlefield have been where they use the terrain against their enemy. This was the case in the 15th as well as the 20th century. Horses would have been in very short supply as fighting animals. If used at all they would have been used in the role as draft animals, as would have mules and donkeys. Animals are not very common on the lapidars in general but can be seen in this role on the Pishkash Star.

Yes, Skenderberg is often shown riding a horse, but then he was a ‘lord’ and not one of the hoi poloi. In the battles depicted in the murals of the Historical Museum in Kruja, for example, he is shown leading a cavalry charge against the Turks but even in those images we see that the Albanian foot soldier would use such nominal superiority of the Ottomans against their enemy, raining stones down on them as they went through narrow defiles in the mountains. Basically, if Skenderberg had used such open field tactics against the occupier then he wouldn’t be remembered today, having died in his first battle. It makes for a dramatic mural, especially such large ones, but I have my doubts of how close to reality they might have been.

But getting back to the bas-relief in Bajram Curri. All the images (I can’t think of a lapidar where this is not the case) where someone is shown actually in the act of firing a weapon that weapon is pointed downwards. That makes sense. Without having to give any further explanation we are told that these are fighters in the mountains, ambushing their unsuspecting enemies. The soldier on the bas-relief is shown firing downwards, from a horse. He is, therefore, either shooting someone laying on the ground or from a high vantage point. If the latter why on a horse – it really doesn’t make any military sense.

Like the first two fighter he also has a busy moustache and is dressed in traditional countryside clothing, including a qeleshe on his head. He doesn’t appear to be sitting on a saddle but there is evidence of embroidery on the blanket he’s sitting on.

The horse might have been included to create a feeling of dynamism but it goes against historical reality and sense. This is mirrored in one of the murals in the looted museum (see the picture above) where a horse is included when it wouldn’t necessarily have been there in reality. Perhaps a situation where an artist, an intellectual, sees the world from their own perception and not from a study of what actually existed at the time.

The last fighter on this side of the relief brings matters even closer to the present day. This is a Partisan from the National Liberation War, fighting in the hills and firing downhill at the enemy. He is in a pose seen on other lapidars: kneeling on what is obviously uneven ground, thereby stressing that he is in the mountains; the image of rocks in the bronze, again making the point that the success of the Partisans was dependent upon their dominance of the terrain; the machine gun (this one on a tripod and with a belt of ammunition that can be seen hanging down below the firing mechanism) firing downwards, another reference to mountain warfare but also suggesting an ambush, the tactic of guerrilla fighters; he’s wearing a cap on which (in profile) can be seen the star, indicating that he is a Communist; the bandana around his neck – yet again a sign of his political allegiance; around his waist, attached to his belt are ammunition pouches, three of which can be seen here; and, finally, on his feet he is wearing the 20th century version of the opinga shoes, indicating that he is from the countryside and showing that the Partisan army was one that included both workers and peasants.

Partisan firing from the hills

Now all these fighters are facing to the left – the opposite direction to the vast majority of the other individuals on the panel. This indicates that this is the fighting that has gone on in the past, the past being shown as something that is in the opposite direction to the future, the direction in which the young people on the right hand side are marching. Even the flared muzzle of the machine gun of the Partisan is actually outside the edge of the rectangular panel, as if to emphasise the connectiveness, yet separation, of the other events depicted.

The next scene, as we move towards the right, is a common one and has appeared on other lapidars, for example, the Mosaic at the Durres War Memorial. This is the entry of the Partisans into town after the defeat of the occupying Fascists. In this particular scene we have four actors, two Partisans – a male and a female – an older civilian woman and a young child.

However, in this image in Bajram Curri there are a few discrepancies which will need a bit of thought and analysis to see how it fits into the story of lapidars in Albania.

To the best of my knowledge Bajram Curri wasn’t even ‘liberated’ in the way that it was in other towns and cities in the country. Bajram Curri as such didn’t even exist until after liberation, when the town was chosen as the administrative centre of the Tropoja region and given the name of the Kosovan hero and fighter for independence of the early 20th century. The town is not easy to get to in the 21st century let alone before any thought of a transport infrastructure was created during the Socialist period. Even today the minibus from Bajram Curri to Tirana goes via Kosovo before returning to Albania just north of Kukes.

So the scene which shows a meeting of the Partisans with the civilian population, as well as a parade with the young, bare-footed girl being carried by the female partisan, seems to be an invention. It did happen in many places in the country but not necessarily in this remote region. The many dead commemorated in the town’s Martyrs’ Cemetery, down the hill at the entrance to the town proper, would more likely to have fought and died in other parts of the country or, possibly, fighting with the Yugoslav partisans across the border.

There also seems to be a discrepancy with the uniforms. The great coat of the male officer seems too modern for what would have been used by a Partisan from 1939-44. He’s dressed more like an officer of the Army of the People’s Republic of Albania than a Partisan who had just come down from the hills. He’s just too smart. His great coat fits too well, with a dispatch case hanging from a strap over his left shoulder whilst he has a rifle hanging from a strap across his chest over his right shoulder – the end of the rifle barrel seen just behind him.

One possible reason for this is the late date of the bas-relief (1986),which makes it one of the latest. In fact, I can only think of one later lapidar and that’s in the centre of Lushnje, dated 1987. There are a number of reasons why the creation of lapidars came to an end around this time, not least of which was the death of Enver Hoxha in April 1985.

The inability of those who followed him in the leadership of the Party of Labour of Albania to maintain Socialist construction meant that the ‘Cultural Revolution’, which had been losing its momentum for some time, really came to a halt soon after Enver’s death.

Isa Balla, the sculptor, would not have been born at the time of liberation. Unlike many of the sculptors that created works in the late 1960s and 70s he would have had no personal connection to the Partisans. However young they might have been in 1944 many of those artists had had some experience of war and those who fought in it.

Assuming that Balla came from the Tropoja region (most one-off works of art catalogued by the Albanian Lapidar Survey were created by sculptors from the region in which the work was located – even if it was only as an assistant to a more experienced sculptor) he would have been very much more aware of the modern, Socialist Army. The threat posed by Yugoslavia from 1948 onwards meant that this region would have had a significant military presence right up to the end of the 1980s. That knowledge is what gets fed into his work.

This displays a possible growing separation of artists from their own history. Creating his masterpiece – I still like it despite its flaws – in 1986 Balla then seems to have disappeared. At least I haven’t come across any other works by him elsewhere. But with these caveats, back to the scene.

It depicts the meeting of two generations apart from anything else, two generations who had fought for and desired independence if nothing else (nationalism without socialism rapidly heading towards fascism). The young Communist Partisan Officer – he has a red star on his cap – is shaking hands with a much older women, one old enough to be his grandmother. She is dressed in traditional peasant clothing of the mid-20th century, with a loose sleeved dress and a head scarf (though not the hijab or any other head covering indicating an Islamic influence). Their rights hands are already clasped and she appears to be moving her left hand towards his so that she cane have his hand in both of hers, a sign of warmth, friendship and affection. This is accompanied with eye contact between the two of them.

The double-headed eagle

The reason for this closeness between them is demonstrated by the image above and behind the couple. Here there is a stone arch with a double-headed eagle carved into the keystone. The woman in front of her home is declaring her long-held wish for independence, which was only really achieved with the final victory over the Nazi invaders on 29th November 1944. Hence the warmth of their meeting.

The next image, that of a female Partisan carrying a young child on her shoulder, is also a familiar trope in liberation tableau. This is very well represented in the Bestrove Mosaic, where a poor boy is holding hands with a male Partisan, admiration obvious on his face as he looks up to one of his heroes and the statue in Berove, where the male partisan has his hand resting protectively on the shoulder of an early teenage girl. This all makes sense. Zogu, the self-proclaimed ‘king’ who ran away to Britain once his erstwhile Italian masters decided he was of no further use, would never have consorted with the poor if he had been arriving back in the country. Capitalism has had centuries to overcome poverty yet it is becoming more acute, whether it be relative or absolute, and only a new approach to the problem will provide a permanent solution.

So here we are presented with a heart-warming image. The little girl is happy even in her poverty (she is bare-footed). She has her left hand high in the air above her and is waving at an unseen crowd. She’s smiling, perhaps the time of her suffering is at an end? At least there are now people who offer her young life some hope.

Partisan and child

Yes, it’s idealistic. But the aim of Socialist Realist Art is to present a different future. In a predominantly agricultural society as Albania was before 1939, ruled by tribal/feudal landlords the Albanian Communist Party offered: land to the peasants; education for all; control of the country’s resources by the working people; true independence, although this brought with it a whole shed full of problems; and, most importantly, hope for the future. But all that had to be fought for and the greatest battles might well have been in the future. A revolution is not the solution to problems, just the start of the solution.

(And, in a society where capitalism is presently ruling the roost, we have to remember that ALL victors in a war use images of a happy population during periods of success to promote their own particular political and economic system – and hope everyone will forget times when things go against that same system – such as Dienbienphu (where the French imperialists were defeated in 1954) and the crashing of the tanks of the National Liberation Front into the US embassy in Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) in 1975.)

The female Partisan is very well dressed, wearing a cap with the Communist star and a bandana (which would have been red) around her neck. (There seems to be another anachronism here in the style of her shoes.) She is confident, marching forward and carrying the young girl into an uncertain future but one that would be beneficial to the poor if they took the opportunity into their own hands. (There also seems to be a lot of hair, not as bad as the awful representation of young Liri Gero in Fier, but seeming to presage later ‘developments’ in Albanian sculpture.)

The central group, an old man and two young children (a boy and a girl) is replete with symbolism. The backdrop to the group is a huge double-headed eagle with a large star just above the heads. This is a development on from the small symbol of the eagle carved into the stone of the arch previously mentioned. The star means that the struggle for independence of the past had eventually been achieved under Communist leadership and (although not considered at the time of this lapidar’s construction but which today has become a reality) could only be maintained under such a social system.

The figures represent a unity of the past with the present (a grandfather figure and very young children) but also the idea that what had been fought for in the past was important in order to make a bright future. The old man is dressed in traditional costume, elements of embroidery being evident on his jacket and trousers. He wears a qeleshe on his head and the headband becomes a wide scarf which is thrown back over his left shoulder. On his feet are the opinga shoes. He has the obligatory bushy moustache of his generation but what really connects him to an even more distant past is the musical instrument he is playing. This is the gusle, a Balkan version of the lute, which was played not by plucking the strings, as in western Europe, but with a bow.

Playing the gusle

(This picture is supposed to be from Herzegovina and is dated 1823. Why it has a symbol which is very much Albanian in origin is a mystery to me.)

What is especially interesting about this instrument is the neck, or more specifically the carving at the top of the instrument. This is where Skenderberg appears in the tableau. Most of the depictions of Skenderberg, whether it’s on the statues of him, riding his horse in Tirana; standing in Peshkopia (where it is held in his left hand, against his body); in the murals in the Historical Museum in Kruje; or the numerous paintings of him throughout the country he is always shown with a helmet that has the very distinctive design of a ram’s head with very long, swept back horns.

(Travelling around Albania visitors don’t have to be interested in history to notice this symbol of Skenderberg as it is used by the Kastrati Oil Company as its logo and appears on all their petrol stations. Kastrati is a version of Skenderberg’s family name (Kastrioti). This present company would have been the basis of the nationalised oil company under the period of Socialism but which the people of Albania allowed thieves to steal from them in the early 1990s.)

Listening to the music

On the right hand side of the gusle player stands a very young girl. She’s wearing a dress and her long hair is tied in a pony tail by a large ribbon. He stance is interesting. Her right forearm is resting on the old man’s thigh, with her hand on his knee. Her left elbow rests on her own right wrist and her left hand is under her chin, supporting her head as she listens to what is being played. She’s looking up to his face and her mouth is slightly open, possibly singing along in her own manner.

The young boy is sitting on the ground to the left of the old man, his left arm stretched out behind him and supporting his body as he leans back. His right hand holds the top of a book which is resting on his right thigh. He too is looking upwards but more to the little girl than the old man. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, shorts and sandals. We know he’s a young pioneer as around his neck is a scarf, the triangle rucked up over his shoulders.

All three are on different levels and it looks like they are out in the countryside. This is, again, a reference to the mountains and a trope that appears often to stress the importance of the mountains to Albanian culture.

The right hand section refers to the period after the war and the construction of Socialism.

The backdrop for these images is, again, a common aspect of such monuments. This is where there’s an image that defines the exact location of the lapidar. This was seen, for example, in Durres on the bas-relief that commemorated the tobacco workers strike. There an image of the Venetian tower pinned the event to the town. In Bajram Curri the image that plays that role is the outline of the mountain range that dominates the town. In fact, if you walk into the middle of the road below the museum and look north along Rruga Sylejman Vokshi you will see exactly the outline that is carved into the bronze of the lapidar in the distance.

Superimposed over this mountain scene is a single electricity pylon. One of the achievements of Socialist Albania was the electrification of the country, providing power to even the most isolated parts of the country. This was an achievement on the same scale as the electrification of the Soviet Union although the geographical scale of the two countries was so different. The Soviet Union was the biggest state in the world at the time and after its revolution Albania was one of the smallest but taking into account the base point from which they started the achievements were as important and what achieved as impressive. This pylon appears here as a recognition of the construction of the dams and the hydroelectric plants which created Lake Koman, only a few kilometres down the road.

In the top left of this right-hand section are two soldiers, both of them having the thumbs of their right hands behind the strap of their rifle which can be seen behind them. One is in normal uniform and looks out at the viewer. The other is in winter camouflage and is in profile, looking towards the outline of the mountains. This implies that the Socialist army is one which is not the same as an army in a capitalist state. It aims to protect the people and is not an aggressive force which is sent to different parts of the world to defend the interests of the ruling class.

In fact, the Albanian Army was one that abolished the hierarchical system of ranks and placed more reliance upon an army that was more of a militia where the population were responsible for defending their country – the oft ridiculed (by those with an anti-Socialist agenda and/or ignorance) bunker system was an integral part of this strategy. But Albania did have a hostile neighbour – Yugoslavia – and a huge area in the north-east of the country, which was very sparsely populated, bordered that potential enemy. For this reason the army had to have professionals who were trained to work in the potentially hostile climate of snow-capped mountains for a significant portion of the year.

Below the soldiers there’s the image of a miner pushing a mineral tub. This alludes to the mining of high value minerals that used to take place in the Tropoja region. I would like to think that even when these mines were working concerns during Socialism that machines would have been moving these heavy tubs from place to place but it’s difficult to represent industry in such a limited space. The miner is in profile and he leans forward as he strains to move the heavy, fully laden tub. He wears heavy protective clothing for the nature of his job, a pair of heavy boots and a helmet on his head.

It was only under Socialism that the mineral resources of Albania were exploited for the benefit of the population. The town of Elbasan, for example, was the location of one of the biggest chrome processing plants in Europe – now almost totally abandoned. And there doesn’t appear to be a great deal of activity in the Bajram Curri area at the moment. This is despite the fact that the area is supposed to be extremely rich in some of the most expensive and rarest of the minerals used in the expanding worldwide electronics industry. However, there are few attempts to extract these minerals for the benefit of the Albanian people – the exploration, exploitation and profits being offered to foreign-owned multi-national companies. This includes large reserves of platinum and associated elements. This is an issue throughout the country with lack of investment leading to an increasing number of accidents and deaths which have led some miners to get their courage back with a recent spate of strikes in Bulqize area (in the early part of 2016).

Collective Farmers

But Albania is also a fertile region for agriculture and the State Farms and Co-operatives are represented on this lapidar by a male and female agricultural worker, both of them carrying huge sheaves of wheat – the male with it cradled in his arms and the woman holding hers above her head with her right hand, resting some of the weight on her shoulder. (This is a similar image to that on the First Party Cell monument in Proger and the ‘Toka Jonë – Our Land’ sculpture in the centre of Lushnje.) They are both wearing the standard working clothes of the 1980s (but there’s evidence of embroidery on the woman’s blouse and there’s an apron around her waist). The woman holds a small scythe in her left hand, that hand resting on her waist. He is looking out towards the viewer whilst she is looking towards her left, her face in half-profile.

The Army, industry and agriculture have now been represented in the new Socialist society and the three other individuals on the sculpture represent the youth of the country – the future in a figurative sense.

Here we have two young males, both in profile, marching towards the right hand edge of the panel. The one nearest the viewer has a pickaxe balanced on his right shoulder, holding the wooden handle close to its end in his right hand. The other, all but his face obscured, is carrying a shovel. These will be students who are off to do their ‘voluntary’ work.

Revolutionary Students

I’ve put the word voluntary in parenthesis as, especially as we came into the 1980s, a growing number of students, not having any experience of society before liberation and thinking themselves ‘special’ and manual work being beneath them, might have resented this obligation. However, it is a standard idea of the integration of the young people in a Socialist society into the world of work. In a country where illiteracy was a problem for the overwhelming majority of the population before the 1940s the elimination of this feudal heritage was one of the first achievements of the new society. But in a Socialist society there are both rights and obligations and young people who never would have had chances of a university education in a Zog run society had the obligation to make their contribution to the society which had given them certain privileges. A possible reason for the students playing such an active role in the counter-revolution of the 1990s was possibly due to this idea that ‘intellectuals’ are somehow different from the rest of the population – but this is something to be explored later and elsewhere.

However, in this tableau the students seem happy to do their bit. It’s worth mentioning that young people were very much involved in the building of the railway network that was created throughout the country. But all that effort has been just let to go to waste in the 25 years or so since the counter-revolution and now the rail infrastructure is in a sorry state – virtually in terminal decline.

The two young males are accompanied by a young woman. She’s facing out to the viewer and in place of tools she carries a book in her right hand. Here we have another allusion to the unity of education with the world of work.

Poppy – Albania’s National Flower

This covers the principal images but there are still a couple of other points of interest. In the bottom, right-hand corner, just to the right of the leg of the female collective farmer there’s a single poppy. The poppy is the national flower of Albania but the only other monument it appears (so far, to my knowledge) is as an element of the statue in the Lushnje Martyrs’ Cemetery – where it accompanies sheaves of wheat in the hand of the young boy standing on the female Partisan’s thigh. The Bajram Curri bas relief and the Lushnje statue are only a couple of years apart in their construction (1984 in Lushnje, 1986 in Bajram Curri) so I’m not sure if there was a change of direction, perhaps only subtle, from the emphasis on Communist iconography to a more nationalistic representation.

In the extreme right hand corner there’s the date of the inauguration (1986) under the name of the sculptor (Isa Balla). This is another development that seems to accompany those lapidars created in the 1980s. Up to that time the majority of the monuments gave no indication of the identity of the creators. This was in line with the Socialist approach to art. An engineer didn’t have his/her name in a prominent position on something they had made so why should an ‘artist’. Here we are introduced to the question: what exactly is an artist? Is not a railway engine, in many respects, as much a piece of art as a sculpture? Many hundreds of people would have had an input in such a machine. Even in the bas-relief here in Bajram Curri Balla would have designed the statue from which the mould for the foundry was made but there were many more people, whose skills were vital for the final product, who don’t get a mention but without whom the bas-relief would not have existed.

This is another indication that the ‘intellectuals’ were starting to draw apart from the rest of the population and were becoming ‘special’ in the society. A dangerous development when what happened only a short six years after this lapidar was unveiled is taken into account.

So far I’ve been unable to come up with any more information about Balla and haven’t come across other works of his in other parts of the country. If the normal procedure was followed he would have very likely been a local artist, attempts being made in the past to have a local influence, connectivity, to a substantial work of art – even if, at times, they were teamed with a much more experienced sculptor.

Another point to be made about this work is that it is the first, where Partisans are depicted armed, that a woman does not carry a weapon. Here the only woman soldier is shown playing the role of a mother, caring for a vulnerable young child. This may be a small matter but when we consider the idea of the Albanian Cultural Revolution and the way that women would be depicted in works of art it’s interesting that the female Partisan is not as powerful here as she appears on other lapidars.

This bas-relief demonstrates a number of significant changes in the cultural direction in Albania in the second half of the 1980s, after the death of Enver Hoxha. It was also one of the last major lapidars to be created in the country before everything fell apart in the early 1990s so, perhaps should be seen more in the context of what followed its creation rather than what came before.

Bajram Curri Statue

The Statue

Just a few meters to the left of the bas-relief stands a large statue of the Kosovan/Albanian patriot and fighter, Bajram Curri, the one who gives his name to the town. Although not born in what are now the borders of Albania he was considered an Albanian hero as Kosovo has for long been considered a real part of the mother country, even to this day. This dispute of where the region of Kosovo belongs was one of the reasons for the antagonism between Yugoslavia and Albania from 1948 to the late 1980s.

During World War I Bajram Curri organised guerrilla units against the Ottoman Empire and after the war played a role in different levels of the Albanian government. What would have endeared him to the victorious Albanian Communist Party after the defeat of the Nazis in November 1944 was Curri’s opposition to, and even taking up arms against, Ahmet Zogu (who later became the self-proclaimed ‘King Zog’). Curri lost in the war against Zog and was killed in 1925 just around the corner from the present town, in the Valbona Valley.

Bajram Curri

The statue stands on a plinth on the edge of the museum complex and looks down on the main street into the town. He stands with his legs apart as if stepping forward with his left leg leading. His head is slightly raised and he looks straight ahead. His left arm is at about 45 degrees to his body with the fingers of his hand splayed to their fullest extent. His right arm is hanging straight down, slightly away from his body, and he holds a bolt-action rifle just in front of the firing mechanism. The rifle itself is slightly raised over the horizontal.

Like many of his contemporaries Bajram sports a bushy moustache. On his head is a fez and he wears a long, heavy great coat over a tight, leather shirt and a pair of trousers known as tirq. On his feet he wears the opinga shoes. Around his waist he has a brez (a wide, cloth belt) into which is tucked a pistol. A pouch hangs from the belt.

The pistol is interesting. It has a curved grip which is covered in nodules which were, presumably, to give a better grip in wet conditions. This appears in other statues of Bajram Curri’s contemporaries, such as Isa Bolletin in Shkoder and a very recent one (2012) of Adem Jashari by Mumtaz Dhrami in Tirana. I assume it’s a true representation of the weapons used at the time. I’ve forgotten to check this in the different museums where such arms are on display.

Fuat Dushku was the sculptor and it was inaugurated in November 1982 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the National Independence from the Ottoman Empire – although true independence had to wait another 42 years with the liberation of the country from the Nazi invaders under the leadership of the Communist Party of Albania (which was to become the Party of Labour of Albania) with Comrade Enver Hoxha at its head. Dusku was also responsible for the statue of Resistance on the Durres seafront and also the Four Heroines of Mirdita in Rreshen – the latter being destroyed by the reactionaries in the 1990s.

The Museum

Bajram Curri – Mural in Looted Museum

The Museum building is quite large and I’m not sure if all of it was actually used for the display of artefacts from the National Liberation War and other, previous, struggles for independence. I only had the opportunity to stick my head in and take a few quick pictures of the damaged murals a few years ago. Whether there are any plans to re-open the museum I wouldn’t know. It is happening in a few towns around the country so it’s not impossible that something will arise from the ashes of destruction in the future.

Location:

The main road into Bajram Curri, from Fierza or Kosovo, heads up hill, the rest of the town off to the right. The (now looted and closed) Museum, where the monuments are located, is at the top of this hill, the statue of Bajram Curri himself being an obvious landmark.

GPS:

N 42.35690

E 20.07312

DMS:

42° 21′ 24.84” N

20° 4′ 23.232” E

Altitude:

384m

Liri Gero and the 68 Girls of Fier

Posted on 29/10/2015 by Michael

Liri Gero – Tirana Art Gallery

More on Albania …..

Liri Gero and the 68 Girls of Fier

Many monuments, statues and lapidars from Albania’s Socialist period have suffered over the years, through outright political vandalism or just neglect. However, there has been a bit of a sea change in recent years but this has not come without its own problems. Here I want to develop the ideas of Albanian Socialist Realist art by looking at two works produced to commemorate the life of a young partisan woman, Liri Gero, and also a work in commemoration of 68 young women who also left their home town of Fier to join the partisans fighting the Fascist invaders.

Liri Gero

The first thing to know about Liri is the meaning of her name. Liri means Freedom, indicating her parents were at least nationalist, if not much further to the left, and possibly supporting the growing communist movement at the time of her birth. In a country that had a long history of fighting foreign invaders naming your children in such a way was making a political statement.

Soon after the country was invaded by the Italian Fascists in April of 1939 Liri, along with many other young people, started to take part in activities that opposed the occupation and assisted those actively fighting against the invaders, especially after the declaration of the National Liberation Front at the Conference of Peza of 1942.

However, as the struggle became more intense, and the betrayal by the collaborators and sycophants of the ‘nationalist’ Balli Kombetar (who were formed in November 1942 to cause confusion – the name literary means ‘national front’ – amongst the Albanian anti-Fascist masses) became a much more real threat, it was suggested that Liri leave her home town of Fier and join the partisans in the mountains, in the fighting war.

In any guerrilla war the struggle in the owns and cities occupied by the invaders is as important as that on the front line but when such activity ceases to be practical, or too dangerous for particular individuals, then the only way forward is to leave home and join the partisan army. Liri was one of many young women of her generation who did just that. Disguised as the bride in a wedding party she was able to leave Fier, which was then under the under the control of the Italians, in 1943.

Partisan çeta

In October 1944 Liri was part of a unit that attacked a German Nazi column in the vicinity of Fier. Although the partisans inflicted severe damage on the Nazis in this attack Liri was wounded and later captured. With just a matter of weeks before their final defeat (and when the war throughout Europe was going badly for the Germans, especially on the Eastern Front where the Red Army was moving ever closer to the German capital) the Nazis first tortured the 20-year-old and then poured petrol over her and burned her alive – and the reactionaries have established a Nazi war memorial in Tirana.

In volume 2 of ‘Flasin Heronj të Luftës Nacional-Çlirimtare (‘The Heroes of the National Liberation War Speak’) the collection that recounts the stories of many of those who gave their lives in the struggle against Fascism, her dedication, torture and death is described poetically:

‘When you go to the Cemetery (in Fier), under the name of Liri Gero you may think lie the remains of her beautiful young body, but this is not the case. It’s just a handful of ashes from her heart burned for the freedom of Albania.’

Being so young when she got involved in the anti-fascist struggle, and her equally premature death, she became a prime candidate to be singled out and immortalised in bronze during Albania’s Cultural Revolution. She would stand as an example to the young and it would also play a part in commemorating, celebrating and emphasising the role of women in Albania’s Socialist construction, in the past, present and future.

The sculptor chosen for the task was Mumtaz Dhrami, the sculptor who produced so many fine works during this period of artistic development in Albania’s Socialist period, including the monuments at Peze and the magnificent Arch of Drashovice.

(When I first published this post on the 29th October I mistakenly attributed this piece of work to another sculptor, Hektor Dule. These mistakes, unfortunately, will happen from time to time due to the difficulty of obtaining some of the basic factual information.

However, when I started to revise the text to show the facts I realised that this is all part of the different approaches to art in a socialist and capitalist society. Under capitalism the first question is who. Who produced it, as if that person is someone famous then the piece of art might be worth money, and with recent ‘investment’ in art a great deal of money. It’s for this reason a signed sketch on a paper serviette is worth a fortune just because the signature of Pablo Picasso is in the corner. It becomes valuable not because of its intrinsic artistic value but because of its association.

In Socialist Realism the most pressing question is what. What does it represent, what is it trying to convey, what does it mean to the people who see and relate to it, what role can the artistic object play in educating the people. And as those were the most important questions asked in a society attempting to build Socialism the artist as an individual became secondary. For that reason many of the lapidars and monuments in Albania don’t have any indication of who actually provided the artistic skill.

As we live in a world where individuals are praised way above the collective this creates a situation where some ‘artists’ consider that they are being hard done by, in comparison with ‘artists’ in capitalist countries. For this reason they start to grumble and for the same reason some have run away to the capitalist countries, not to have more freedom to express their art, not for the fame, but for the financial reward that they can receive in a different society from the one that nurtured, educated and trained them.

By being somewhat obsessed with getting the details of who might have created any particular piece of art I am also falling into the trap of bourgeois individualism. I find myself reluctant to post an article if it omits such information as it might appear incomplete. But that’s not the meaning of Socialist Realist art – it’s the message not the messenger.

In discussions about art many years ago, when Britain actually produced things rather than being a nation serving countless variations of coffee, it came up that those skilled engineers, for example, who could take a piece of raw metal and with their skills and experience turn it into a part necessary functioning of a complex machine, weren’t used to signing their work. Those who worked in agriculture didn’t sign their potatoes before they sent them to market, but if we didn’t have their skills then the vast majority of the population in so-called ‘developed’ societies would starve.

So why should an artist sign his/her work? Who is the most important in society? No society can produce or develop any sophisticated art unless they first are able to create a surplus of those things that society needs. All artists, in all societies, in all stages of development of civilisation rest on the shoulders of the workers. Why should one be named if the other isn’t?

To finish on this matter, before the whole post goes along too acute a tangent, what of those workers who took Dhrami’s ideas and turned it into the bronze object under discussion. Shouldn’t their names be noted – if the ‘artist’ were to have his signature somewhere in view?)

Liri Gero – National Art Gallery

The statue is slightly larger than life-size but we only have her depicted from the thighs up. She is shown dressed as a Partisan fighter, not in full uniform as such but in a manner that allows no doubt that she is a full-time member of the fighting force. The pose is as if she were standing to attention and she presents a calm demeanour, serene and confident and clear about what she is doing. She wears a cap with the star of a Communist clear at the front.

The only images I have seen of her show her with long tresses, braided on both sides of her head and hanging down in front of her. I’m sure that, as a young woman she was proud of her hair but to go into conflict with such long hair is not a wise move and I would have thought that one of the first acts after joining her partisan çeta would be to visit the barber. None of the pictures of the guerrilla groups show the women with long hair. However, by depicting her with her long tresses Dhrami has made an easy reference to the photos that people would have seen in different museums throughout the country as well as in magazines and other publications produced at the time.

So she has a full head of hair, spilling out from under her cap, and the braids hang down and finish just over her breasts. Around her neck she has a bandana (yet another symbol of her communist affiliations) and she is wearing a thick woollen sweater. There’s a rifle slung over her back and her right hand is holding the strap of that rifle just over her chest. Around her waist she has ammunition pouches attached to her belt and on her right hip hangs a Mills bomb (British made grenade).

It is what she holds in her left hand which makes this statue stand out as one created with a socialist realist perspective. Her left arm hangs loosely down by her side and in her fist she has a bunch of flowers.

Liri Gelo – flowers

This is complimentary to the rifle. Socialism cannot be built, or maintained, without the rifle (symbolising force, or at the very least the threat of force) but the ultimate aim is a society without conflict. How long that will take is still to be decided and the twists and turns along that road are abundant. This idea of flowers in the hand of a young women prepared to use violence (and, for her, ultimately, giving her life) is part of a long-held view of communists, that we fight for bread (meaning freedom from exploitation and oppression, from want and the anarchy that comes with capitalism) but we want the roses too (a fulfilling and productive cultural life in companionship with others, and not just being spoon-fed the ‘culture’ that capitalism supplies, as long as it can make profit.)

I’m not exactly sure where the statue of Liri would have originally stood. Being made of bronze it was designed to be outside (and is still in a very good physical condition). There used to be a properly organised statue park in the area around the National Art Gallery and it would make sense that it was here the work was exhibited. If on a plinth it would have been minimal, just separating the statue from the ground, allowing the viewer the opportunity of being able, physically, to relate to the young heroine and her place in history.

Its location now is with other still extant statues that have come from different parts of the Tirana area. To the right hand side of the Art Gallery there’s a ramp and a service entrance to the building. This doesn’t seem to be used on a regular basis and is not an area that is cared for. When I first visited at the end of 2011 there was a shanty type hut but that has now been removed, but the area is in no way organised or what could be called an exhibition space. The area is dirty and the statues, although out-of-the-way, are not displayed in any manner that you would expect of works of art.

What I have described as the ‘Sculpture Park’ is really just a storage area for the statues. At one time they were all in a line, Liri amongst them but by the time of my visit in 2014 a new statue of Stalin had been added to the collection and Liri was moved so that she had her back to the building and was facing the other statues.

The Original Sculpture Park

Also on my early visits it was possible to get close to the statues without any hassle but a vandal attack on the Soviet produced statue of Stalin and the Albanian (damaged) Lenin, with them having red paint thrown over them in 2011, has meant that visits are discouraged. That’s a pity as, although in a far from ideal circumstance, here it is possible to get an idea of different examples of Albanian Socialist Realist sculpture as well as being able to appreciate the noticeable differences from Russian Soviet interpretations with the black statue of Stalin – presented to the Albanian people upon his death in 1953.

So that’s the Socialist representation of a young woman who gave her life for her country and people.

As stated above Liri was from the town of Fier, which in socialist times was a major industrial centre – that’s all but gone now and is a place of industrial archaeology rather than industrial production.

Although the industry might have gone there has been an effort in recent years to remember and commemorate the past. As part of that Fier is one of the few towns in Albania that has a functioning museum, very recently renovated, where you can find information about the anti-Fascist war as well as some examples of Socialist Realist paintings and sculpture.

(I’ll be writing about the Fier Historical Museum in a future post but here I will just provide information about its location. It can be found in Rruga Leon Rei, which is about 200m west of Sheshi Pavarësia (Independence Square).

Location of the Museum:

GPS:

N 40.72448

E 19.55532

DMS:

40° 43′ 28.1280” N

19° 33′ 19.1520” E

Well worth a visit. Across the road from the museum is a monstrosity of a (at least in May 2015) half-finished and stalled private educational institute.)

As part of this recovery of the past the city decided to erect a completely new statue to Liri Gero – to the best of my knowledge there had been no local monument to her, other than her grave in the Martyrs’ Cemetery. This statue was inaugurated in 2010 and is located at the edge of a small park in the centre of the town.

Whatever the intentions behind its commissioning this modern statue of Liri is a ludicrous and hideous depiction of the woman who Liri definitely wasn’t. It’s the absolute antithesis of the example to be found behind the National Art Gallery in Tirana.

It’s wrong in virtually every way. The figure is similar to the Dhrami piece in that we don’t get the whole body, this one is from the knees up and it is also a little more than life-size. That’s the only things the two statues have in common. The first thing that strikes the viewer is that you get a crick in the neck to look at it close up. The bronze statue is on a plinth more than two metres high and its impossible for the viewer to have any connection with the young woman, she’s placed on a pedestal in the literal and figurative sense.

New Liri Gero Statue

When we get to the statue itself we see no connection with the actual life of young Liri. It’s in a neo-classical style and a silky dress clings to her body, emphasising the female form, her breasts straining to break free of the material. A thin cord around the waist is pulled tight so that it accentuates the hour-glass figure of the torso. The dress itself is of a style that no woman, or even young girl, would have worn in pre-liberation Albania – and would draw a not too sympathetic attention today.

If her clothing is bad things get even worse when we look at her hair. The pictures of Liri show her with long hair, a style that would have been common with girls of her age at that time but here she is represented with hair of which Rapunzel herself would have been jealous. (With the wonders of the internet I’ve just had a look and you can buy Rapunzel wigs that must have been what the sculptor forced his model to wear.)

There’s so much hair!

Liri Gero – hair

Its crazy. This isn’t a young woman who was tortured to death after going to join forces with those wanting to free their country of foreign invaders. No, this is a young woman who’s going out on the town, has been to the supermarket for a bottle of cheap vodka and now intends to dance until dawn, as happens in many British towns and cities.

Whereas the Dhrami Liri is serene, confident, sure of herself the 2010 Liri is flighty, frivolous, would fit into the stereotype of a ‘dippy blond’ (Liri was dark-haired) and wouldn’t know how to spell Fascism let alone have the understanding to fight against it.

I don’t know why such a statue was commissioned by the Fier Bashkia (Town Hall) or what they were thinking about in paying for such a representation of one of the towns most famous daughters. It was good that the town wanted to have their own statue to her but did it have to be so alien to the actual woman herself?

To the best of my knowledge those who are responsible for this monstrosity are the ‘artists’ Haxhiu Kalluci, I Kasem and A Shuraj. How they divided up the work I don’t know but I would have thought that one, at least, would have to have concentrated on the hair – it’s a sculpture in its own right.

The best thing about the monument is the inscription on the front of the plinth.

We have the words:

Liri Gero

1924 – 1944

Heroine e Popullit = People’s Heroine

And a short inscription which reads:

Si flutura drejt drites shkon njeriu drejt lirise

This translate as:

‘As moths are drawn to the light so man is to freedom.’

Across the road is a monument to other brave Fier women. Obviously very well organised, in a town that was occupied by the Fascist invaders, on the 14th September 1943, under the cover of darkness, 68 young women and girls left to join the Partisans. Not only was the actual leaving of the town a dangerous activity they then spent the next few days walking all the way to Berat to join up with the increasingly more powerful and organised Communist led National Liberation fighters.

This quite exceptional (not just in Albania but other parts of Europe fighting against the Fascists) decision of such young women to take the path of the greatest resistance was celebrated in Fier with the commissioning of this simple but nonetheless effective sculpture. The plinth upon which it stands at present is new although the bronze bas-relief fixed to it has all the classic hallmarks of those sculptures produced during Albania’s Cultural Revolution.

Monument to 68 girls joining Partisans

As is normally the case there is no name or date on the sculpture itself so I have no idea who was the artist or exactly when it was inaugurated. As many of the sculptures of this period were commissioned to mark specific anniversaries I would hazard a guess that it was first shown to the public on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the women leaving the town, i.e., 1973.

Neither do I know if it is in the original location or whether it has been moved from somewhere else. (So many lacunae in the history of Albanian lapidars!) Although it does seem to fit where it is now the bas-relief design suggests that it might have been high up on a wall of a building such as the Bashkia – although that’s just speculation on my part.

What can be stated categorically is that it is in a very good condition. It hasn’t undergone any vandalism and the target of the reactionaries, the stars on the flag and the Partisan’s cap, are both intact and undamaged.

The monument consists of one female partisan depicted as if she is emerging from the national flag. The flag is fluttering in the wind and at the extreme left hand side, at the top, can be made out the double-headed eagle with the Communist star above the two heads.

The tips of her fingers of the right hand just brush against the eagle’s feathers as if this is what she is seeking to attain. She’s fighting for Socialism, for a future. Her whole stance is one of going forward, striving for something higher, reaching up to the stars. But to attain that goal she needs to use force, as such aims have never been attained without the use of arms. For that reason she holds a rifle in her left hand, gripping it just in front of the bolt.

Carved into the wooden stock of the rifle are the letters VFLP, signifying “Vdekje Fashizmit – Liri Popullit!” (“Death to Fascism – Freedom to the People!”). This has been seen on a few lapidars previously described, such as Heroic Peza, the Peza War Memorial and the Arch of Drashovice. This tradition of writing slogans on weapons was begun in the 19th century during nationalist struggles and was adopted by the National Liberation fighters in WWII. As well as other imagery, these letters on her weapon declare that she is a Communist Party member.

The young woman is shown in a semi profile and, as I have already said, she emerges from the folds of the flag so we really only see the top half of her body. She’s wearing a thick woollen sweater and around her neck she has what would have been a red bandana, together with the star on her cap a signifier of her political allegiance to the Communist cause. A full head of shoulder length hair pushes out from under her cap.

The bottom half of the bronze statue is fixed to a concrete block faced with slabs of red marble. The top half of the statue extends above the block creating the idea of the free-flowing of the flag and gives the impression that the young woman is almost flying, taking off from the block.

There are two inscriptions on the modern pedestal, on the front:

14 shtator 1943 68 vajza Fierake dolen partizane

‘On 14th September 1943 68 girls from Fier blossomed into Partisans’.

On the back:

Lule, yje për lirinë krenari për Shqipërinë

Flowers, stars for freedom, the pride of Albania

There are certain similarities to the work of Hektor Dule of the female figure which is in what used to be the National Assembly Hall in Tirana – the fluttering material, the figure seeming to emerge from, as well as being a part of, the national flag, together with the determination on the face of the woman.

Although separated by a road and barely 10 metres there’s a world of difference between this depiction of a female partisan and the travesty that is the new statue of young Liri Gero.

This close proximity of two different ideologies, two different world views, as depicted in art helps to understand both. The new Liri statue is populist in place of being popular, in the sense of presenting an image to which ordinary people can relate. It represents the young women as young women see themselves in today’s Albania, not concerned with their own national identity but aiming to ape the banalities of capitalist culture. In a sense it’s the result of the ‘celebrity culture’, the facile, the emptiness of present existence where individuals become famous for being famous, not for anything significant they might have achieved.

The new is brash, vulgar, noisy – it screams at you. But it has nothing to say.

The old is serene, dignified, full of symbolism and meaning.

I read an article where a near-contemporary of Liri and the other young women bemoans the fact that the young people of Fier today don’t know the story of what happened during the occupation. Not only do that not know they don’t want to know. They are so caught up in the accumulation of consumer goods, the search for the ‘good life’, that they don’t know where they got to where they are now. But neo-liberalism doesn’t want people to remember the past, if they did they might want to change the future. Already the crash of 2008 is being forgotten – to be remembered when the next one comes along. And if you can’t completely forget the past – as has been the attempts in the destruction of lapidars and statues throughout the country over the years – then you can distort history so that any meaning is taken out of the images.

If there’s a tragedy surrounding the life of young Liri Gero it’s the way that life, and its violent end, is being ‘celebrated’ in the 21st century.

Location:

About 50 metres south from Sheshi Pavarësia on Rruga Ramiz Aranitasi

GPS:

N 40.724719

E 19.557984

DMS:

40° 43′ 28.9884” N

19° 33′ 28.7424” E

Altitude:

24 m

More on Albania …..

Durres War Memorial

Posted on 22/02/2015 by Michael

Durrës War Memorial

Durres War Memorial

The overwhelming number of Socialist Realist monuments in Albania are constructed from either concrete or bronze. However, there are occasional variations from this norm and there are a few mosaics (though not on the massive scale of ‘The Albanians’ on the National History Museum in Tirana) including those in Bestrove, Llogara National Park and at the Durrës War Memorial.

This change of medium offers greater opportunities to the artists. Concrete and bronze are ideal for giving an impression of solidity, steadfastness and dignity. Mosaic offers the opportunity of presenting movement, human expression and a dynamic not easily depicted in the more ‘solid’ art forms. Also, importantly, mosaics provide an infinite variety of colour, the limit being imposed by the imagination of the artists involved.

What is depicted at the Durrës War Memorial is the entry of the National Liberation Army into the city on 14th November 1944, just three days before the official liberation of the country on the 17th.

Liberation of Durrës – 14 November 1944

The Artists

As was not uncommon in the production of the monuments throughout the country the mosaic in Durrës was a collaborative work of three artists. We know their initials as they are represented in stone in the bottom left hand corner of the work – together with the date of completion, 1976. The problem is that finding out some of the most basic information about these exceptional works of art is sometimes equivalent to getting blood from a stone.

Artists initials and date

One of them is Nikolet Vasia (the NV). He came from Durrës, worked during the Socialist period in the city’s Archaeological Museum and was known to have worked in mosaics. Unfortunately, as with a number of other ‘artists’ from the period his level of commitment to Socialism was limited, to say the least, and given the opportunity after the chaos of the 1990s gave the weak excuse of ‘only obeying orders’ and until his death in 2011 just produced individualistic and banal pieces of work. He didn’t even seem to have any pride in this wonderful mosaic.

(The small municipal art gallery, in the same square as the Town Hall, bears his name and is worth a visit for those with an interest in Socialist Realism as the permanent exhibition consists of paintings, drawings and sculptures from the period. The gallery is only one room and temporary exhibitions will take all the space so things are very hit and miss. However, it is one of the few locations outside of the National Art Gallery in Tirana that still displays art from 1944-1990.)

The other artist is Gavril Priftuli. He was born in the province of Korçe but moved to Durrës when very young. He also worked in the Archaeological Museum – it seems that in the city this was the way that artists earned their living, doing something for the community. However, when things changed he moved quickly and opened the first private gallery in Durrës in 1993.

Nikolet Vasia and Gavril Priftuli worked together on some of the works in the Skanderbeg Museum in Kruja.

F SH I have still to identify.

The architect for the complex was Kristo Sitiris (1870-1953). Building began in 1947 and was, therefore, one of the first in the country. It is also unique in that it is the only Martyrs’ Cemetery in Albania to use the niches rather than tombs. Those commemorated were both those who died in combat and also those who died in Nazi concentration camps outside of the country.

As the mosaic dates from 1976 this means that it was a decision of the Albanian Cultural Revolution to embellish the site with the magnificent mosaic.

One slightly strange aspect of this mosaic is that it is ‘signed’ – even though with initials. Names, or indications of the actual artists of the lapidar, didn’t really start to become common until the later creations in the 1980s, especially after the death of Enver Hoxha in 1985.

The Mosaic

The official name of the art work is ‘The Liberation of Durrës’ and measures 5.3 x 3.2 metres. It depicts a group of eight Communist Partisans entering the city on 14th November 1944.

We know it’s Durrës because in the top right hand corner we can see part of the crenellated Venetian city wall. This looks very much like that part of the wall known as the Torra which is down by the road that runs alongside the coast. (This tower, which has always offered the opportunity to see the inside of the walls has now been converted into a bar and cafe – whether it moves or not, whether it has any historic value or not, privatise it seems to be the mantra.)

We know they are Communists as all of them sport the red star on that caps. That’s slightly different from the other monuments described here so far. Normally there’s a mix of Communist and non-Communist soldiers, as was the make up of the National Liberation Army (NLA) after the Conference of Peze in August 1942. They are all armed (we have to assume that the woman at the back is so although no weapon is visible). The lead male has, in addition to his rifle, which is raised above his head in his right hand, a British mills bomb (grenade) attached to his belt. He also has a red scarf around his neck. (One of the advantages of colour is that here we can see what colour the stars and the neckerchiefs are whereas we just have to assume on the concrete and bronze statues.)

Behind the lead male is another man, moustachioed, with the barrel of his rifle peeking up over his left shoulder. He holds the flag that was to become the national banner of the country between 1944 and 1990, the double-headed black eagle with a gold star over the two heads, all on a bright red background. To his left is a female partisan, a rifle over her right shoulder, a bandolier over the same shoulder and a pistol, in its holster, attached to a lanyard around her neck. This would normally denote an officer in capitalist armies and I think (although perhaps not the best of ideas to emulate from the enemy) this was also the case in the NLA – it takes time to ditch the old as you attempt to build the new. If that’s the case it’s worth while mentioning that women held senior positions in the Partisan Army, where promotion depended upon merit and not class background.

Behind her is another male who looks like he’s carrying a heavy machine gun on his right shoulder. All these Partisans are in uniform, although there are various colours. Two of the other males in this group have whitish uniforms, on has a moustache. The other one has his light machine gun in his right hand and it’s pointing up in the air. I doubt whether he would have been firing but it’s the image we now see often when different armies or groups of soldiers enter a location in victory.

There’s another unusual, and almost impossible to depict in concrete or bronze, aspect with this male and that is it looks like he has a bandage around his forehead, with a bloody spot over his left eye. In war many die, even more are wounded.

Behind these two there’s the seventh of the group, of whom we only see the head. This is of a female partisan with long black hair. And she’s smiling. In fact all the Partisans are smiling, as are all of the civilians. Again this is something it’s possible to depict in a mosaic which, in a sense, makes the image more ‘human’. Emotions can be depicted with the varying use of colour.

The last of the Partisans is at the right hand edge of the mosaic. Over his left shoulder he has his rifle, the barrel pointing down and he has his right fist clenched in the revolutionary salute (something we saw a lot of on the Peze War Memorial) and his mouth is open as if he is shouting or calling out. His uniform is cream coloured and his bandana is of a deep red, similar to the colour of the flag.

So the scene is of Partisans who are happy that the fighting is all but over and the people of Durrës are happy that they are no longer occupied by foreign Fascist forces. We have to remember that it was in Durrës, among other Albanian port cities, that the Italian forces landed in April 1939. At that time the self-proclaimed ‘King’ Zog ran away to Britain and a small group of patriots, led by Kujo Ulqinaku (whose statue is close to the seafront) attempted to delay the invasion for as long as possible and lost his life in the process.

The lead male has his left hand on the shoulder of a young boy. What is interesting here is the colour of his eyes. When discussing other monuments I have mentioned how the all-Albania aspect of the liberation struggle is shown through the traditional clothing of those depicted. During my travels around Albania I have been surprised by the number of people, both male and female, who have such astonishing grey-blue eyes, a much greater incidence I have seen in any other country I might have visited. For a country with such a small population this is obviously a not inconsiderable genetic trait.

Albanian boy with grey-blue eyes

This young boy doesn’t look as if he has arrived with the Partisans, his dress is more civilian than military, but in his right hand, his arm hanging down, he carries a rifle – presumably taking the load off one of the victorious soldiers but also a reference that under Socialism, for success to be achieved, the fighters of the past have to pass the same consciousness of struggle on to future generations. The failure of Socialist societies in doing that having led to the disintegration of the glorious revolutionary successes of the 20th century.

The only civilian on the right hand of the picture is an older man, moustachioed, who is giving, and receiving, a double-handed hand shake with one of the soldiers.

On the left of the mosaic we have a collection of Durrës citizens.

From the extreme left we have a couple of musicians. The one in the front is in traditional Albanian dress, wearing a somewhat battered fez and sports a moustache. He is banging a lodra – a double-headed drum – with a thin drum stick, one skin of the drum facing us. Behind him is a younger man playing a surlja (an early type of clarinet) with the bell pointed up to the sky. The music creating a festive atmosphere to the proceedings.

The remaining people represented are what could well be a family. There’s an older man, balding, waving his cap in the air and next to the lead male partisan an older woman wearing the traditional headscarf and clothing. Then there’s a younger couple and three children, a teenager and (possibly) a younger sister (also dressed in traditional clothes) and a bare footed very young boy – the last two running towards the parade. In her hands the younger woman holds a bunch of flowers.

Here we have the sort of people, working class and peasantry, that would have to try to make something long-lasting of the victory gained by the Partisans. The gaining of liberty and the taking of State Power is only the beginning. It’s only then that the real struggle, the real challenge, the real problems have to be faced and overcome.

There’s a lot going on in this mosaic, a lot of movement and a lot of questions being asked. This is the principal monument in a Martyrs’ Cemetery so there’s an obvious connection between the living and the dead. Those who fell in the war are martyrs but it’s up to those still alive (and those yet to come) to decide if what they died for had meaning or not.

The construction of the mosaic

It’s well worth have a really close look at this mosaic. As yet I haven’t had the same opportunity to study the other mosaic monuments but from a cursory glance they seem to be made from multiple pieces of ceramic. The Durrës mosaic seems to be based more on the natural stone, with here and there pieces of terracotta, than classic ceramic tiles. These stones, which look at times like pieces of marble and pebbles from the beach, have been chosen for their size, colour and shape. The task of putting this together was immense but that of actually finding the right stones in the first place must have been greater. I’m sure the individual pieces had been chipped away to fit and this process can best be seen with the construction of the bunch of flowers.

Stone flowers

In general the mosaic is in a good condition. The only sign of damage on my last visit in November 2014 was in the top left hand corner of the People’s Flag, where a handful of stones have fallen and there’s been a somewhat ham-fisted attempt to prevent the situation getting any worse.

In the small amount I’ve been able to read about Nikolet Vasia there has been no mention of this monumental (in more ways than one) piece of art. Why not when it’s a masterpiece is a mystery to me. At least it hasn’t undergone any State sponsored vandalism as has the mosaic in Skanderbeg Square in Tirana.

Martyrs’ Cemetery, Durres, 1971

The Cemetery

Unlike most Martyrs’ Cemeteries throughout the country there are no graves here, rather there are niches in the wall of the curved colonnade, up the steps from the mosaic. There’s a small platform which looks out over the gardens and would be the place where official commemorative events would have taken place.

Above the colonnade is a stylised flag tied to rifle with bayonet attached. In large letters are the two words Lavdi Dëshmorëve – Glory to the Martyrs. The letters and the decoration are made of metal.

In the centre of the colonnade, with a background of yellow, stone slabs, is bust of an unnamed female partisan on a rectangular plinth. To her left is a marble plaque with gold lettering:

Lavdi të përjetëshme dëshmorëve tanë të rënë në fushën e nderit për çlirimin e atdheut tonë të dashur.

Eternal glory to our martyrs who fell on the field of honour for the liberation of our beloved motherland.

On the right of the bust, against a whitewashed background is a marble plaque with the letters:

Të rënë në kampin e përqendrimit ‘Mathauzen’

To those murdered in the Mathausen concentration camp

Followed by a list of names. The first is Kozma Nushi – Hero I Popullit (People’s Hero), a cadre of the Albanian Communist Party and one of the organizers of the National Anti-Fascist Front in 1942. All these anti-fascist fighters would have been captured and then transported to the concentration camp of Mathausen, in Austria, never to return.

Mathausen camp was for political prisoners, a slave camp, with the philosophy of extermination through labour. It existed from 1938 till the end of the war.

At the camp nowadays there’s a statue by Odhise Paskali (the Albanian sculptor), Monument to the Victorious Partisan (1968), which depicts a defeated Nazi soldier on the ground with a partisan about to disarm him of his Walther P-38 pistol. A copy of this sculpture is in the Armament Museum in Gjirokastra Castle.

Monument to the Victorious Partisan

At the beginning of the left hand side of the colonnade, also against a white background is similar marble plaque with the words:

Të rënë në kampin e përqendrimit ‘Zemun’

To those murdered in the Zemun concentration camp

and then a list of names. These partisans would have been transported to another concentration camp. Zemun was originally a concentration and extermination camp in Croatia, on the outskirts of Belgrade. After 1942 it became a camp for captured partisans and members of resistance units from different parts of Europe.

The niches in the wall are faced in marble, the name of the deceased and (often) a picture of them some short time before their deaths as well as the year of birth and death. The Communists are indicated by a star on their caps in the photo.

Museum of the History of the Liberation War

The rooms above the colonnade used to house the local museum. This was either looted or just destroyed during the counter-revolution of 1990. Whatever its fate there’s no longer a museum to the anti-fascist war in the city. During its heyday veterans used to give presentations to young school children in the museum’s lecture hall.

The sign at the top of the stairs on the left hand side of the building indicating that this is now the location of ‘The British Children’s Library of Durrës’ but I never saw any children in the vicinity. The sign also looks like it had seen better days, fading as is the island at the western edge of Europe.

This library was originally ‘Dedicated to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales’.

The placing of such symbols of imperialism in once Communist museums, cemeteries and public spaces is similar to the idea of the ‘extirpation of idolatry’ perpetrated by the Catholic Church during the invasion of South America.

The Gardens

When I first visited the site in 2011 the plants were allowed to droop over the edge of the platform and they were starting to obscure part of the mosaic. This has now been cut back and the gardens themselves now seem to be regularly maintained and are a pleasant oasis of calm, away from the noise of the traffic along one of the main streets of the city.

GPS:

N 41.31886804

E 19.44440503

DMS:

41° 19′ 7.9249” N

19° 26′ 39.8581” E

Altitude: 13.9m

How to get there:

This is simplicity itself. If you arrive in Durrës by either bus or (now the sadly neglected and infrequent) train you just come out to the main road and continue in the direction of travel you had been following before setting foot in the city, going roughly west. It’s about 800m from the bus/train station.

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