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A trip by Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux to Albania in 1975 and a painful realization

2022-10-13 20:37:15Fokus SHKRUAR NGA LUAN RAMA

 

A trip by Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux to Albania in 1975 and a painful
Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux and the "Super 8" years in Albania

"Super 8" camera, a small camera, just to record family memories, birthdays, travels. In front of her, that ordinary woman in long dresses, generally blue, with the shadow of a Jean Moreau of the French screens, with a curious, meditative gaze, looking curiously at the world. Amazingly, after half a century, those forgotten footage resurfaced, even to make a movie, with her son, David. It's nostalgia as always, we look through old diaries, photographs, films to see who could. At the age of 82, she looks back. Love this nostalgic scent. Perhaps she seeks to relive her youth, her hidden loves, her clandestine writing. Albania was part of this journey that began in 1972 and ended in 1980, where, among other things, together with her husband and two children, will travel to the Chile of President Allende, the new face of South American socialism, then to Spain, Portugal, Albania, etc., until the last trip to the land of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, as she says, in Red Square , where in front of the Kremlin we see the long procession of tourists queuing to see Lenin's mummy in his mausoleum. Annie Ernaux at this time has just begun to write, not poetry, but novels. Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Wolf, Marguerite Yourcenar and Marguerite Duras, great ladies of literature have excited her imagination, and undoubtedly her idols Flobert, Proust, Gide, etc. She asks for the writing. as she says, in Red Square, where in front of the Kremlin we see the long procession of tourists queuing to see Lenin's mummy in his mausoleum. Annie Ernaux at this time has just begun to write, not poetry, but novels. Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Wolf, Marguerite Yourcenar and Marguerite Duras, great ladies of literature have excited her imagination, and undoubtedly her idols Flobert, Proust, Gide, etc. She asks for the writing. as she says, in Red Square, where in front of the Kremlin we see the long procession of tourists queuing to see Lenin's mummy in his mausoleum. Annie Ernaux at this time has just begun to write, not poetry, but novels. Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Wolf, Marguerite Yourcenar and Marguerite Duras, great ladies of literature have excited her imagination, and undoubtedly her idols Flobert, Proust, Gide, etc. She asks for the writing. and undoubtedly her idols Flobert, Proust, Gide, etc. She asks for the writing. and undoubtedly her idols Flobert, Proust, Gide, etc. She asks for the writing.

It has been a while since Ismail Kadare was heard from and he is at the beginning of his novels that will later leave their mark on world literature. The year 1968 of the "sexual and feminist revolution" has passed. The French and Western European woman is completely liberated. It is understood that she is a leftist, from her very popular origins, but also her husband Philippe Ernaux who seems to have a curiosity about the left and that is why their journey goes first to Allende's Chile. From the filming, it seems that her husband has her in the center of attention. Expressions of love that continue. And she is a woman to love and who has just been liberated after this revolution. Not everyone could have the "Super 8" camera. But he had the opportunities. He films her silent portrait. She is rarely seen smiling except when she is with her family.

Of all their trips, the most special is the one in 1975, to Albania, to that closed country where before tourists were often turned away at the border, tourists who came only through "friendly", Marxist-Leninist associations. An undoubtedly mysterious place for the West and difficult to visit. A group of eight French tourists land in Rinas. This time she is without the children. But from the first contact, their surprise is great. The first filmed frame is the great boulevard Dëshmorët e Kombit, under a pale sun, where only two people and a washed-up bus can be seen in the distance, probably from Eastern countries even though Albania had turned its back on the "Socialist Camp" by falling with love to Mao's China; there was a bus dozing on the sidewalk next to Hotel Dajti. Then he films Annie, alone, with the new Skanderbeg monument in the background. Stalin's monument is no longer there.

"We set out on an unusual journey. Who knew Albania with 500 years under the Ottoman Empire and that was immersed in communism? Who knew its leader Enver Hoxha? Out of all the countries of the East, it was this country that pushed us towards a "tropism" and offered us more surprise, mystery and curiosity to see it and, on the other hand, a feeling of disgust for the regime. The men of the group forced them to mend their trousers, make them look like Chinese workers' blue jeans, and cut their long hair. We women had to put our pants in our suitcases and put on our dresses. We had to remove the signs of decadent, bourgeois civilization. We realized that we could not film anything, except with the authorization of the organizers. We could not move freely and come into contact with the Albanians.

a cowshed, vineyards, peasants always far from them and indifferent. They were Western or "decadent", a new word that was introduced into the Albanian vocabulary!

"On the wonderful beach of Durrës, - continued Annie's voice, showing the filmed images, - our group of eight tourists were asked not to leave the designated perimeter of Hotel Adriatiku, reserved only for tourists. SECURITY, the equivalent of the KGB or STASI, was eavesdropping everywhere. Considered vectors of Western decay, we were forced to remain in a cage. In this real place before us, we had no access. Often the images show me somewhat apart from the group, silent. I did not participate in all the excursions that were organized, preferring to stay in the hotel, write or read the only Albanian novel translated into French, "The White South" by the writer Jakov Xoxe. What would be more touching and paradoxical at the same time during this journey was what kept us away from the New Man, as it was said. The surrounding images took me back to my childhood places without cars. People worked in a landscape that concrete had not yet been able to disfigure. People walked or rode Chinese bicycles. Here among the employees we cannot ask any questions. This was impossible. We always heard the same speeches criticizing Tito's revisionism, the Moscow regime and Western decadence. Here the virtues of the Cultural Revolution copied from Mao's are extolled. All this they called Revolutionization." People walked or rode Chinese bicycles. Here among the employees we cannot ask any questions. This was impossible. We always heard the same speeches criticizing Tito's revisionism, the Moscow regime and Western decadence. Here the virtues of the Cultural Revolution copied from Mao's are extolled. All this they called Revolutionization." People walked or rode Chinese bicycles. Here among the employees we cannot ask any questions. This was impossible. We always heard the same speeches criticizing Tito's revisionism, the Moscow regime and Western decadence. Here the virtues of the Cultural Revolution copied from Mao's are extolled. All this they called Revolutionization."

Yes, only Durrës beach has life. Places known to us. "Railway" with the track in front, thrown into the sea and thousands of people lying on the sand. Beautiful girls and a pale sun. Hotel Adriatiku... Beachgoers walk by the sea, in the west. When we dared to speak to a stranger, after leaving, a civilian would immediately appear and a series of questions would fall like a hail: "Who was it? What did he say? Why did he ask? What was he looking for? Did he talk to you about life in the West?..." For us it was just a kind of greeting, a short human meeting that lasted only a few minutes. Often, from afar, they smiled at us. They wanted to listen to us, tell us about our lives. But now the barrier was big and dangerous. It was the other world, foreign, degenerate even though we felt so close!...

"Between the evidence of ancient civilization," continues Annie, where the camera has filmed medieval icons, apparently those of Onufri, as well as archaeological excavations, "and a vulgar propaganda there was a contrast and incompatibility of values ​​that was disturbing, which constituted essentially and a kind of identity of Albania. We could not imagine that 20 years later, nothing remained of all the monuments erected to the glory of the Stalinist-Maoist regime. Only the archaeological evidence would remain before our eyes as evidence of a civilization before 2000 years, which could not be out of time."

Kruja Castle, mountains, traces of history. And the contrast is certainly striking with the official ideology. The cultural revolution had thrown away the churches and mosques and Albania had appeared to the world as the only atheist country in the world.

"We didn't see anything in Albania in 1975, not even those who fled from these Adriatic beaches. Today this place has become one of the first touristic places in the Balkans, while starting from the 1989s, people don't stop leaving. They are immigrants thrown from one corner to another corner of Europe, attracted perhaps by the image of happiness that we, as distant as we were at that time from them, perhaps gave them the desire to leave..."

Her finding is painful even though 30 years have passed since the political changes in Albania. It would be interesting if this Nobel laureate were invited to revisit Albania in 2023. What would she tell us then?...

*Taken from the Facebook profile of writer and diplomat Luan Rama. Original title: Nobel laureate Annie Ernaux and the "Super 8" years in Albania.

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