Sejfulla Malëshova

Vepra letrare (1998)

Sejfulla Malëshova , pseudonym Lamë Kodra (born March 2, 1901 in Limar , † June 9, 1971 in Fier ), was an Albanian poet , politician and high functionary of the Communist Party of Albania (PPSh).

Life

Malëshova came from the Përmet area in southern Albania. After studying medicine in Italy , he took an active part in the so-called June Revolution led by Noli in 1924 as the personal secretary of the Albanian Orthodox bishop and politician Fan Noli . After the fall of the Noli government, Malëshova fled to Paris and from there to Moscow , where he joined the Communist Party in 1930 and studied Marxism-Leninism . In 1932 he was expelled from the party as a Bukharinist . He later worked in the Comintern .

After the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939, Malëshova joined the resistance and fought as a partisan and self-proclaimed "rebel poet" against the Italian and German occupation forces. In 1942 he became a member of the Communist-dominated leadership council of the Albanian liberation movement LNÇ ("Levizja Nacional Çlirimtare"), in 1943 a member of the general staff of the Albanian People's Liberation Army . He was one of the founding members of the Communist Party of Albania and a member of the Central Committee and the Politburo .

In 1945 he was appointed "Minister for Culture and Propaganda". In the same year he was also elected President of the "League of Albanian Writers", which was newly founded in October 1945. As minister of culture, Malëshova followed a relatively liberal course and tried to integrate non-communist writers like Gjergj Fishta into the new state's cultural canon. His undogmatic publication policy brought him into conflict several times with Enver Hoxha , Communist Party Secretary General and Prime Minister. In terms of foreign policy, he took the position that a break with the western allies should be avoided. At his suggestion, the Writers' Association turned to Harry Truman and Clement Attlee with a request for recognition of Albania .

Malëshova became the spokesman for one of the two factions within the Communist Party of Albania that were fighting for supremacy within the party: on the one hand stood the so-called "intellectuals" or "moderates" around Malëshova, chief of staff Mehmet Shehu and economic planning chief Nako Spiru , on the other the so-called “workers” under the leadership of Koçi Xoxe , Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior and Head of the Sigurimi State Security Service . Initially, the disputes concerned the pace of socialist transformation of the country. Behind this, however, it was actually about the question of how far the influence of Tito's Yugoslavia should go on Albania.

In February 1946, with Yugoslav backing, Xoxe accused Malëshova and his followers of being "offenders" and "enemies of Yugoslavia". Malëshova was also accused of propagating an "opportunist and liberal policy" towards the "imperialist countries". He was dismissed from his offices and expelled from the party leadership. There followed a purge among Albanian writers. Over the next few months, the clashes between the “nationalists” surrounding Hoxha and the Yugoslavia-friendly wing under Xoxe intensified. In May 1947, Xoxe had nine anti-Yugoslav members of the People's Assembly, including Malëshova, arrested. They were tried by the Xoxe-controlled People's Court and sentenced to long prison terms for "subversive activity". In the meantime, Malëshova had apparently been deported to the Soviet Union.

In 1948, after the break between Tito and Stalin, a wave of purges began within the communist parties of the Soviet- influenced Eastern Bloc countries . The purges in Albania resulted in the overthrow of Xoxe and his execution as a Titoist in May 1949 . Within a year, the entire Yugoslav wing of the Albanian party was ousted and killed or interned. Numerous leading communists who had been removed from their positions by Xoxe were rehabilitated and resumed high state and party offices. Not so Malëshova. He was released after serving two or three years in prison in Ballsh , but had to spend the rest of his life as a warehouse clerk in the provincial town of Fier. When he died of appendicitis in 1971, only his sister, the gravedigger, and two Sigurimi agents were present at his funeral.

In his 1982 book The Titoites, Enver Hoxha retroactively denounced Malëshova as a petty-bourgeois, liberal democrat and Trotskyist : “It is a fact that his value at the time of the war was zero. He did nothing, did not perform any task assigned to him, and despite his alleged ability to use the pen, he could not even produce a pathetic leaflet. He was a prime example of laziness. I do not know how and from what source his reputation as “Professor of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow” comes, because he has not prepared a single lecture. His political ideas were in many cases wrong and clearly liberal. He was a post hunter who liked crawling and the enjoyment of privileges and the prototype of an insignificant bourgeois ... Nobody bothered to listen to this megalomaniac except me. "

Poetic work

Malëshova wrote the majority of his lyrical work in exile under his poet pseudonym "Lamë Kodra", for example the poem Rebellendichter (Poeti Rebell) in 1935 :

“Listen to me, men and women, in every place,
from Tirana I was ordered to be captured.
On the hills, in the valley, in the fields
, their patrols follow me at every step.
I am not afraid of their hounds and their pistols,
I am gone, on my way, path by path,
I am gone and find shelter, house by house,
I have camps everywhere in my country.
I'm a criminal, a rebel and I'm proud of ...
My mouth is full of songs of war and fire,
A warehouse full of guns is in my chest ...
Verse, my verse, flies furiously like a bomb "
Go out like a war cry, hurt like a flag."

His poems in Albanian were first published in book form in 1945 under the title Vjersha in Tirana. In 1998 a new edition of his works appeared in Albanian and English.

literature

• Robert Elsie: Albanian Literature and Culture after Forty-Six Years of Socialism. A condition report. (PDF; 146 kB) In: Südosteuropa - Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsforschung 48 (11–12) 1991, pp. 600–613.
• Robert Elsie: Albanian Literature. A short history. London: IB Tauris, 2005. ISBN 1-84511-031-5
• Joseph Held: Maleshova, Sejfulla (1917-1947). In: Ders .: Dictionary of East European History since 1945. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1994, pp. 63f.
• George Hermann Hodos: Show trials. Stalinist cleansing in Eastern Europe 1948-1954. Berlin: AtV, 2001. ISBN 3-7466-8051-4
• Enver Hoxha: The Titoites. Tirana: Naim Frasheri, 1982.
• Branko Lazitch, Milorad M. Drachkovitch: Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern. Stanford CA: Hoover Institution Press; Rev Sub Ed. 1986. ISBN 0-8179-8401-1
• Owen Pearson: Albania As Dictatorship And Democracy: From Isolation to the Kosovo War 1946–1998. (Albania in the Twentieth Century. A History. Vol. III). London: IBTauris, 2006. ISBN 1-84511-105-2

Web links

• Robert Elsie on Sejfulla Melëshova
• Sejfulla Malëshova (1901-1971). Biography with poems on letersia.zemrashqiptare.net .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the presentation follows Robert Elsie: Albanian Literature. A short history. London 2005, p. 163f., As well as Ders .: Albanian literature and culture after forty-six years of socialism. A condition report. In: Südosteuropa 48 (11-12) 1991, pp. 600-613.
2. ↑ s. Owen Pearson: Albania in the Twentieth Century, a History. Vol. II: Albania in Occupation and War. London 2006, pp. 205, 257f.
3. ↑ s. (also on the following) GH Hodos: Show trials. Berlin 2001, pp. 27-40.
4. ^ Owen Pearson: Albania As Dictatorship And Democracy. London 2006, p. 16.
5. ↑ s. Owen Pearson: Albania As Dictatorship And Democracy. London 2006, p. 185.
6. ↑ Sejfulla Malëshova (1901-1971) after as an office worker.
7. ↑ Sejfulla Malëshova (1901-1971).
8. ↑ Enver Hoxha: The Titoites. Tirana 1982, p. 157f., Translation by user: Tvwatch .
9. ↑ Albanian original in: Lamë Kodra: Vjersha. Tirana 1945, pp. 13-16; German copy by user: Tvwatch .
10. ↑ Vepra letrare . Tirana: Argeta-LMG 1998.