The Espresso Stalinist
Towards a free life – in the mountains
After being on duty with the partisans in the mountains, I left Tirana on March 20th; the city I would not return to until its liberation. Along with my joy, I also felt an emptiness in my soul. I was leaving the city in which I had grown up and gone to school, I was really close to the people of Tirana. I had fought with them for their freedom, their happiness and for a safe future for its youth. I had also helped in their struggle for the emancipation of the Albania Woman and for the independence of our long-suffering homeland. Would I ever come back to see a liberated Tirana, free from invaders and spies, without the terror, the curfew, the arrests and the imprisonments?
I was quite sure that this day would eventually come, not only to Tirana, but also to all Albania, because we were fighting a war with the backing of the entire population. However, at this particular moment, was the day of liberation in the near or distant future?
With a false identity card in my pocket and my mind loaded down with all these questions, I took the bus. I left behind the Tirana where, the Party, the guerilla units,
Sixty years after she first met Enver Hoxha and 17 years since his death, his widow still speaks of him with great affection, and still appears to be in love with him. Nexhmije first saw her future husband at a party conference and said she fell in love practically at first sight. «I was then 21 years old, young and impulsive. Enver was a very handsome man. What also impressed me was the exciting way he spoke. We used to meet secretly, because we were in hiding, and we got married later,» she said. The truth is that the Albanian people loved Hoxha, seeing him as a great leader who built their state – at least those who did not suffer from oppression, imprisonment, persecution and exile. Nexhmije Hoxha tries to soften the harsh image of the dictator, the inhuman leader who ruled and in a way still rules the people. «Some try to present Enver as a tyrant, a monster. However, the truth is quite different. He was an affectionate person, polite to his wife, a caring father and grandfather. He read a lot, spoke French, listened to classical music; he liked Strauss, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. He was very popular. He couldn’t have held onto power for over 40 years if the people hadn’t l
Nexhmije Hoxha (–)
Death can be a powerful reminder. When Nexhmije Hoxha quietly passed away on February 26, at almost years of age, many Albanians had forgotten she was still alive. It’s a risk you always take if you hang around too long. In the days that followed, the dictator’s wife was once again a ubiquitous presence, from private conversations to newspapers and talk shows.
Nexhmije Hoxha is certainly one of the most controversial figures in modern Albanian history — as was the regime of which she was part. History is not always kind to women. And by outliving both her husband, Enver, and the postwar dictatorship in Albania, Nexhmije was bound to bring down on her own head the rage and disappointment of an entire nation.
It’s not always easy for a country to accept its failures — the passing of its illusions, and the end of its bid to reach a future that never came. The late Nexhmije stood in for all this. She was, too often, portrayed with a language full of Macbethian undertones: thirsty for power and ready to liquidate political opponents. In the public narrative of the early s she became the Ghoulish Lady, as Fahri Bariu called her in his biography.
Nexhmije was,
The Espresso Stalinist
(Above) Anti-fascist demonstration in Tirana where Nexhmije saw Enver for the first time. They would later meet in a Partisan safehouse.
9. In Kucaka. Another Yugoslav emissary
In Kucaka, near Korca, I met-up again with Enver. It had been a long time we had seen each other and we spent some time talking. He told me about the problems that they had encountered in Vlora with the anti-party and factionist Sadik Premte, whom I had known very well in Tirana. I had met him at some of the bases where illegals were sheltered. He was a cynical man who would be a destructive influence on the work with the youth elements. I reported to Enver about the terror exercised in Tirana, the general situation and the many searches that had taken place, including his sister&#;s house and the room where we used to stay together.
After we spent some time together, Enver asked me:
“Can you find something to do? Or perhaps you could go outside and check around, as now we have a meeting with a comrade coming from Yugoslavia”.
I went out onto the porch where I found Fiqret Sanxhaktari who had traveled from Korca, where she had been transferred after th
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