Exploring Communist Ruins and Memory Politics in Albania Kailey Rocker 24

1 2 3 4 Contents Introduction. Memory and Portrayal of Communism in Albania in the Public and in the Private Sphere Jonila Godole & Idrit Idrizi 7 Public Depictions and Discourses Specters of Communism. Albanian Post-Socialist Studies and the Return of the Communist Repressed Federico Boni 15 Ruins, Bodies, and Pyramids: Exploring Communist Ruins and Memory Politics in Albania Kailey Rocker 24 Bunk’Art Project – A Glimpse into the Communist Past in Albania Alsena Kokalari 34 Pragmatist Politics on Memory and Oblivion. Post-Communist Attitudes towards Communist Museology in Albania Konstantinos Giakoumis 46 Everyone for and against Communism. The Paradoxes of the Change in the Political System 1990–1992 and of Its Memory Afrim Krasniqi 60 Remembrance between the Public and the Private Sphere The Young Generation’s Borrowed Memory of the Communist Period Jonila Godole 73 Typologies of Private Memories of Communism in Albania. A Study Based on Oral History Interviews in the Region of Shkodra, with a Special Focus on the Period of Late Socialism (1976–1985) Idrit Idrizi 85 5 Photography and Remembrance. Questioning the Visual Legacy of Communist Albania Gilles de Rapper 103 Albania’s Relations with the Soviet Union and Their Traces in Individual and Collective Memory Brisejda Lala 120 Perspectives from the Region Post-Socialist Nostalgia: What Is It and What To Do about It? Daniela Koleva 133 Appendix Conference Programme 146 Authors 150 6 7 Introduction Memory and Portrayal of Communism in Albania in the Pub- lic and in the Private Sphere A survey conducted by the OSCE on Albanians’ knowledge and perceptions of the communist past awakened public reactions in Decem- ber of 2016.1 At the center of attention was the positive perception of the communist dictator on the part of almost half of those surveyed. This was explained mainly by Albanian society’s not being suciently informed about the dictatorship and by the lack of de-communization, or it was treated as a nostalgia motivated simply by dissatisfaction with current conditions. Also, the project was accused of being politically biased.2 The survey and reactions towards it reect (aside from a tendency toward politicization) the beginning stages at which discussion and research on memory of communism in Albania nd themselves. Studies with a similar level of representativeness, with which the results of the OSCE study (en- compassing 995 subjects) could be compared, are lacking. Also, scholarly knowledge on the wide range of individual experiences of communism, on the basis of which memory during the post-communist period could be discussed, is rather limited. In general, a signicant lack of awareness regarding the complexity of the phenomena of experience and memory of communism can be noticed. In the Albanian scholarship, debates in this eld and on theoretical-methodological problems in researching communism and its remembrance are non-existent. Memories have either been ignored as a historical source or been treated as the most authentic sources. However, in recent years, especially foreign scholars and Albanian scholars educated outside the country, have shown an increasing interest in studying the memory of communism or at least in touching on it 1. For the study (published in Albanian and English), follow the link: https://www.osce.org/sq/ albania/286831, accessed on 4.12.2018. 2. See, i.a.: Mejdini, Fatjona: Studimi për perceptimin e komunizmit zemëron viktimat e kohës: Reporter.al, 12.12.2016 (https://www.reporter.al/studimi-per-perceptimin-e-komunizmit-zemer- on-viktimat-e-kohes/, accessed on 4.12.2018) / Mejdini, Fatjona: Albania Survey Shocks Victims of Communist Regime: Balkan Insight, 12.12.2016 (http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albania-struggles-to-ght-the-root-of-communism-nostalgia-12-09-2016, accessed on 4.12.2018); Pse u kthyen enveristët, Mapo, 10.12.2016, (http://www.mapo.al/pse-u-kthyen-enveristet/, accessed on 4.12.2018) 8 Jonila Godole and Idrit Idrizi within the framework of projects with another main object of research.3 3. The most voluminous and methodologically and theoretically sound study on the memory of Al- banian communism is Georgia Kretsi’s monograph on political persecution in the region of Konispol and on the strategies of remembering it on the part of those persecuted: Kretsi, Georgia: Verfolgung und Gedächtnis in Albanien. Eine Analyse postsozialistischer Erinnerungsstrategien. Wiesbaden 2007. Shannon Woodcock’s monograph uses oral history interviews mainly to reconstruct experiences during communism (Woodcock, Shannon: Life Is War. Surviving Dictatorship in Communist Alba- nia. Bristol 2016). The same holds for Idrit Idrizi’s monograph (Idrizi, Idrit: Herrschaft und Alltag im albanischen Spätsozialismus (1976–1985). Berlin/Boston 2018.) The only volume up to today with articles dedicated to memory is: Godole, Jonila/ Danaj, Sonila (eds.): Transformimi i medias dhe kujtesa kolektive në Shqipëri/ Media Transformation and Collective Memory in Albania. Tiranë 2015. Of interest is also the issue of the German-Albanian Friendship Association’s journal, “Alban- ische Hefte”, dedicated to confronting the communist past in Albania: Albanische Hefte 3 (2015): Themenschwerpunkt: Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Fabian Kati’s book on the collective memory of the anti-communist resistance in a number of regions of northern Albania contains extracts from interviews conducted, with an introductory overview of the project at the beginning, but without an analysis of the forms and strategies of memory (Kati, Fabian: Formësimi i kujtesës kolektive. Ngjarjet në Dukagjin, Malësinë e Madhe dhe Postribë, 1945–46. Tiranë 2015). The same structure can be found in the book: Niegelhell, Anita/ Ponisch, Gabriele: Wir sind immer im Feuer. Berichte ehema- liger politischer Gefangener im kommunistischen Albanien. Wien, Köln, Weimar 2001. The Institute for the Studies of Communist Crimes and Consequences has published a large number of memoirs by former persecutees, among others, a series of volumes with interviews, “Zërat e Kujtesës” (follow the link: http://www.iskk.gov.al/?page_id=2708, accessed on 4.12.2018). These works constitute important sources, but they still remain to be analyzed in the future from the perspective of the way in which former persecutes remember communism in retrospect and how they deal today with their often traumatic experiences from the past. Among the works in the broad eld of memory and con- frontation with the communist past in Albania, or those that touch on various aspects of this topic, are worth mentioning: Amy, Lory E.: Re-Membering in Transition: The Trans-national Stakes of Vi- olence and Denial in Post-Communist Albania, History of Communism in Europe, 1, (2010), 207–224; Austin, Robert C. / Ellison, Jonathan: Post-Communist Transitional Justice in Albania, East European Politics and Societies 22/2 (2008), 373–401; Duka, Valentina: Reections on the past in Albania in the 1990s, in: Brunnbauer, Ulf (ed.), (Re)writing History – Historiography in Southeast Europe after Socialism. Münster 2004, 31–53; Elbasani, Arolda/ Lipinski, Artur: Public Contestation and Politics of Transitional Justice: Poland and Albania Compared, EUI Working Papers (02/2011); Glos, Walter/ Godole, Jonila: Albanien: Aufarbeitung der kommunistischen Vergangenheit. 2017 (http://www.kas. de/wf/doc/kas_51049-1522-1-30.pdf?171215122516, accessed on 4.12.2018); Hemming, Andreas: Justice of Another Kind. Laying Claims to the Past in Post-Dictatorial Albania, History of Communism in Europe, 4, (2013) 44–64; Idrizi, Idrit: Zwischen politischer Instrumentalisierung und Verdrängung: Die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Kommunismus in Öentlichkeit, Geschichtspublizistik und His- toriographie im postkommunistischen Albanien, Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung (2014), 93–106; Ndoja, Davjola/ Woodcock, Shannon: Postmemory and Women’s Displacement in Socialist Albania: Historical Methodologies as Response, in: Mitroiu, Simona (ed.): Women’s Narratives and the Postmemory of Displacement in Central and Eastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, 221-243; Pandelejmoni (Papa), Enriketa: Përqasje të reja mbi historinë e Shqipërisë në tekstet historike gjatë tranzicionit / New Approaches on the History of Albania in historical textbooks during transition, in: Schrapel, Thomas/ Pandelejmoni, Enriketa /Pinari, Andi (eds.): Thirrja për liri. Studime mbi totalitarizmin dhe tranzicionin në Shqipëri/ The Call for Freedom. Studies on Totalitarianism and Transition in Albania. Tiranë 2016, 294-303/ 304-313; Pandelejmoni (Papa), Enriketa: Myth of a Leader: Enver Hoxha’s Role during the Second World War in Contemporary Albanian His- tory Textbooks, in: Lichnofsky, Claudia; Pandelejmoni, Enriketa; Stojanov, Darko (eds.): Myths and Mythical Spaces. Conditions and Challenges for History Textbooks in Albania and South-Eastern Europe. Göttingen, 2018, 137-150; Vullnetari, Julie/ King, Russell: ‘Women here are like at the time of Enver [Hoxha] …’. Socialist and post-socialist gendered mobility in Albanian society, in: Burrell, Introduction 9 Considering, on the one hand that the research is in its infancy, on the other hand, the awakening of interest in researching the memory of communism during recent years, the organizers of the international conference “Between Apathy and Nostalgia: Public and Private Recollec- tions of Communism in Contemporary Albania” held in Tirana on 17–18 November 2017, conceptualized this as a platform for discussing, in an academic context, current studies

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