Life After Zog by Chiara Tocci

Chiara Tocci

and other stories

Life after Zog

GREy MATTERS 2

Lucia Ganieva

ЕРМИТАЖНИКИ

Ermitazhniki

Life after Zog and other stories

Chiara Tocci

In 1990, after almost fifty years of isolation from the rest of the world, Enver Hoxha's socialist dictatorship crumbled and thousands of Albanians fled their country, thereby initiating a vast exodus towards accessible European countries. In March 1991, Albanian ships began arriving at ports in Southern Italy (Brindisi, Bari, Otranto and Monopoli) and within the span of three days more than 20,000 Albanians docked in Apulia, less than 72 km (45 miles) from their home country.

At the time, I was a child living in my hometown on the Southern heel of Italy’s Adriatic coastline where we watched the televised events unfold, witnessing human resolve dissolve as the family separation hit home for the fathers who were forced to abandon their children, the women, and those who were too old to embark on this voyage to the unknown.

Leaving behind a domestic situation that was tragic and beyond hope, the fleeing Albanians longed for the opportunity to start a new life in a land they knew from watching Italian television, whose broadcasts reached Albania conveying a few glimpses of the West. Both the Italian language – the most popular foreign tongue in Albania – and Italy stood as symbols for freedom and Western culture: a democratic European culture they now wanted to share, having finally been freed from a restrictive communist regime.

In November 2009, I made my first trip to Albania, which encouraged me to make several more visits. The conception of Albania and its people conveyed by the Western media was not surprisingly different from what I stumbled on, while encountering such a captivating and friendly people encouraged a continuous return to what the English writer Edith Durham, who travelled the country in early 1900, called the “land of the living past”.

In present-day Albania, in almost every family there is a father, son or grandchild living in another European country such as Italy, Greece and the UK, or like their European cousins from a century before, they have migrated further afield to the comparatively rich countries of North America. With

approximately 3.5 million Albanians living outside their own borders, and an equal number within them, I was curious to see how a population seemingly split in two could survive in a modern Europe and, more importantly, whether this fostered a strong sense of being Albanian within their own borders.

Modern Albania is a rich and diverse country still coming to terms with life after communism, and my intention was to try to discover the evolving country that is seemingly divided.

Intriguingly, following the split of the population, both outside its own borders and within them, similar to the cell division at the beginning of life, another split occurs, and then another and another. Similarly, within the borders of Albania, there is a basic division between the mountain and the city, the people of the mountains and the people of the cities. Ancient traditions are embraced with religious fervour in the mountains, while the mercurial cities embrace import after import in the hope of one day producing an export. The divide continues through gender with the ancient mountain traditions that separate man from woman flowing to the cities, helping create regions of truncated female ambition fuelling and filling modern institutions with stories of backlash, retribution and ‘enough is enough’.

This story comes to you after long walks on mountainous footpaths, shared bus rides over steep ravines and sailing adventures across magical lakes in high Albania. My journey unfolds across an enchanted landscape and into the private spaces of the ever so generous families of the rightfully proud mountain people, to the confined spaces of a women’s prison and townscapes where I met some of the most endearing, candid and helpful people I could ever wish to encounter. Every meeting reveals the eternal contrast between a difficult past and the desire for rebirth and modernity of a new Albania.

In 1990, after almost fifty years of isolation from the rest of the world, Enver Hoxha's socialist dictatorship crumbled and thousands of Albanians fled their country, thereby initiating a vast exodus towards accessible European countries. In March 1991, Albanian ships began arriving at ports in Southern Italy (Brindisi, Bari, Otranto and Monopoli) and within the span of three days more than 20,000 Albanians docked in Apulia, less than 72 km (45 miles) from their home country.

At the time, I was a child living in my hometown on the Southern heel of Italy’s Adriatic coastline where we watched the televised events unfold, witnessing human resolve dissolve as the family separation hit home for the fathers who were forced to abandon their children, the women, and those who were too old to embark on this voyage to the unknown.

Leaving behind a domestic situation that was tragic and beyond hope, the fleeing Albanians longed for the opportunity to start a new life in a land they knew from watching Italian television, whose broadcasts reached Albania conveying a few glimpses of the West. Both the Italian language – the most popular foreign tongue in Albania – and Italy stood as symbols for freedom and Western culture: a democratic European culture they now wanted to share, having finally been freed from a restrictive communist regime.

In November 2009, I made my first trip to Albania, which encouraged me to make several more visits. The conception of Albania and its people conveyed by the Western media was not surprisingly different from what I stumbled on, while encountering such a captivating and friendly people encouraged a continuous return to what the English writer Edith Durham, who travelled the country in early 1900, called the “land of the living past”.

In present-day Albania, in almost every family there is a father, son or grandchild living in another European country such as Italy, Greece and the UK, or like their European cousins from a century before, they have migrated further afield to the comparatively rich countries of North America. With

approximately 3.5 million Albanians living outside their own borders, and an equal number within them, I was curious to see how a population seemingly split in two could survive in a modern Europe and, more importantly, whether this fostered a strong sense of being Albanian within their own borders.

Modern Albania is a rich and diverse country still coming to terms with life after communism, and my intention was to try to discover the evolving country that is seemingly divided.

Intriguingly, following the split of the population, both outside its own borders and within them, similar to the cell division at the beginning of life, another split occurs, and then another and another. Similarly, within the borders of Albania, there is a basic division between the mountain and the city, the people of the mountains and the people of the cities. Ancient traditions are embraced with religious fervour in the mountains, while the mercurial cities embrace import after import in the hope of one day producing an export. The divide continues through gender with the ancient mountain traditions that separate man from woman flowing to the cities, helping create regions of truncated female ambition fuelling and filling modern institutions with stories of backlash, retribution and ‘enough is enough’.

This story comes to you after long walks on mountainous footpaths, shared bus rides over steep ravines and sailing adventures across magical lakes in high Albania. My journey unfolds across an enchanted landscape and into the private spaces of the ever so generous families of the rightfully proud mountain people, to the confined spaces of a women’s prison and townscapes where I met some of the most endearing, candid and helpful people I could ever wish to encounter. Every meeting reveals the eternal contrast between a difficult past and the desire for rebirth and modernity of a new Albania.