– Adriatik Kallulli –
With a view towards extending the scope of our publication to the beauty of Albanian culture, The Voice of Albania will be reprinting poems by the legendary Naim Frashëri from the pamphlet Skanderbeg’s Return and Other Poems. As an introduction, the following is the foreword to the pamphlet by Prof. Adriatik Kallulli.
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Each country, big or small, boasts of its own men of art and culture through whose works they shine like stars which illuminate the path of history for the generations to come.
Naim Frashëri, the great thinker, patriot and poet of the period of our National Renaissance is just such a star in the firmament of the Albanian people. No sooner do we hear mention of the period of our National Renaissance, the greatest political and cultural movement of the Albanian people prior to the Proclamation of Independence, than our thoughts are at once turned to Naim, to his all-round activity and fiery word, to the deep-felt verses emerging from the bottom of his heart, to whatever he did for the good of the country and people. He lived during the latter half of the 19th century when great changes took place in the conscience and world outlook of the Albanians, when a whole pleiad of writers were arousing the hearts of the Albanian people, urging them to rise up for freedom and independence, when Albanian patriots everywhere were founding progressive societies which would contribute to the general awakening of our people.
Naim Frashëri was born in 1846 at the village of Frasheri, a feudal centre of the Bektashi sect which during the poet’s time had lost most of its former splendour. His father was a shopkeeper while his elder brother, Abdyl Frashëri (1839-1892), was a petty official of the administration and one can very well say that his family, like those of the many other poverty-stricken landed proprietors, could hardly make both ends meet. Naim spent his boyhood days in the same way as hundreds and thousands of other peasant boys did. Up to 1865 he was brought up in an environment of green-covered fields and mountains, of beautiful pasture lands and cool springs and other beauties of nature the impressions of which he would keep fresh in his memory throughout his living days. He received an inkling of Turkish, Arabic and Persian from the village school teacher and clergyman and, at the same time, came to hear of the works of the bards of the time, Hasan Zyko Kamberi being the most prominent of them. In 1865, his family moved to Janina where Abdyl had been appointed to a state post. When at 19 years of age, Naim was registered as a student at the Zosimea gymnasium where he got acquainted with Greek and Roman classics as well as with modern European culture. He came under the influence of French progressive illuminist ideas which were to play an important role in the make-up of his world outlook. At the gymnasium he devoted special time and efforts to learning the Persian language which would help him to read the works of such great poets as Saadi and Djeladin Rumi in their originals. After graduating from the gymnasium he was appointed to a state post in Constantinople where he stayed but a very short while because he was afflicted with tuberculosis. He returned to Albania and served as a petty official in several government posts.
The period from 1878 to 1881 was a period of significant events. A league was formed at Prizren which determined the whole course of the poet’s life. He considered the anti-Turkish, freedom-seeking movement of the patriots of his time as a sublime mission, a noble civic task for the good of the country and people. While yet in his teens, he grasped the significance of this event and devoted all his efforts to furthering the cause of the people, the vital interests of the country and his genius shone forth with growing brilliance because he put his whole heart and soul to the work of promoting social ideals. Naim considered his mission not merely that of a harbinger of happy days to come but more that of a teacher, guide and spiritual leader of the rank-and-file masses, arousing among them the sentiments of love of country, their desire for freedom, justice and progress. To him, poetry was a means to mobilize the popular masses for the struggle of freedom and social justice and a poet the guide and spiritual leader of the people.
This deeply sublime interpretation of poesy and the role of a poet in life gives a true picture of the moral and political make-up of his own character. He devoted all his life to this noble mission and became thereby a living and incomparable example of the active and militant role a poet must play in life. The poet and patriot were all in one and inseparable in Naim. We commit to memory the harmonious lines in his eclogues “Bagëti e Bujqësi” (“Flocks and Farming”) and we get a clear image of the grandeur and picturesqueness of the Albanian landscape. We take up his epic on “The History of Skanderbeg,” published in 1895, and we share the poet’s sympathy and admiration for our legendary National Hero, Gjergj Kastrioti-Skanderbeg.
Naim was the spokesman and inspirer of the aspirations and highest ideals of our people at a time when “Albanians were half-naked in patched up shirts on which not even dogs could lay their teeth,” when thousands upon thousands of Albanian young men met their death doing forced military service away from their native land, when not even a school had been allowed to function in Albania and when rapacious neighbouring states did their uttermost to snatch away part or the whole of the territory of our country.
Naim’s poetical works are closely bound to the political activities of the patriots of our National Renaissance. The formation of the League of Prizren called for efforts to keep alive the patriotic and war-like traditions of our people, to educate a whole generation politically, to enlighten the people through “pen and paper” for “our main concern at this stage,” the poet says, “is to educate our people.” All this aimed at liberating the country from Turkish domination, at bringing up a generation which would champion the cause of freedom and independence. But age-long Ottoman domination, feudal and religious views, were a stumbling block to the spiritual and national unity of our people. Crushed economically, our menfolk migrated to foreign countries in search of better living conditions and abandoned our beautiful Homeland, leaving their families in dire distress and causing many a tragedy in Albanian life. Under such conditions, when cities of foreign countries held out temporary hopes to the Albanians, Naim Frashëri who had seen his waylayed, downtrodden compatriots wasting away their lives in the slums of Constantinople, set to work and produced his poem on “Flocks and Farming” in which he sang praises to the fascinating landscape and unexplored riches of Albania, to the cool, crystal waters of its springs, to its fields, forests and pastures as well as to the lofty moral features of the plain Albanians, national characteristics which have also impressed foreigners who have visited our country. In this poem, Naim portrays the life and work of herders and farmers, of the plain, straightforward people of the lowlands and of the mountain regions representing the virtues and lofty spirit of the Albanians. There is no mention whatsoever of the rich in this poem. This demonstrates not only the democratic nature of the poet but also his faith in the plain working people. Naim’s poem “Flocks and Farming” exerted deep influence on the Albanians; shepherds and wood-choppers of all ages learned it by heart. They felt in it the magnanimous heart of a patriot longing for freedom, of a great Albanian who, even though far away from his Homeland, lived, worked, created and thought of Albania and the Albanians. Naim felt homesick for his native land, for his fellow countrymen who would, he was sure, champion the cause of Albania. The poet idealizes Albanian life at his time, describes it as serene, rich and devoid of all conflicts. He did this purposely to arouse among the Albanians a feeling of love for their Homeland. Naim considered migration of Albanians abroad as a sore subject to be combatted, he held that Albanians should enjoy the fruits of their efforts in their own country. All his works are directed towards this objective.
In 1890, when his pulmonary ailment threatened to send him to his grave, Naim published his epic on “The History of Skanderbeg” in which he sings praises to the glorious and victorious period of the wars our people had fought under the leadership of Skanderbeg against the Turks. The poet does not treat those events as something of past glory but as a period filled with patriotism, national unity and full of inspiration for freedom of the people of his own generation. He felt that Skanderbeg’s heroic deeds and those of his army would arouse hatred towards enemies and confidence in the army forces among his contemporaries.
“The History of Skanderbeg” is the poet’s last legacy to the Albanians of his own time. By singing praises to Skanderbeg’s heroic epic, to the “August Age” as the writers of National Renaissance called that period, Naim pointed to the way his contemporary Albanians should take in rising against the Turks and all other invaders. Love of freedom and odious resentment towards the Turks as well as firm confidence that Albania would always give birth to great leaders and strong patriots to continue the great battle for freedom run throughout the lines of this work. The poem is a fiery clarion call for a general uprising. On the other hand, it arouses in the hearts of the Albanians a sense of pride in the glorious history of our nation.
It was only 12 years after Naim’s death that Albania regained its independence. The poet did not live to see this day but at the last moments of his life he felt the approach of the general uprising of the people, he felt that he was on the front ranks with them.
Even today when our country has turned Naim’s dreams to reality, he is still with us, he lives in our hearts. “Gjergj Kastrioti and Naim Frashëri inspire our people to this very day as they will inspire the future generations born on this soil for centuries to come.” These words by our esteemed leader, Comrade Enver Hoxha, express the high appreciation by our Party and the present generation of the poet who burned and melted away like a candle illuminating the firmament of our Homeland.
This little book contains some of Naim’s best poems and fragments of poems. They have been reproduced from the poet’s “History of Skanderbeg” 1898. His “Bagëti e Bujqësia” (“Flocks and Farming”) is reproduced as a whole. The translator has tried to give our English readers not only the substance and ideas of the poet but also the national colour, rhythm and ethnographic peculiarities which are abundant in the works of our patriot poet.
(Skanderbeg’s Return and Other Poems, “Naim Frashëri” Publishing House, Tirana 1970)
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