MY FATHERLAND IS NAKED

translated by Zana Banci and Anthony Weir

I can't,
I can't,
I can't.

I saw my fatherland
naked,
alone and friendless
trying to cut a laurel-crown
from the glory of centuries.

My fatherland was not a child
But he was so small
He couldn't cut the branch.

I took him by the hand
To grow him in my heart.

Brothers,
If you are looking for him
I have him here.

Help me to be happy.
My fatherland is naked.

(1963)

Trifon Xhagjika (pronounced 'Dzajika') came from 'humble origins' in the village of Zagoria near Gjirokastër. Under the communist régime he was able to get to university in Tirana, and went on from there to an administrative job in the army. He was arrested in 1963 together with members of a Communist youth group and was executed by firing-squad. Although poetry was his passion, very little of his work was published, and much has been lost. Some were published in 1994 under the title ATDHEU ESHTË LAKURIQ (My Fatherland is Naked). Here is the Albanian version of the title-poem:

ATDHEU ESHTË LAKURIQ

Nuk mundem,
nuk mundem,
nuk mundem.

E pashë Atdheun lakuriq,
(vetëm, pa miq e shokë)
mundohej te kepuste nje dege dafine
nga lavdia e shekujve.

Atdheun e dija te rritur,
Por sa i vogel qenka !
As nje dege nuk e kepustë dot.

E mora për dore
ta rrit ne zemren time...
Vellezer:
Po e kerkuat Atdheun,
e kam unë.
Ndihmomeni te qesh.
Ndihmomeni te gezoj.
Atdheu eshtë lakuriq!

Kliko këtu për versionin shqip.

ALBANIA 1976

Small nation
Little time
Tiny ration
Enormous shadow
Great fear
Great want

And throughout the land
Shrieks and cries
Like owls in the night

DISTANT STATION

Distant station in a field:
I hear the dismal engine wail,
and from my roof the owl replies,
bird of ill-omen.

Who am I hoping for tonight ?
Who would set out in the dark
hunching through the driving rain
to visit this bleak exile ?

Uselessly I think again
of those that loved me.
Tonight I think once more in vain
of those I loved.

In this rain
no-one will come.
The road is mud.
In this black night
nobody will come.

Thus, far from those that loved me,
far from those that I loved,
life oozes on.

MY HOMELAND

Like a shroud
the first September mists
cover my homeland.
So soon the landscape vanishes!
So fast the fog's obliteration!

The glistening stars
are beads of sweat upon its brow;
round its body thorns and barbs
a frontier of grief.

I fled it like a lover
and set out on the road
to where I do not know...
When will I return ?

My poems were as golden gifts
I made for it from love -
but now my iron heart
is turned by tears to rust.

The glistening stars
are beads of sweat upon its brow;
round its body thorns and barbs
a frontier of grief.

I fled it like a lover
and set out on the road
to where I do not know...
When will I return ?

COME, SADNESS

Come, sadness

Come slowly
Like leaves drifting from branches

Come slowly
Like rain dripping from leaves

Come, sadness

Come like nearing thunder in the night
Come like the thumping of an anguished heart

Come, sadness

O you my beloved who has never abandoned me
My only shelter
Hope
And dream

Come, sadness

Sadness, come.

Born near Konispol (Çamërisë), close to the Greek border, Bilal Xhaferri was interned in 1968 for criticising one of Ismail Kadare's books (The Wedding). He escaped to Greece in 1969, and then went to the USA.
He was an Albanian activist in Chicago, where he was killed by Sigurimi (Security Police) in 1987:
i.e. after the death of Enver Hoxha.

ALBANIAN VERSIONS:

SHQIPËRI 1976

Vend i vogël
Kohë e vogël
Rracion i vogël.

Errësirë e madhe
Frikë e madhe
Mjerim i madh.

Dhe rrugëve të atdheut
Si kukuvajka nën hënë
Leh e ulërin.

NË STACIONIN E LARGËT

Në stacionin e largët në fushë,
Klithi sirena e trenit të fundit.
Mbi çatinë time, si jehonë iu përgjigj kukuvajka.

Kë pres unë sonte?
Kush mori rrugën në errësirë
Dhe i kërrusur përmes shiut,
U nis për tek unë.

Më kot më shkon mendja
Tek ata që më deshën.
Më kot kujtoj sonte
Ata që i desha.

Asnjëri
S'do shkundë pika shiu
Në pragun e derës sime këtë natë.
Rrugën e ka mbuluar
Balta dhe nata
Dhe në errësirë
Askush nuk do niset për tek unë...

Ja, kështu do më rrjedhë tërë jeta,
Larg atyre që më deshën,
Larg atyre që i desha.

ATDHEU

E para mjegull e Shtatorit
Porsi qefini të mbuloi
Sa shpejt nga sytë Atdhe më humbe
Sa shpejte errësira të gllabëroje.

Si djerse të ftohta ndrinin natën
Mbi ballin tënd të argjentë yj'
Me tel me gjemba gjoksi yt
I lidhur mbeti në kufi.

Ashtu të lashe i shtrenjti vend
Dhe rrugën morra për ketej
Ku vallë më con kjo rrugë e largët ?
Kur vallë sërish tek ti do të kthej ?

Floriri i vargjeve të mia
U shkri për ty me dhëmbshuri
Tani si hekur shpirti im
Me lot u ndryshk dhe u nxi.

Si djersë të ftohta ndrinin natën
Mbi ballin tënd te argjente yj
Me tel më gjemba gjoksi yt
I lidhur mbeti në kufi.

Ashtu të lashe i shtrenjti vend
Dhe rrugën morra për këtej
Ku vallë më con kjo rrugë e largët ?
Kur vallë sërish tek ti do të kthej ?

EJA TRISHTIM

Eja, trishtim

Eja me hapa fletësh qe bien nga degët
Eja me hapa shiu që keputër nga fletët...

Eja, trishtim

Eja me hapa tingujsh qe dridhen në mbrëmje
Eja me hapa zemrash qe rrahin me dhëmbje...

Eja, trishtim

O preher i embël që nuk më braktise kurrë
O strehë e qetësisë sime
O ëndërrime të mija
O gji i shpresës sime.

Eja, trishtim

Trishtim, eja.

For some idea of the fraught existence of Albanians under Enver Hoxha, see:

LA VIE, JEU ET MORT DE LUL MAZREK by Ismail Kadare (Fayard, Paris, 2002).
ISBN 2 213 61328 1
Translated from the Albanian by Tedi Papavrami.
Albanian title: Jeta, loja dhe vdekja e Lul Mazrekut.

Kadare is very much a stylist and master of a vast vocabulary, who translates very well into French. Unfortunately the books of his that appear in English - apart from one, the excellent Three Elegies for Kosova - are translated from the French translations - which will probably be the fate of this book, too, unless Kadare wins the Nobel Prize.

The word Jeu in its French title is pretty well untranslatable into English, because the word can mean sport or show or execution of a performance as well as game. In Albanian it can also mean interpretation or joke. The rich tapestry of this story concerns a young man whose first name means Flower and who has ambitions to be an actor in the National Theatre in Tirana, but is called up for National Service and sent to Frontier Duties at Saranda, the best posting in Albania. Here, he is caught up by the amorous attentions of his recently-acquired girl-friend from Tirana who has come to Saranda to be near him -and of his Commandant who is attracted by his extremely good looks.

The girl-friend in turn is pursued by her immediate boss - a member of a security service - because in order to get to Saranda she had to get herself employed in the tower-block Butrinti Hotel as a kind of prostitute who will sniff out possible defectors to Corfu, little more than a stone's throw across the straits. The protagonist's surname is that of a highland village near Kukës in NE Albania, as remote as possible from Saranda.

Overshadowing this story of misdirected love are the Iliad and the Æneid - particularly the story of Hector slain outside the walls of his home-town Troy, and the shameful dragging of his corpse around the city by the loathsome Achilles. For Butrint, just south of Saranda, was reputedly founded by refugees from Troy, was modelled on Troy, and is exactly half-way between Troy and Rome. In antique times people fled to Albania, whereas during the Communist period its doughtier inhabitants were trying to flee from it. Enver Hoxha's régime is obsessed by preventing all escapes, not least because successful escapees are paraded on Greek television. There are more historical references - such as Mussolini's visit to Butrint, the Italian financing of excavations and restoration there to the greater glory of fascist Rome, and the financing of further (and continuing) excavations and restoration during Hoxha's rule by the Rothschild Foundation of London.

One of the big problems with escapees who had to evade the searchlights which every night swept over the beaches and water of SW Albania was that the bodies of those who were successfully machine-gunned were rarely found. The régime wanted to display evidence of the impossibility of escape. So Lul Mazrek is caught up in the paranoia of Hoxha (there is a fine set-piece describing the sheer terror of an audience with The Great Leader), the terror of his underlings and the blackmail of his Commandant - and ends up in his only successful acting rôle: as a convincingly blood-spattered corpse displayed to the inhabitants of the south-west coast as evidence of the impossibility of escape to Corfu - though he himself had harboured such ambitions.

During the short, chaotic and corrupt Berisha period, one of the Enquiries into the crimes of the Communist era concerned itself with this episode, and most of the characters still living give evidence. Lul is exonerated because he was blackmailed and, as a member of the armed forces, had to obey orders. But shortly afterwards he is shot, Chicago-style, at point-blank range outside his local café - by the Commandant who had given him his only star billing in life, and has had his guilty homosexual secret put on record.

This book comes at a time when the Albanian authorities are trying, in vain, to stop the vile trade in young people of both sexes who are smuggled from the same area of the country to Italy: for prostitution - some of them not even landed, but thrown into the water to swim ashore as illegal immigrants to rich Fortress-Europe: a different, and not a better, kind of Looking-Glass World.