The History of Albanian Literature after World War II. Some Facts toward Its Revision
The History of Albanian Literature after World War II. Some Facts toward Its Revision

Summary/Abstract: Albanian Literature after World War II may be considered sui generis when analyzing specific features that it manifested. It can be defined of a stumbling relation with literary tradition, an imposition of creative literary method from politics and a complete isolation from the developing world-wide literature. The main features that shaped its specific character are: I. Literature written inside the borders of the Albanian state was separated from literature written by Albanians living in Kosovo, Macedonia and elsewhere in the Diaspora. As a result of the total isolation of the country, literature suffered its tragic fate too. It was treated as a singled out entity, without retaining any relation at all to literature written by authors living outside the Albanian political border. Albanian writers, tragically, were not able to communicate with Albanian readers in Kosovo, Macedonia and the Diaspora. The impossibility of tracing literary development in those languagerelated areas reduced chances to maintain further contacts with European and international literature. The communist politics dictated the countries to retain contacts within “legal” relations, “acceptable” influences and the writers whose works could be translated into Albanian departing from non-literary criteria. As a result, there were many translations of Russian writers (because of a certain affection for the origins of communism). A a small number of classics were published even though the censorship hardly truncated them. The lack of connections with the international trends of literature turned Albanian literature into a desolate island, having no contacts at all with the outside world.

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