With Migjeni (1911-1938), contemporary Albanian poetry begins its course. Migjeni, pen name of Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, was born in Shkodra. His father, Gjergj Nikolla (1872-1924), came from an Orthodox family of Dibran origin and owned a bar there. As a boy, he attended a Serbian Orthodox elementary school in Shkodra and from 1923 to 1925 a secondary school in Bar (Tivar) on the Montenegrin coast, where his eldest sister, Lenka, had moved. In the autumn of 1925, when he was fourteen, he obtained a scholarship to attend a secondary school in Monastir (Bitola) in southern Macedonia. This ethnically diverse town, not far from the Greek border, must have held a certain fascination for the young lad from distant Shkodra, since he came into contact there not only with Albanians from different parts of the Balkans, but also with Macedonian, Serb, Aromunian, Turkish and Greek students.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Being of Slavic origin himself, he was not confined by narrow-minded nationalist perspectives and was to become one of the very few Albanian authors to bridge the cultural chasm separating the Albanians and Serbs. In Monastir he studied Old Church Slavonic, Russian, Greek, Latin and French. Graduating from school in 1927, he entered the Orthodox Seminary of St. John the Theologian, also in Monastir, where, despite incipient health problems, he continued his training and studies until June 1932. He read as many books as he could get his hands on: Russian, Serbian and French literature in particular, which were more to his tastes than theology. His years in Monastir confronted him with the dichotomy of East and West, with the Slavic soul of Holy Mother Russia and of the southern Slavs, which he encountered in the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky , Ivan Turgenev , Lev Tolstoy , Nikolay Gogol and Maksim Gorky , and with socially critical authors of the West from Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Friedrich Schiller , Stendhal and Emile Zola to Upton Sinclair , Jack London and Ben Traven .<\/p>\n

On his return to Shkodra in 1932, after failing to win a scholarship to study in the \u2018wonderful West,\u2019 he decided to take up a teaching career rather than join the priesthood for which he had been trained. On 23 April 1933, he was appointed teacher of Albanian at a school in the Serb village of Vraka, seven kilometres from Shkodra. It was during this period that he also began writing prose sketches and verse which reflect the life and anguish of an intellectual in what certainly was and has remained the most backward region of Europe. In May 1934 his first short prose piece, Sokrat i vuejtun a po derr i k\u00ebnaqun<\/em> (Suffering Socrates or the satisfied pig), was published in the periodical Illyria<\/em>, under his new pen name Migjeni, an acronym of Mi<\/em><\/strong>llosh Gj<\/strong>ergj Ni<\/strong>kolla<\/em>. Soon though, in the summer of 1935, the twenty-three-year-old Migjeni fell seriously ill with tuberculosis, which he had contracted earlier. He journeyed to Athens in July of that year in hope of obtaining treatment for the disease which was endemic on the marshy coastal plains of Albania at the time, but returned to Shkodra a month later with no improvement in his condition. In the autumn of 1935, he transferred for a year to a school in Shkodra itself and, again in the periodical Illyria<\/em>, began publishing his first epoch-making poems.<\/p>\n

In a letter of 12\u00a0January 1936 written to translator Sk\u00ebnder Luarasi (1900-1982) in Tirana, Migjeni announced, “I am about to send my songs to press. Since, while you were here, you promised that you would take charge of speaking to some publisher, \u2018Gutemberg\u2019 for instance, I would now like to remind you of this promise, informing you that I am ready.” Two days later, Migjeni received the transfer he had earlier requested to the mountain village of Puka and on 18\u00a0April 1936 began his activities as the headmaster of the run-down school there.<\/p>\n

The clear mountain air did him some good, but the poverty and misery of the mountain tribes in and around Puka were even more overwhelming than that which he had experienced among the inhabitants of the coastal plain. Many of the children came to school barefoot and hungry, and teaching was interrupted for long periods of time because of outbreaks of contagious diseases, such as measles and mumps. After eighteen hard months in the mountains, the consumptive poet was obliged to put an end to his career as a teacher and as a writer, and to seek medical treatment in Turin in northern Italy where his sister Ollga was studying mathematics. He set out from Shkodra on 20\u00a0December 1937 and arrived in Turin before Christmas day. There he had hoped, after recovery, to register and study at the Faculty of Arts. The breakthrough in the treatment of tuberculosis, however, was to come a decade too late for Migjeni. After five months at San Luigi sanatorium near Turin, Migjeni was transferred to the Waldensian hospital in Torre Pellice where he died on 26\u00a0August 1938. His demise at the age of twenty-six was a tragic loss for modern Albanian letters.<\/p>\n

Migjeni made a promising start as a prose writer. He is the author of about twenty-four short prose sketches which he published in periodicals for the most part between the spring of 1933 and the spring of 1938. Ranging from one to five pages in length, these pieces are too short to constitute tales or short stories. Although he approached new themes with unprecedented cynicism and force, his sketches cannot all be considered great works of art from a literary point of view.<\/p>\n

It is thus far more as a poet that Migjeni made his mark on Albanian literature and culture, though he did so posthumously. He possessed all the prerequisites for being a great poet. He had an inquisitive mind, a depressive pessimistic nature and a repressed sexuality. Though his verse production was no more voluminous than his prose, his success in the field of poetry was no less than spectacular in Albania at the time.<\/p>\n

Migjeni\u2019s only volume of verse, Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana 1944 (Free verse), was composed over a three-year period from 1933 to 1935. A first edition of this slender and yet revolutionary collection, a total of thirty-five poems, was printed by the Gutemberg Press in Tirana in 1936 but was immediately banned by the authorities and never circulated. The second edition of 1944, undertaken by scholar Kosta\u00e7 Cipo (1892-1952) and the poet\u2019s sister Ollga, was more successful. It nonetheless omitted two poems, Parathanja e parathanjeve <\/em>(Preface of prefaces) and Blasfemi <\/em>(Blasphemy), which the publisher, Ismail Mal\u2019Osmani, felt might offend the Church. The 1944 edition did, however, include eight other poems composed after the first edition had already gone to press.<\/p>\n

The main theme of \u2018Free verse,\u2019 as with Migjeni\u2019s prose, is misery and suffering. It is a poetry of acute social awareness and despair. Previous generations of poets had sung the beauties of the Albanian mountains and the sacred traditions of the nation, whereas Migjeni now opened his eyes to the harsh realities of life, to the appalling level of misery, disease and poverty he discovered all around him. He was a poet of despair who saw no way out, who cherished no hope that anything but death could put an end to suffering. “I suffer with the child whose father cannot buy him a toy. I suffer with the young man who burns with unslaked sexual desire. I suffer with the middle-aged man drowning in the apathy of life. I suffer with the old man who trembles at the prospect of death. I suffer with the peasant struggling with the soil. I suffer with the worker crushed by iron. I suffer with the sick suffering from all the diseases of the world… I suffer with man.” Typical of the suffering and of the futility of human endeavour for Migjeni is Rezignata <\/em>(Resignation), a poem in the longest cycle of the collection, Kang\u00ebt e mjerimit <\/em>(Songs of poverty). Here the poet paints a grim portrait of our earthly existence: sombre nights, tears, smoke, thorns and mud. Rarely does a breath of fresh air or a vision of nature seep through the gloom. When nature does occur in the verse of Migjeni, then of course it is autumn.<\/p>\n

If there is no hope, there are at least suffocated desires and wishes. Some poems, such as T\u00eb birt\u00eb e shekullit t\u00eb ri <\/em>(The sons of the new age), Zgjimi <\/em>(Awakening), Kanga e rinis <\/em>(Song of youth) and Kanga e t\u00eb burgosunit <\/em>(The prisoner\u2019s song), are assertively declamatory in a left-wing revolutionary manner. Here we discover Migjeni as a precursor of socialist verse or rather, in fact, as the zenith of genuine socialist verse in Albanian letters, long before the so-called liberation and socialist period from 1944 to 1990. Migjeni was, nonetheless, not a socialist or revolutionary poet in the political sense, despite the indignation and the occasional clenched fist he shows us. For this, he lacked the optimism as well as any sense of political commitment and activity. He was a product of the thirties, an age in which Albanian intellectuals, including Migjeni, were particularly fascinated by the West and in which, in Western Europe itself, the rival ideologies of communism and fascism were colliding for the first time in the Spanish Civil War. Migjeni was not entirely uninfluenced by the nascent philosophy of the right either. In T\u00eb lindet njeriu <\/em>(May the man be born) and particularly, in the Nietzschean dithyramb Trajtat e Mbinjeriut <\/em>(The shape of the Superman), a strangled, crushed will transforms itself into “ardent desire for a new genius,” for the Superman to come. To a Trotskyite friend, Andr\u00e9 Stefi, who had warned him that the communists would not forgive for such poems, Migjeni replied, “My work has a combative character, but for practical reasons, and taking into account our particular conditions, I must manoeuvre in disguise. I cannot explain these things to the [communist] groups, they must understand them for themselves. The publication of my works is dictated by the necessities of the social situation through which we are passing. As for myself, I consider my work to be a contribution to the union of the groups. Andr\u00e9, my work will be achieved if I manage to live a little longer.”<\/p>\n

Part of the \u2018establishment\u2019 which he felt was oblivious to and indeed responsible for the sufferings of humanity was the Church. Migjeni\u2019s religious education and his training for the Orthodox priesthood seem to have been entirely counterproductive, for he cherished neither an attachment to religion nor any particularly fond sentiments for the organized Church. God for Migjeni was a giant with granite fists crushing the will of man. Evidence of the repulsion he felt towards god and the Church are to be found in the two poems missing from the 1944 edition, Parathania e parathanieve <\/em>(Preface of prefaces) with its cry of desperation “God! Where are you?”, and Blasfemi <\/em>(Blasphemy).<\/p>\n

In Kanga skandaloze <\/em>(Scandalous song), Migjeni expresses a morbid attraction to a pale nun and at the same time his defiance and rejection of her world. This poem is one which helps throw some light not only on Migjeni\u2019s attitude to religion but also on one of the more fascinating and least studied aspects in the life of the poet, his repressed heterosexuality.<\/p>\n

Eroticism has certainly never been a prominent feature of Albanian literature at any period and one would be hard pressed to name any Albanian author who has expressed his intimate impulses and desires in verse or prose. Migjeni comes closest, though in an unwitting manner. It is generally assumed that the poet remained a virgin until his untimely death at the age of twenty-six. His verse and his prose abound with the figures of women, many of them unhappy prostitutes, for whom Migjeni betrays both pity and an open sexual interest. It is the tearful eyes and the red lips which catch his attention; the rest of the body is rarely described. For Migjeni, sex too means suffering. Passion and rapturous desire are ubiquitous in his verse, but equally present is the spectre of physical intimacy portrayed in terms of disgust and sorrow. It is but one of the many bestial faces of misery described in the 105-line Poema e mjerimit <\/em>(Poem of poverty).<\/p>\n

Though he did not publish a single book during his lifetime, Migjeni\u2019s works, which circulated privately and in the press of the period, were an immediate success. Migjeni paved the way for a modern literature in Albania. This literature was, however, soon to be nipped in the bud. Indeed the very year of the publication of \u2018Free Verse\u2019 saw the victory of Stalinism in Albania and the proclamation of the People\u2019s Republic.<\/p>\n

Many have speculated as to what contribution Migjeni might have made to Albanian letters had he managed to live longer. The question remains highly hypothetical, for this individualist voice of genuine social protest would no doubt have suffered the same fate as most Albanian writers of talent in the late forties, i.e. internment, imprisonment or execution. His early demise has at least preserved the writer for us undefiled.<\/p>\n

The fact that Migjeni did perish so young makes it difficult to provide a critical assessment of his work. Though generally admired, Migjeni is not without critics. Some have been disappointed by his prose, nor is the range of his verse sufficient to allow us to acclaim him as a universal poet. Albanian-American scholar Arshi Pipa (1920-1997) has questioned his very mastery of the Albanian language, asserting: “Born Albanian to a family of Slavic origin, then educated in a Slavic cultural milieu, he made contact again with Albania and the Albanian language and culture as an adult. The language he spoke at home was Serbo-Croatian, and at the seminary he learned Russian. He did not know Albanian well. His texts swarm with spelling mistakes, even elementary ones, and his syntax is far from being typically Albanian. What is true of Italo Svevo\u2019s Italian is even truer of Migjeni\u2019s Albanian.”<\/p>\n

Post-war Stalinist critics in Albania rather superficially proclaimed Migjeni as the precursor of socialist realism though they were unable to deal with many aspects of his life and work, in particular his Schopenhauerian pessimism, his sympathies with the West, his repressed sexuality, and the Nietzschean element in Trajtat e Mbinjeriut <\/em>(The shape of the Superman), a poem conveniently left out of some post-war editions of his verse. While such critics have delighted in viewing Migjeni as a product of \u2018pre-liberation\u2019 Zogist Albania, it has become painfully evident that the poet\u2019s \u2018songs unsung,\u2019 after half a century of communist dictatorship in Albania, are now more compelling than ever.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poem of poverty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Poverty, brothers, is a mouthful that’s hard to swallow,
\nA bite that sticks in your throat and leaves you in sorrow,
\nWhen you watch the pale faces and rheumy eyes
\nObserving you like ghosts and holding out thin hands;
\nBehind you they lie, stretched out
\nTheir whole lives through, until the moment of death.
\nAbove them in the air, as if in disdain,
\nCrosses and stony minarets pierce the sky,
\nProphets and saints in many colours radiate splendour.
\nAnd poverty feels betrayed.<\/p>\n

Poverty carries its own vile imprint,
\nIt is hideous, repulsive, disgusting.
\nThe brow that bears it, the eyes that express it,
\nThe lips that try in vain to hide it
\nAre the offspring of ignorance, the victims of disdain,
\nThe filthy scraps flung from the table
\nAt which for centuries
\nSome pitiless, insatiable dog has fed.
\nPoverty has no good fortune, only rags,
\nThe tattered banners of a hope
\nShattered by broken promises.<\/p>\n

Poverty wallows in debauchery.
\nIn dark corners, together with dogs, rats, cats,
\nOn mouldy, stinking, filthy mattresses,
\nNaked breasts exposed, sallow dirty bodies,
\nWith feelings overwhelmed by bestial desire,
\nThey bite, devour, suck, kiss the sullied lips,
\nAnd in unbridled lust the thirst is quenched,
\nThe craving stilled, and self-consciousness lost.
\nHere is the source of the imbeciles, the servants and the beggars
\nWho will tomorrow be born to fill the streets.<\/p>\n

Poverty shines in the eyes of the newborn,
\nFlickers like the pale flame of a candle
\nUnder a ceiling blackened with smoke and spider webs,
\nWhere human shadows tremble on damp stained walls,
\nWhere the ailing infant wails like a banshee
\nTo suck the dry breasts of its wretched mother
\nWho, pregnant again, curses god and the devil,
\nCurses the heavy burden of her unborn child.
\nHer baby does not laugh, it only wastes away,
\nUnwanted by its mother, who curses it, too.
\nHow sorrowful is the cradle of the poor
\nWhere a child is rocked with tears and sighs.<\/p>\n

Poverty’s child is raised in the shadows
\nOf great mansions, too high for imploring voices to reach
\nTo disturb the peace and quiet of the lords
\nSleeping in blissful beds beside their ladies.<\/p>\n

Poverty matures a child before its time,
\nTeaches it to dodge the threatening fist,
\nThe hand which clutches its throat in dreams,
\nWhen the delirium of starvation begins
\nAnd when death casts its shadow on childish faces,
\nInstead of a smile a hideous grimace.
\nWhile the fate of a fruit is to ripen and fall,
\nThe child is interred not maturing at all.<\/p>\n

Poverty labours and toils by day and night,
\nChest and forehead drenched in sweat,
\nUp to the knees in mud and slime,
\nAnd still the empty guts writhe in hunger.
\nStarvation wages! For such a daily ordeal,
\nA mere three or four leks and an ‘On your way.’<\/p>\n

Poverty sometimes paints its face,
\nSwollen lips scarlet, hollow cheeks rouged,
\nAnd body a chattel in a filthy trade.
\nFor service in bed for which it is paid
\nWith a few lousy francs,
\nStained sheets, stained face and stained conscience.<\/p>\n

Poverty leaves a heritage as well,
\nNot cash in the bank or property you can sell,
\nBut distorted bones and pains in the chest,
\nPerhaps leaves the memory of a bygone day
\nWhen the roof of the house, weakened by decay,
\nBy age and the weather collapsed and fell,
\nAnd above all the din rose a terrible cry
\nCursing and imploring, as from the depths of hell,
\nThe voice of a man crushed by a beam.
\nUnder the heel, says the priest, of a god irate
\nEnds thus the life of a dissolute ingrate.
\nAnd so the memory of such misfortunes
\nFills the cup of bitterness passed to generations.<\/p>\n

Poverty in drink seeks consolation,
\nIn filthy taverns, with dirty, littered tables,
\nThe thirsting soul pours glass after glass
\nDown the throat to forget its many worries,
\nThe dulling glass, the glass satanic,
\nCaressing with a venomous bite.
\nAnd when, like grain under the scythe, the man falls
\nTo the floor, he giggles and sobs, a tragicomic clown,
\nAnd all his sorrow in drink he drowns
\nWhen one by one, a hundred glasses downs.<\/p>\n

Poverty sets desires ablaze like stars in the night
\nAnd turns them to ashes, like trees struck by lightning.<\/p>\n

Poverty knows no joy, but only pain,
\nPain reducing you to such despair
\nThat you seize the rope and hang yourself,
\nOr become a poor victim of ‘paragraphs.’<\/p>\n

Poverty wants no pity, only justice!
\nPity? Bastard daughter of cunning fathers,
\nWho like the Pharisees, beating the drum
\nOstentatiously for their own sly ends,
\nDrop a penny in the beggar’s hands.<\/p>\n

Poverty is an indelible stain
\nOn the brow of humanity through the ages.
\nAnd never can this stain be effaced
\nBy doctrines decaying in temples.<\/p>\n

[Poema e mjerimit<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a034-43]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blasphemy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mosques and churches float through our memories,
\nPrayers devoid of sense or taste echo from their walls.
\nNever has the heart of god been touched by them,
\nAnd yet it beats on amidst the sounds of drums and bells.<\/p>\n

Majestic mosques and churches throughout our wretched land,
\nSpires and minarets towering over lowly homes,
\nThe voice of the hodja and priest in one degenerate chant,
\nOh, ideal vision, a thousand years old!<\/p>\n

The mosques and churches float through memories of the pious,
\nThe chiming of the bell mingles with the muezzin’s call,
\nSanctity shines from cowls and from the beards of hodjas.
\nOh, so many fair angels at the gates of hell!<\/p>\n

On ancient citadels perch carrion ravens,
\nTheir dejected wings drooping – the symbols of lost hopes,
\nIn despair do they croak of an age gone by
\nWhen the ancient citadels once gleamed with hallowed joy.<\/p>\n

[Blasfemi<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a055]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Song of noble grief<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh, noble grief of the suffering soul
\nThat into free verse bursts out…
\nWould you perchance take comfort
\nIn adorning the world with jewels?<\/p>\n

Oh, noble grief in free verse,
\nWhich sincerely sounds and resounds,
\nWill you ever move the feelings of men,
\nOr wither and die like the autumn leaves?<\/p>\n

Oh, song worthy of noble grief…
\nNever rest! But with your twin,
\nLamentation, sing out your suffering,
\nFor time will be your consolation.<\/p>\n

[Kanga e dhimb\u00ebs krenare<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a063]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Autumn on parade<\/strong><\/p>\n

Autumn in nature and autumn in our faces.
\nThe sultry breeze enfeebles, the glowering sun
\nOppresses the ailing spirit in our breasts,
\nShrivels the life trembling among the twigs of a poplar.
\nThe yellow colours twirl in the final dance,
\n(A frantic desire of leaves dying one by one).
\nOur joys, passions, our ultimate desires
\nFall and are trampled in the autumn mud.<\/p>\n

An oak tree, reflected in the tears of heaven,
\nTosses and bleeds in gigantic passion.
\n“To live! I want to live!” – it fights for breath,
\nPiercing the storm with cries of grief.<\/p>\n

The horizon, drowned in fog, joins in
\nThe lamentation. In prayer dejected fruit trees
\nFold imploring branches – but in vain, they know.
\nTomorrow they will die… Is there nowhere hope?<\/p>\n

The eye is saddened. Saddened, too, the heart
\nAt the hour of death, when silent fall the veins
\nAnd from the grave to the highest heavens soar
\nDespairing cries of long-unheeded pain.<\/p>\n

Autumn in nature and autumn in our faces.
\nMoan, desires, offspring of poverty,
\nGroan in lamentation, bewail the corpses,
\nThat adorn this autumn among the withered branches.<\/p>\n

[Vjeshta n\u00eb parakalim<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a071]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Scandalous song<\/strong><\/p>\n

A pale-faced nun who with the sins of this world
\nBears my sins, too, upon her weary shoulders,
\nThose shoulders, wan as wax, which some deity has kissed,
\nRoams the streets like a fleeting angel.<\/p>\n

A pale-faced nun, cold as a marble tomb,
\nWith greyish eyes like the ashes of spent desires,
\nWith thin red-ribbon lips, tightly pressed to smother her sighs,
\nA chilling image of her has lingered in my memory.<\/p>\n

From pious prayers she comes and to her prayers she returns.
\nIn downcast eyes, in lips, in folded hands her prayers repose.
\nWithout her prayers what fate would be the world’s?
\nYet they cannot stop another day from dawning.<\/p>\n

Oh, nun so pale, making love to the saints,
\nConsumed in ecstasy before them like an altar candle,
\nRevealing herself to them…, oh, how I envy the saints,
\nPray not for me, for I am hell-bent with desire.<\/p>\n

You and I, nun, are two ends of a rope,
\nOn which two teams tug one against the other –
\nThe struggle is stern and who knows how it will end,
\nSo, tug the rope, let the teams contend.<\/p>\n

[Kanga skandaloze<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a073]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Resignation<\/strong><\/p>\n

In tears have we found consolation…
\nOur heritage in life has been
\nMisery… for this whole world
\nIs but a grave in the universal womb,
\nWhere human reptiles are condemned to creep,
\nTheir will crushed in the grip of a giant.
\n– An eye adorned in purest tears of profound pain
\nShines from the far side of hell,
\nAnd at times, the reflection of a fleeting thought
\nFlashes round the globe
\nTo give vent to awesome wrath.
\nBut the head hangs, the sorrowful eyelids droop
\nAnd through the lashes wells a crystal tear,
\nRolls down the cheek and splashes on the earth,
\nAnd in every splash of a teardrop a man is born
\nTo take to the road of his own destiny.
\nIn the hope of the smallest victory, he roams from land to land,
\nOver roads covered with brambles, among which he passes
\nGraves washed in tears and crazy folk who snigger.<\/p>\n

[Rezignata<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a075]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Fragment<\/strong><\/p>\n

…
\nOn the mercy of the merciless
\nThe little beggar survived.
\nHis life ran its course
\nIn dirty streets,
\nIn dark corners,
\nIn cold doorways,
\nAmong fallacious faiths.
\nBut one day, when the world’s pity dried up
\nHe felt in his breast the stab
\nOf a new pain, which contempt
\nFosters in the hearts
\nOf the poor.
\nAnd – though yesterday a little beggar,
\nHe now became something new.
\nAn avenger of the past,
\nHe conceived an imprecation
\nTo pronounce to the world,
\nHis throat strained
\nTo bring out the word
\nWhich his rage had gripped
\nAnd smothered on his lips.
\nSpeechless he sat
\nAt the crossroads,
\nWhen the wheels of a passing car
\nQuickly crushed
\nAnd… silenced him.<\/p>\n

[Fragment<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a077]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The themes<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is there the theme of a poem among fading memories,
\nAmong the happy memories of childhood innocence,
\nWhen the heart was full of worldly pleasures,
\nDesires, hopes and ever-sweet dreams?
\nIs there the fiery theme of a poem of love
\nAmong the lingering memories of eager youth,
\nWith sonorous rhymes and ardent vows,
\nFull of the lust for life and shouts of mirth?<\/p>\n

On the pallid faces of fallen women
\nLoitering in doorways to sell themselves,
\nOn their faces a tragic poem is carved
\nIn tears and grief that rise to the heavens,<\/p>\n

In dark corners where derision reigns
\nIn disgust, and the insane jeer
\nAt their wives and children,
\nThere in revolt great themes await creation.<\/p>\n

In hidden corners where fear dwells
\nAnd passivity lurks to smother life,
\nThere in betrayal does the theme take its source
\nAnd with it, the poet pens his verse.<\/p>\n

Throughout man’s life do themes of all kinds
\nCome and go. Now the ultimate of themes has come,
\nFrightening in our fantasy – the paling of the face,
\nAn ominous shadow, and the death knell tolls.<\/p>\n

[Motivet<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a081]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suffering<\/strong><\/p>\n

For some time now
\nI have seen clearly
\nHow from suffering my eyes are growing larger,
\nThe furrows in my face and brow are growing deeper,
\nAnd my smile has grown bitter…
\n…and I have come to realize
\nThat the coming days
\nWill no longer be constructive ones
\nOf energy and work, but simply the passing
\nOf a waning life.<\/p>\n

With time, I have come to see
\nHow this treacherous life
\nHas singed
\nEach of my senses,
\nOne by one,
\nUntil nothing remains
\nOf the joy
\nI once had.<\/p>\n

Oh life,
\nI did not know before
\nHow much I dreaded
\nYour grip
\nThat strangles
\nRuthless.<\/p>\n

But helpless now,
\nI gaze into the mirror and see
\nHow from suffering my eyes are growing larger,
\nThe furrows in my face and brow are growing deeper,
\nAnd that soon I will become
\nA tattered banner,
\nWorn and torn
\nIn the battles of life.<\/p>\n

[Vuejtja<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a0123]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Under the banners of melancholy<\/strong><\/p>\n

The banners
\nOf a mournful melancholy
\nWave
\nThroughout our land…
\nNor can it be said
\nThat here live a people
\nWho are building
\nSomething new.
\nHere and there in the shadow
\nOf the banners
\nAn effort can be seen,
\nA gigantic struggle
\nTo triumph over death,
\nTo give birth to something great,
\nTo bring a jinni to light!
\nBut (oh, irony of fate)
\nFrom all that labour
\nOnly a mouse is born.
\nAnd thus this comedy
\nBursts our vein of humour,
\nAnd we ourselves
\nBurst into rage.
\nOver the threshold of each house
\nThat contains a sign of life
\nMournful melancholy
\nUnfolds its banner.<\/p>\n

[N\u00ebn flamujt e melankolis\u00eb<\/em>, from the volume Vargjet e lira<\/em>, Tirana: Ismail Mal’ Osmani 1944, translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie, published in English in Migjeni, Free Verse<\/em>, Peja: Dukagjini 2001, p.\u00a0135]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

THE STUDENT BACK HOME<\/a><\/p>\n

Sketches <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Migjeni (1911-1938), contemporary Albanian poetry begins its course. Migjeni, pen name of Millosh Gjergj Nikolla, was born in Shkodra. His father, Gjergj Nikolla (1872-1924), came from an Orthodox family of Dibran origin and owned a bar there. As a boy, he attended a Serbian Orthodox elementary school in Shkodra and from 1923 to 1925 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[66],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-albanian-authors","tag-classical-authors-19th-early-20th-centuries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":897,"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/en.shqipopedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}