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By:
Rexhep Maloku
- November 6, 2022 09:13
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Today "Rebirth" is just history. With light and shadow. It depends on the approach during retrospective reading. Like everything else in our society, where almost nothing gets to the bottom. And we have an opinion about everything. He saw me right. Once it was considered a window for big and small in Kosovo. Now a request must be submitted to the archives to browse any issue of papers and university studies in the republic that boasts the slogan "Young Europeans", but which does not publish any newspapers. Few care more about its history
"SUPPORT ON OWN STRENGTH - THE MOST RATIONAL SOLUTION", was the main article of one of the February 1985 issues of the then only daily, "Rilindja".
It was just one of dozens of facades that have been exhibited in the empty hall of the former "Rilindja" printing house, which has survived the typical object of brutalist architecture, now alienated.
But to read the headlines of the installation "Brutal Times" by the Turkish artist, Cevdet Erek, as part of "Manifesta 14", Shaban Sokoli did not go the way he had beaten for more than two decades as a former printing press worker. After passing through the metal gate with the red and white inscription "Rebirth", the darkness began to thicken. Sokol had to get out and go to the back - that's where the newspaper used to be loaded and distributed all over Kosovo. It had managed to sell up to 234 light-bleached copies. Today is just history. With light and shadow. It depends on the approach during retrospective reading. Like everything else in our society, where almost nothing gets to the bottom. And we have an opinion about everything. He saw me right.
"...like something sacred"
"I started reading 'Renaissance' in the sixth or seventh grade of primary school. I understood 'Renaissance' as something, I don't know when they told me, as something sacred. I could hardly wait to go from the village to the city, even when I bought the newspaper I thought about those people who hold it in their hands in the capital", says Sokoli in front of Erek's screen.
also A necessary light for KosovoThe lights and music of the installation, which was intended to create the impression of a printing press environment, did not disrupt the flow of the narrative at all.
"AGAIN - SIBERIAN RAGE", is the headline of a Monday in February 1985 on the screen behind Sokol's back.
Once "Rilindja" was considered a window for big and small in Kosovo. Today, a request must be submitted to the archives to browse any issue of papers and university studies in the country that prides itself on the slogan "Young Europeans", but which does not publish any newspapers. Few care more about its history.
In 2019, the digital platform "Arkivi Rilindja" was launched, a project conceived by the writer Ervinë Halili, who made a summary biography of 9 well-known authors who had worked on "Rilindja".
The first daily, which began to be published on February 12, 1945 in Prizren, would be moved to Pristina in 1958, writes the material of the platform, which includes various material from 1945 to 1999.
First front with star
In the first "Renaissance" with the communist star at the top - the copy cost 8 dinars or 1 lek - it was immediately announced that it was the "ORGAN OF THE JOINT NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT OF KOSMET".
In the only article on the front page "GETTING TO WORK", the text started with "we are finally appearing before the people of Kosovo Metohis with 'Rebirth'. This is a great joy, it is a blessing for our people".
"Welcome to these decisive days", concluded the front page with author Fadil Hoxha.
"The authors of the articles of the first issue, which was worked on for 72 hours in the absence of letters in the Albanian language, were also the collaborators of the Lirija-Slloboda notebook - the illegal partisan notebook of the operative headquarters for "Kosmet". The main article of this issue was written by Fadil Hoxha, commander of the Operative Staff of "Kosmet" - he writes in the "Biography" of the Halil platform, which confirms that this is not the official archive of the Rilindja Social Enterprise. "The archive of this enterprise, with all its once functional links, has not been inherited in our days", writes the column "About us".
"This material has been collected very carefully from the ashes of the dust of everything that until now was considered unusable, lost by the 'Renaissance', but which was produced by it itself, by the journalists it produced, the writers it published, the editors and photographers".
In the same place, it is estimated that the advantage of the archive is the editorial office of the publications of "Rilindja", which in a way "has also revived the community of writers of Kosovo in the period after the Second World War, especially after the opening of the literary magazine 'Jeta e Re' encouraging literary creativity, criticism, translation and literary intercommunication".
The intensive activity of the publishing house "Rilindja" and the printing house with the same name was also connected with the history of the newspaper.
The first authorial work for adults was published by the publishing house "Rilindja" in 1953 and was "A fiddle among the mountains" by Martin Camaj. This was also Camaj's first work. He would visit Kosovo for the last time in 1990, invited by the League of Writers of Kosovo, writes Halili on the digital platform.
For those who worked there, the history of the intellectual and cultural development of Kosovo is closely related to what has been evaluated as one of the strongest economic organizations in the country alongside the former metallurgical factories.
"It's Renaissance, it's a newspaper"
"Newspapers for children, such as 'Pioneri', 'Fjala', educational magazine 'Skhëndija' were printed, with the most modern technique for that time, meaning children's newspapers were printed in color. In addition to newspapers, many books and publications have been printed in this printing house. The sets of writers of the Renaissance have been printed", adds Sokoli. Even the most famous Albanian writers of the time, whose works "Rilindja" published.
Ismail Kadare would visit the "Renaissance" palace in 1980 before the 1969-81 cultural-educational cooperation between Enverist Albania and Kosovo, then the autonomous socialist province of the former Yugoslavia, broke down.
"Actually, this has been a press industry, because a lot of work has been done. 'Renaissance' has been a school, an institution of emancipation, an institution of culture, meaning, together with the university, many cadres, many faces of well-known, many scholars have passed through the 'Renaissance' facility here", emphasizes Sokoli in the annex, now neglected, next to the eighteen-storey building, now home to several ministries.
In fact, in 1971, the "Rilindja" press building was designed by the Macedonian architect, Georgi Konstantinovski. Designed with specific details of air ventilation, which are externally perceived as details of the building's triangular facade, model borrowed from the American architect, Paul Rudolph. The facility has an area of 50 thousand square meters.
"Actually, for those of us who came from other cities to Pristina as children, the 'Rilindja' palace was one of the longest buildings, and we always asked the older ones 'what is it?' "It's Rilindja, it's the newspaper," emphasizes Uran Haxha, journalist and moderator at Paper FM. He tells how even when he started working as a journalist, he heard stories related to the "Renaissance".
"It was the year 2017-18, when in fact 'Rilindja' did not exist as a newspaper, I was in the field interviewing a person in a Serbian enclave and someone came and said: 'Who are you interviewing for, for 'Rilindja'?" ?'" - recalls Haxha, assessing that "Rilindja" is one of the main archival sources for the history of the second half of the last century in Kosovo.
Haxha himself browsed the archived issues of "Renaissance" in the National Library for an exhibition of writings from past decades about Suharek, which is now part of the museum of this town. "I mean, there is a disconnection of years, but people continue to have the first association 'Rebirth'".
"NEW IMPULSES FOR SCIENTIFIC WORK", is written on another front page of March 1985, selected by Ereku for the installation of "Manifesto 14" in the space of the former printing house.
The decade of the forbidden "Renaissance".
Sokoli remembers the year 1981 at work at the time of demonstrations, first student, then all popular, which had the slogan "Republic of Kosovo!" as the axis. They would be bloodily crushed by the special forces of the Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia regime.
"Me and the press team had to move at night. It was curfew. It was a very difficult job", emphasizes Sokoli in his former workplace.
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On August 8, 1990, the only daily was banned after the workers had opposed the violent measures of July 5, 1990, which demanded the declaration of the Rilindja newspaper as an "organ of the Assembly of Serbia".
"The police came, they also came to the printing office to see if any part of the circulation was hidden, even in the wardrobes, they looked for us to see if we had hidden anything there", emphasizes Sokoli. He says that from that moment a very difficult period would begin, since the citizens of Kosovo would not be left in a huge informational mess, "weekly and periodical newspapers began to be published as daily newspapers".
"One day, 'Zëri javor' was published, another day, 'Kosovarja', another day, 'Skhëndija', as a daily newspaper", emphasizes Sokoli.
On January 18, 1991, "Rilindja" was published under the name of the agricultural magazine BUJKU. It continued to be published as a daily newspaper. The newspaper continued its activity in Switzerland and Tirana under the name "Rilindja", while in Kosovo as "Bujku" until December 30, 1998. The newspaper began to be published in post-war Kosovo, but was closed in 2002 after leaving its palace.
The "winding" of history
In free Kosovo, UNMIK established the Kosovo Trust Agency, with the primary and sole mission of administration, preservation and privatization of social property.
On July 14, 2014, Rilindja Graphic Company enters the liquidation process by decision of the board of the Kosovo Privatization Agency. Printing machines and materials were sold to "Rilindas".
"To protect all that history, we have developed, conditionally speaking, a kind of war, all supported by the German Embassy, to preserve a part of this heritage, which are the cars", emphasizes Arbnor Dragaj, from the non-governmental organization "Cooperative Space". . He says how they managed to buy at least five cars again with funds from the Municipality of Pristina. They are not inside the printing press. They were thrown out of the facility, along with the remaining inventory that looks like a pile of garbage.
"Unfortunately, they have been in this situation for three years", emphasizes Dragaj.
After the last war, the brutalism that manifested itself in the entire building has been transformed through a renovation that has "clad" the 18-story building with metal plates. Now, home to several ministries.
"The 'Renaissance' building is one of the iconic buildings of modernization in Pristina", emphasizes Haxha, recalling the words of Konstantinovski after the "transformation" of his project. "It was as I was told by one of the first architects of Macedonia, known worldwide, even when he returns years and years after the war in Kosovo and sees the building in its current state, he did not recognize his own building, symbolically not I know my object", said Haxha, assessing that the palace has turned into an object "wrapped in cellophane", which has completely lost its identity.
A glimmer of hope
Haxha says that the annex where the printing press was located, however, can be turned into an archival space, collecting numbers and material of the first daily, but also other materials. "Everywhere when you search through the archives, there is always a year missing somewhere, something missing somewhere, someone has taken a number. But it's very easy to do it all together with one place", he emphasizes, expressing the hope that "Rilindja" will one day be digitized.
"WORK EVEN FOR 300 THOUSAND PEOPLE", is one of the main headlines of the March 22, 1985 front page of Erek's installation in the former printing press of "Rilindja".
"The philosophy and collective psychology of a people, a community or a culture, can be seen perhaps only after turning the head back, not by reading the pages of a newspaper like 'Rilindja', but by documenting what was probably lost between the lines without had the opportunity to write in the newspaper, but it was unintentionally shot in the photographed eyes of people, the letters they exchanged and the way they wrote literature", writes "arkivirilindja.com". "Literature is the most faithful documentation of a society even when the whole is hermetic, as was the case of this period of the newspaper 'Rilindja' in Kosovo".
During the past two decades, the "Renaissance" annex would be used for newspapers, televisions, cafes, gyms and enthusiastic space for Pristina's electronic scene.
Uran Badivuku from "Cooperative Space" says that the 18 musical activities of his NGO over the past seven years have strengthened the narrative of "Renaissance".
"Perhaps the printing press 'Rilindja' was the most important printing press, because it gave us culture through the press, but what has happened since the arrival of 'Hapsira' here, we from the press have returned to music, with sounds, where through sounds we have tried to present the history of 'Renaissance' and what importance it had in our society", he emphasizes.
The entire battle is being waged to at least preserve the capital letter space.
Institutional protection as much as possible
On the other side, where Sokoli used to go in and out of work, the spaces, once the cafe and the media office, have turned into halls without doors and windows with floors filled with administrative documents and issues of newspapers and magazines. There are few remnants that can be found in public spaces in the only state in the region that does not have a printed newspaper.
The printing room of the building of the former "Rilindja" press palace in Pristina, together with the "Mother Teresa" maternity hospital, in the capital, are the two new monuments that were added to the List of temporarily protected monuments of cultural heritage last month.
As for the hall of the former printing house "Rilindja", part of the building belonging to the 70s, representing the years of important developments in the socio-political field of Kosovo, has been evaluated.
"Historical values related to rare values as the only building in Kosovo that is related to the press industry and a special activity in terms of its impact on freedom of expression; Aesthetic value as the creation of an artist of the time, namely the connection with the architect Georgi Konstantinovski; Aesthetic values embodied and preserved in the printing room", is written in the justification for taking this asset under protection.
But its biggest product has no one to protect. And this, intentionally or accidentally, as if the "Rebirth" itself says it on one of the front pages of the installation already removed from the former home of the first daily newspaper in Kosovo. The high writing on the damaged page is not known how it begins, but it ends with "...ON SATURDAY AND BEKA", while the other one on the right starts with "ON PREDICTIONS..." to break the meaning of the title in the middle, but it is certain that it ends with "...USUALLY". But, as usual, another proof that as a society we cannot protect exceptional values. Even "Renaissance" has no one to defend it.
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