Monograph that revives Albanian writers

The monograph "Albanian Women Writers 1954-1990" by Meliza Krasniqi, (Published by the Albanological Institute, Prishtina, 2024, 506 pages) will be an indispensable reference for anyone who deals with Albanian women writers in the future, for anyone who aims to fight forgetfulness in our culture, especially the forgetfulness of our mothers who taught us the language, of our teachers who taught us how to read and write, of our women writers who have shown us through their literary and intellectual creativity that Albanian women are not simply objects of inspiration for poets and writers.

When the distinguished American poet Mark Strand is asked if he worries about the oblivion that might overtake his work in the future, he jokingly replies that he won’t know, since he’ll be dead. He then adds that most people who publish books will be read for a short time and then be put aside, almost everyone being put aside to make room for the new. He thinks that’s only fair, but he would certainly like to be alive literaryally even after he’s physically dead. Strand hopes that the new, the successor, will include poetry, its writing and its reading. For peoples with a long literary tradition and a multitude of quality poets and writers, such as English and American literature, marginalization and oblivion may be less painful, much less so than for societies and cultures whose quality of the art of speech is conditioned by the drama of context, as has generally happened to Albanian literature. 

If the drama of the context has been heavy for Albanian writers, it has been much heavier for Albanian women who have aimed to be educated, to write and to publish. The heavy weight of the drama of the historical, social, cultural, political, ideological, economic context has caused deep poverty among the Albanian people, as a result it has forced the Albanian to close himself for centuries in the tower of tribal, canonical, and religious codes of ethical behavior, remaining in a constant state of survival and self-defense, isolated, as a result trapped in fanaticism, conservatism, patriarchalism. The Albanian woman has paid a very high price for this situation, which echoes and influences as a consequence even today in our society, especially if we make comparisons with the position of women in Europe.  

I would like to recall here an article by Shtjefën Gjeçov, “The Fall of the Albanian Nation in the Mountains”, from 1908, and to quote a few lines about Albanian girls and women, which make you sad: “... The Albanian woman’s cuckoo finds work: her back never rests and never remains unburdened in spring, summer, autumn and winter. She lives at home not as a daughter, but as a servant. She will go to the mill, the wood that burns in the house year after year, along with other women she will bring down from the mountain; the water that is needed for the house, her back carries with it with a thud... from the crown. In short, from small feet to old age... the noose is not removed from her throat and, in the case of the Albanian cuckoo, only a noose is left! The cuckoo is ordered by everyone, the eldest and the youngest. the little one. The best and the worst in the house are threatening her, and this ping and ping with her mouth can't do anything. Everyone can wash, comb, dress and change and spit, but not the little one; she will stay like a slob in the house and everywhere...”* 

Such treatment of Albanian girls and women was not only done in the highlands, but unfortunately, more or less in the cities as well. This does not mean that Albanian boys and men had a good job, but it does mean that girls and women had a much more difficult life, in every aspect.

Knowing well the situation of Albanian women, in the past and in the present, both in the family, in life, and in culture, especially in literature, Meliza Krasniqi has set herself the mission of researching, finding, analyzing, and evaluating all literary works written and published by Albanian writers, not only in the period 1954-1990, as proof that the Albanian woman is the natural equal half of society, family, life, culture, and Albanian literature, and from that girl and woman with a noose around her neck, she has managed throughout the decades of the twentieth century to express and create her own cultural identity despite many obstacles. The idea of ​​dealing with women writers of a fairly long period of time could easily produce two, perhaps even three scientific monographs, but Meliza Krasniqi has chosen to challenge the considerable number of writers and the multitude of their works: over sixty writers and somewhere over two hundred and thirty works. During the weeks, months and years following the initial idea presented and approved in the Literature Department, Meliza Krasniqi has researched in libraries, national and local, bookstores, book stands, fairs, wherever she has heard that she can find books by Albanian women writers, because a large part of the works written and published at that time have not had a subsequent public life, have not been reprinted, meaning they have been forgotten, and she has begun the work of analyzing, examining, interpreting, and evaluating them. It takes great self-confidence and high professional competence to deal with all those books, so that the results are included within the covers of a monograph, in a time frame of four years and a few months, the duration of the work project. Meliza has both self-confidence and professional competence and has managed to carry out the work at an excellent level. She has managed to transform her goal into a monograph readable by both experts and the general reader. 
What is the method of operation of researcher Krasniqi in this monograph to achieve the stated goal? The monograph, in addition to the Introduction and the two theoretical and historical-literary chapters, has four large parts. In the first part, she analyzes Albanian writers of Albania, in the second part, Albanian writers of Kosovo, in the third part, Albanian writers of North Macedonia and in the last part, Albanian writers of Italy. The ranking of the writers is done according to the chronological criterion. The assessment is seen to be done through the attention paid to certain writers and their works. So, the best writers and their works are given more space. The monograph concludes with the presentation of the research results, a very valuable bibliography of Albanian women writers, from the first book published in 1939 (by Musine Kokalari “Sic më thich nënua plakë”) until 1990, and with the extensive literature used: theoretical, historical-literary books, writings, reviews, criticism, various interviews. 

Meliza uses a combination of a range of literary theories to approach texts, based on the theory of gender studies, from which gender criticism (ginocriticism) and the method of gender studies derive; she has used the sociological method to write short biographies of women writers and to build the context of their lives; the method of text analysis to examine the constituent elements of the works, down to the finest stylistic and metrical details, and then to see how they function as a whole; it can be said that she sometimes also uses the psychological method, which sometimes takes on psychoanalytic nuances, to reach the metaphorical-figurative depths of the poems and the minds and souls of the main characters, mainly girls and women of the prose, to then interpret them as a reflection of the emotional, spiritual and rational states of the creative authors; puts into practice the method of comparison to make comparisons between the works of a particular writer, as a creative-literary evolution over the years, between the works of Albanian writers as a whole, but also to make comparisons between Albanian writers of Albania and those of Kosovo and North Macedonia, because the socio-political and ideological contexts also changed, therefore the ways of literary creation in each country also changed; it also uses the methods of text analysis that derive from the theory of narratology, to analyze the narrative techniques of stories, short stories and novels. It should be said that in this monograph, the researcher, Dr. Meliza Krasniqi, also examines literary studies, criticisms and scientific monographs written and published by women in the period in question, so she, in addition to the literary analysis of artistic works (poetry, prose, drama), also writes metacritics. 

Starting from the biography and penetrating to the essence of the literary nature of the works of Albanian women writers, this monograph also takes on the value of a historical text on female literary writing. It takes on such values ​​because the goal of researcher Krasniqi was not only to analyze, review, interpret and evaluate the works of Albanian women writers, but also to create their deserved place in the history of Albanian literature, that is, their revival. Bringing them to the fore and protecting them from oblivion. This monograph is helpful in this regard. 

Meliza Krasniqi has done great, extraordinary work and I think that this monograph will be an indispensable reference for anyone who deals with Albanian women writers in the future, for anyone who aims to fight forgetfulness in our culture, especially the forgetfulness of our mothers who taught us the language, of our teachers who taught us how to read and write, of our writers who have shown us through their literary and intellectual creativity that the Albanian woman is not simply an object of inspiration for poets and writers, but an active subject in life, in work, in society, in literature and in culture.

* Shtjefën K. Gjeçovi, “The legacy of the Albanian nation among the Malcina”, in: “The Canon of Lekë Dukagjini” (Collected and codified by Shtjefën K. Gjeçovi), Academy of Sciences of the Albanian Republic. Institute of Popular Culture, Tirana, 1989, p. 491-492.