Rexhep Qosja – phenomenon of Albanian culture

Academician Rexhep Qosja, not only with his multifaceted written work, but also with his principled intellectual stance, in difficult and dramatic times of history, in the field of determination of the individual with extraordinary creative and professional capacities, also constitutes a phenomenon for Albanian thought. This corpus of writing and all intellectual and professional activity have transformed their author and creator into an important national institution.

“Even good people must die, but death cannot kill their names.” In these days of pain and sorrow, when death physically took from us the professor, the scholar, the Albanologist, the philosopher, the ideologist, the novelist, the playwright, the literary critic, the historian, the publicist, the diarist, the essayist, the polemicist, the nonconformist intellectual, the activist of the national cause, above all the man of a special kind, the academician Rexhep Qosja, the paraphrasing of this Danish sentence seems to me extremely significant. This awareness makes death relative and in any case more easily bearable. The author has died, but not his work, not his multifaceted heritage that constitutes one of our most precious national treasures. It belongs to all of us, it, in a special way, belongs to endless generations of Albanians as a guiding sign of a safer journey into the future.

There are more than 50 written works and more than 20 thousand pages written and published, and a considerable part of them translated into other languages, which make Academician Rexhep Qosje an unrivaled author in Albanian history and culture. However, this imposing volume is not the essence of his persistent and continuous lifelong work, it is not what distinguishes him as one of the most distinguished personalities in Albanian culture and general history. First of all, his verifiable scientific values, his ideas and views that, for the most part, have proven to be pioneering in terms of the historical developments that Albanians went through, are characteristic, then there is his literary creativity, with its thematic, compositional and stylistic nuances, widely appreciated for its innovation as an expression of the unity between fiction and erudition, between imagination and knowledge. Such works, original and unrepeatable, as a manifestation of free authorial consciousness, unique as comprehensive creativity, which have an organic, substantive and structural connection, as values ​​of spiritual creativity and mental rationality, constitute a cultural phenomenon.

Academician Rexhep Qosja, not only with his multifaceted written work, but also with his principled intellectual stance, in difficult and dramatic times of history, in the field of determination of the individual with extraordinary creative and professional capacities, also constitutes a phenomenon for Albanian thought. This corpus of writing and all intellectual and professional activity have transformed their author and creator into an important national institution.

One of the signs of Rexhep Qosje's originality lies in the literature he created. His prose and dramas constitute a bold and sensitive turn towards our literary tradition, while his literary creativity is not made identifiable by its theme to the extent that the way it is written itself makes it, namely by the indisputable stylistic coherence, which bears the stamp of an unparalleled creative universe in the Albanian context. Apart from not following, in particular, any model from the preceding Albanian prose, it can be freely said that his literary work remains largely inimitable, unassimilable by other authors, consequently to this day without genuine heirs.

Another important area of ​​Rexhep Qosja's intellectual and professional activity has to do with our literary studies. Great words have been said about his scientific work. His work and results have been compared with the results of Albanological institutions. Without stopping to mention all the works that deal with Albanian literature, I consider that the great study syntheses, such as the three-volume history of Albanian romanticism, the monographs “The Great Order, Asdreni – life and works”, then the works “From typology to periodization” and “Three ways of writing Albanian” are monumental contributions to the study of Albanian literature. In addition to having raised, through them, important issues for Albanian literature and, for the most part, having offered stable and scientifically argued answers, it can be freely stated that academician Rexhep Qosja, with his comprehensive study work, has transformed into a school of Albanological studies. If he had followed the existing models of studying Albanian literature, which were based on the doctrine of socialist realism, he would hardly be remembered today, either as a historian or as a literary critic. By following the difficult path of non-conformity with literary dogma, namely the path of forging a new path, he early on drew conclusions that many of his contemporaries would only come to decades later.

Nonconformity does not only mean a priori opposition, because such a thing leads to the risk of schematic opposition. Aware of this, during the decades of his intellectual work, Academician Rexhep Qosja has cultivated critical awareness as a value that distinguishes civilized nations. He has never stopped expressing his thoughts and assessments on current events, on history, defending his positions and arguing about them. He has done this in the Albanian context, but also in broader contexts where the past, present and future of his nation have been discussed. In the vast majority of his journalistic writings, he has engaged his entire intellectual and moral being in defense of the Albanian cause, publishing monographs, analyses, comments, reactions, interviews, etc. In this view, freedom constituted the unifying essence of his thought and action, mainly conceived as a commitment to realizing the missing freedom of the Albanian nation and freedom of thought as a condition for creating a humane and progressive society based on the recognized values ​​of democracy.

Our culture – represented in a unique writing format by one of the most emblematic figures of the contemporary Albanian world and defined as an innovative phenomenon – has found in the work and activity of Rexhep Qosja a clear sign of our cultural identity, an author who has radically transformed the traditional, anachronistic, mythical, folklorizing, glorifying, hymnizing, epigonic, ideologizing, academicizing consciousness towards a critical and modern consciousness as an indicator of Albanian intellectual and cultural maturity. The written work of Rexhep Qosja is a monumental heritage that transforms its author into a specific and guiding phenomenon for the development of Albanian knowledge, culture and thought.

Academician Rexhep Qosja, as a unique cultural and social phenomenon, belongs equally to three times: to the past as a historian, and especially as a literary historian, as an author who bases his scientific work on facts and arguments, always revealing, interpreting and ascertaining the most distinct historical aspects of the Albanian identity; while he belongs to the present as an active creator of important cultural and scholarly values, but also as a witness, as a critic and as an objective observer of phenomena and developments in our social, political, cultural, scientific life, etc. and in any case, with his written legacy, he will also belong to the future as a visionary, as an ideologue, at the forefront, focused on the future of Albanians, on the functional community of the nation, to which he dedicated his entire life.

The death of Academician Rexhep Qosje is an irreparable and multifaceted loss: the family remains without its beloved member, the Albanological Institute without its most emblematic and identity value, Albanology without the founder of modern Albanian studies, our social life without one of the most expressive forms of objective and critical thought articulated at the right time and in the right way, Albanians everywhere, and especially those of Eastern Kosovo and Montenegro, remain without the permanent and steadfast spokesperson for their legitimate rights embodied in the idea of ​​national unity, while the future of Albanians in the Balkans remains without the most visionary mind of our nation. However, if we seek him, we will find the Professor in what is immortal and insoluble, in his works, and also in the unforgettable and impressive memories from meetings and conversations with him.

I will conclude this speech by quoting a single sentence from his “Diary”: “Who a man was during his life is most clearly seen on the day of his death”. On the day of his death, among Albanians everywhere we saw a lot of pain and read a lot of praise for the Professor. Perhaps more than was said about him during his entire life. This fact does not only make the Albanological Institute proud, this fact honors Albanian culture and history.

May the memory of Academician Rexhep Qosje be eternal, may his work be unforgettable!