By Aurel Plasari
Leaving the analysis of Naim Frashëri's multiple contributions to Albanian culture to the scientific session, which will take place tomorrow, I want to take advantage of this commemorative occasion and make an attempt to gather his merits into one, in other words: to make a synthesis of his seemingly disparate dimensions, as a poet and as a thinker, as a religious man and as a patriot, as a teacher and a politician.
It is an incredible fact that Naim is not only studied by poetry scholars, but also by philosophers, researchers of Albanian history, specialists in the Albanian state, theologians, etc. I believe that it was Mali Kokojka (Mid'hat Frashëri), in his biography of the great poet (1901), who was the first to insist that Naim should not only be studied as a great poet, but also as an "apostle of the idea of national unity."
Without a doubt, the wonders of Naimi's art, what have been called "the stars on the back of the night of heaven", have attracted and will continue to attract scholars old and new, Albanian and foreign. But Naimi's synthetic merit, the merit of merits, if it can be called that, seems to be the part of the help he gave in "making Albania".
It is a special kind of merit, which not all poets of the world, no matter how great, are recognized by history. In the history of Albania, within the group of ideologists of the Albanian Renaissance, history has reserved this merit for three major poets of the nation: Jeronim De Radës, Naim Frashëri, Gjergj Fishtë.
It goes without saying that today, when we talk about Albania, we abstract by remembering that it was once a given, as it is and as it will be. In fact, at the time when Naimi appeared, the word “Albania” was used for most of the European intelligentsia only as a geographical, very much ethnographic, notion.
The country that the Ottomans called “Arnavutlug” did not constitute an administrative unit within the Empire. The territories inhabited by Albanians in the majority were distributed in four large provinces (vilayets). But a vague national feeling had begun to function among those very few Albanians who were educated in the good schools of Turkey, Greece, Austria or Italy.
It was also the time when Albanian literature, in the modern sense of the term, that is, what we call reflexive literature, was taking its first steps. The great writers of the Renaissance certainly have in common the fact that they enriched Albanian literature with the values of their art. But what unites them most essentially is the fact that, even if separately, in different socio-cultural circumstances and environments, they became Albania-makers. In the alchemy of their fantasy they obtained a fictitious homeland, an imaginary Albania, and poured it into works of art.
De Rada had never seen it, and even died without ever setting foot on its soil; Naimi saw very little of it and died far from it, burning with longing for it. However, the genius transphysics of the nation's poets knew how to bring this Albania out of its ancient history, filled with wars and victories, and sublimate it in art. The torch that De Rada would light in the glorious history of Skanderbeg and the Albanian warriors, Naimi took up in 1898, to later leave it in the hands of the Fishta Lahuta.
Initially derived from its poets, born as a vague poetic aspiration, Albania thus became “the daughter of its own literature,” as it has now been beautifully called. Ernest Koliqi, one of the scholars who have captured that secret process of Albania’s transition from the abstract sphere of poetry to historical and political reality, has described this synthesis thus:
“These three poets, although different among themselves, are three expressions of the same flaming spirituality, three branches of a single root that springs from the mysterious depths of ethnic humus and is nourished by its purest vital juices. They are a wonderful synthesis of the soul of the nation in which Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism harmonize in the masculine voice of the common ancient language and in the beats of a common courageous blood. The Orthodox De Rada, the Mohammedan Naim Frashëri and the Catholic Gjergj Fishta unite the waves of their poetry in a common bed; in that surface of pure lymph, mixed with love, Albania is reflected with its aerial minarets, its Catholic bell towers and its Byzantine domes.”
Naim's appearance in Albanian intellectual life coincided, more or less, with one of the most difficult periods for Albanians under the Ottoman Empire. When Naim appeared, the life of the Empire continued to unfold within the circle of religious groups. In Albania, this organized division had brought about an ever-greater divergence between Muslim Albanians, Orthodox Albanians, and Catholic Albanians.
It was a divergence that, on the one hand, favored a separate socio-political and cultural development of the three elements; on the other hand, the Albanians were transformed into minorities for the large religious-cultural communities of Muslims, Orthodox and Catholics of the Balkans. This was the great Albanian split, which risked leading them towards final disintegration.
Even for the high-ranking military leaders of Albanian origin, who were not few in the Empire, wars were not related to nationality, but to religion. Instead of working to gain freedom, they not only did not stop quarreling with each other and did not unite, but there were cases when, under the orders of the sultan, they fought both against neighbors and against compatriots of other faiths.
In the ethnic sense, there was an Albanian, Mahmud Pasha Bushatlliu, who at the head of an army of 20.000 Albanians fought both against the Montenegrins and against the Albanians during the campaign in More (1770). Mustafa Pasha, his nephew, was also an Albanian, who marched with his Albanians against Marko Boçari and his troops. There was again an Albanian, Ali Pasha Tepelena, who burned the republic of Suli with fire and iron, slaughtered the Suli, massacred the Kardhiqot, and even marched against Shkodra by order of the sultan.
It can be said that if religions had maintained their power until the end, with the same order and discipline that they had maintained at the height of imperial power, then national movements would never have arisen, not only among the ruled peoples, but also among the ruling Turkish people themselves. In these circumstances, Naimi stood up and reminded the Albanians of the paradigm: “We all have one soul, one language, one heart, one mind.”
Thus, religious consciousness, which had functioned as the only power in the groups until then, whether Muslim or Christian, was gaining ground and retreating to give way. Religion was no longer an aim, but was used as a means. Although for many foreign researchers of the Balkan Question this process still remains incomprehensible, “abnormal”, this is precisely where Naimi’s ideological mission within the Albanian National Movement came into play. The weakening of religious consciousness, both among Muslims and Christians, would lead to the dissolution of the bonds of solidarity on which the old groups had been based until then.
Albanian schools had been opened near churches, especially in the north; now Albanian schools were also opened near tekkes. Naimi the poet was aware that the fight for the dreamed-of Albania was being waged with books, with printing presses, with magazines and newspapers. Among the three major poets of the Albanian nation, Naimi was given the burden of being the poet who would strike back at the outdated organization. And his role in this process is, without a doubt, unique.
The frail and sickly poet, with ever weaker lungs, exercised his miraculous power to reshape the conscience of his people. The Albanian individual, from Naim onwards, would no longer be solely Muslim or solely Christian. The religious organization was forced to surrender its power to the glorification of the national language.
Just as the Orthodox Albanians were freed from the religious grouping of the Fanar, the Muslim Albanians were also freed from the religious grouping of the Caliphate through a painful and almost tragic process. This example of the Albanian Muslims would one day be followed by the Turks themselves, overthrowing, with a powerful blow of rebellion, their holy and blessed Caliphate.
Naimi the poet, Naimi the thinker, Naimi the didactic, in many respects he proved to be even more lucid than many other true "philosophers" of the Renaissance. I recall in passing that Sami Frashëri, Pashko Vasa, Jani Vretoja, etc. did not have ideas as lucid as Naimi's on the future of Albania.
Pashko Vasa, for example, in his work 'The Truth About Albania and the Albanians' (1878) did not appear for either an independent Albania or an autonomous Albania. Sami went so far as to say autonomy when he wrote: "This government, as long as Turkey is in Europe, we want to be under it, and if it does not strike us and expel us itself, we will never want to separate from it at all."
Then Naimi, a good Bektashi, stood up and sang the martial prowess of Skanderbeg, the rebel who had raised his sword against Murat II and his son Mehmet. Naimi praised Gjergj Kastrioti, the “Athlete of Christ”, inviting Albanians to unite under his name to rebuild the homeland destroyed by the Turks. Skanderbeg’s name was always present in all the writings of the Arbëresh of Italy, but it had a different effect among the bewildered people of Albania when Naimi came out and made the appeal against the Turkish “dog”.
The role of Naimi as the Albania-maker, as is increasingly understood, cannot be explained without Bektashism. In the period in question, Albanian Muslims were in different positions towards the imperial state organization. The Bektashis, severely persecuted starting from 1826, did not feel themselves linked to the fate of the Ottoman Empire. They made the cause of national independence their own and were distinguished by their active efforts – similar especially to those of the Catholic community – for the cultural revival of the nation, the spread of the Albanian language, the adoption of the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic one, etc.
It would be enough for us to reread today Naimi's 'Bektashi Notebooks' (1896) to understand that Bektashi Sufism was neither an accident nor a coincidence in the spiritual life of Albanians. Bektashi Sufism responded essentially to the demand for an informal faith, to overcome the gap between Man and God, characteristic of the Sunni faith.
With their special attention to the spiritual needs of believers, the Bektashis responded quite well to this need. Their tolerance of other faiths and the syncretism of their doctrines suited the demands of a population that was distinguished in its lands by the early coexistence of different religious communities.
However, more than tolerance, doctrinal syncretism, or the tendency toward modernization, what determined the flourishing of Bektashism among Albanians was undoubtedly their participation in the National Movement, and Naimi became a model of this participation.
Bektashiism collaborated in the original process of convergence of beliefs that took place in Albania at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. This process led to it being called, in a nation divided between Muslims and Christians, the hope of the future, destined to play the role of a peacemaker. Time proved that this hope was nothing more than pure idealism, mainly supported by foreigners. Although well-wishers, they did not know the Albanian reality well enough. However, Bektashi idealism, like any idealism, had a real foundation.
On the one hand, during the war for national liberation, it was seen that in Albania, in moments of historical emergencies, an Albanian spiritual unity raised above beliefs was possible. On the other hand, in the Albanian National Movement, especially with regard to the problem of defining the relationship between religion and nationality, religion and homeland, etc., Bektashism provided no small assistance. Although it remains to be elucidated the influence that the Bektashi doctrine exerted on the structuring of the ideology of the Movement in question, there is no doubt that the clearest traces of this give and take will be found in Naimi, who put the ideals of this Movement into verse.
Perhaps I went too far in my attempt to gather Naim's merits into one, to formulate his "merit of merits". But I believe that such commemorations cannot escape the purpose of illuminating the figures of our great ancestors across today's realities. The very fact of our gathering for Naim Frashëri, even in this era filled with material preoccupations, proves that the work of an Albania-making activist like him cannot be moved from its place by the passage of time or the evils of the weather; it cannot be shaken by the harsh contradictions of history or by the criticism committed to persecuting his soul, which is entwined in the infinite soul of the universe.
Albanians gather for their Naim in times that are not yet very safe for them: when the vital dangers they have survived have not yet ceased, when they themselves have not yet fully emerged from the chaos of the adventures in which history has involved them, when in the great race of civilization no small challenges await them again. The occasions of commemoration of figures like Naim would be reduced to the chatter – however modern – of bejtexhinjs without our continued reflection on our future as Albanians and in the vision of tomorrow's world.
The vortex of development that encompasses us all, now on the threshold of the 21st century, and which relies on informatics and microelectronics, electronic brains and robotics, artificial insemination, genetic manipulation, etc., cannot distract us from recognizing that no future process can be accomplished without the powerful return of all peoples to their spiritual foundations.
If the foundations of Albania are based on that spiritual heritage left to us by the great poets of the nation: a De Rada, a Naim or a Fishte, then we have the right to denounce as futile any attempt to build something outside these foundations. To try to distance the Albanian nation from these foundations means to uproot it from its vital roots. To try to cover up or alienate these foundations from the Albanian nation means that, instead of the sparkling Albania, born from the alchemical inspiration of its poets, to invent a homeland built on sand, an Albania that has nothing to do with the true civilization to which it has belonged for centuries.
1994 / 2001
Forto from the press: memory of the 90s fb ©©©© ap
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