Ismail is gone, we are left with Kadareja

2024-07-02 09:29:00, Opinione Andi Bushati

Ismail Kadare's escape from this world will prove, maybe for him who knows how many times, that the end of the daily routine of real life is the obligatory sacrifice for great writers to enter the chosen pantheon of a nation. Freeing themselves from the weight of the body, the end of meeting for coffee with ordinary people, leaving behind the obligation to react to sometimes small things, saves them from an inevitable curse: the judgment of contemporaries. This is what happened with Ismail. Even at two times.

In that of Enver Hoxha's regime, where although he was saved several times by the communist leader himself, was the suspected writer, monitored by the security, often detained, the man who managed to save his skin after rising with "The Great Winter", the only portrait of the leader that managed to gain fame in the West.

In the next period, that post-communist period, this was considered his sin. Many did not even forgive "Winter...". neither "Eagles fly high", nor being a member of parliament, nor accepting the post of number 2 after Nexhmije Hoxha, and even less the use of repression bodies to solve their own family problems.

As long as he was alive, Ismail was always in the middle, either worshiped or anathematized. Mandatory to be memorized by schoolchildren, for the talent with which he weaved verses for the party, but seen with fear by the apparatchiks and censors, for the ambiguity of his work. Applauded by some, when "Why are these mountains thought of" was read, and looked upon with hope by others for the breakdown he did in "Palace of Dreams", the Kafkaian apparatus of the Central Committee. For the former, he was simply the most talented transmission belt of the regime's propaganda, for the latter, he was the only one who managed to publicly unravel its absurdity.

As a student of literature in the 80s, I remember how we expected to read with a magnifying glass everything new that came out of hand, to see the allegory, the criticism, what no one else dared to do. For us, at the time, it seemed like a ray of hope, like the only vision of a more Western and somewhat freer world. But, on the other hand, today I understand all his critics who ask him from an idealistic position that he could have done much more. Even if he didn't rebel, at least he was silent with disdain like Lasgushi.

This contradiction strongly accompanied Ismail in the last three decades of his life. He himself, as a man, made the great mistake of first trying to justify himself to the crowds. He went so far as to claim that with "The Great Winter" he had given a mask to the dictator in the hope that he would be softened by liking the literary character of the novel. With the first two essays he wrote in 1991, from his Parisian exile, he tried to assume the role of an opponent of the regime that could not be chewed easily.

Only years later, when he found himself in one of the usual fortunes that stood against him, he decided to give an interview to "Opinion", he spoke bluntly: "I have never been a dissident", he said adding with the arrogance of someone who has the security of his own talent: "I am not obliged to account to the neighborhood seller for my works, they are there... let them read".

This was the final line that he kept in public appearances until these three or four years he decided to remain silent, almost completely, as if he was preparing, while still alive, his time of eternity.

Today, on July 1, both his admirers and his critics learned that Ismail was gone. All of us now have Kadareja left. Not the person, but the writer. Not human activity, but deeds. That of the indisputably greatest talent that the Albanian written language has had. That of the writer with more international awards and publications. That of the magic of "Chronicle in stone". That of the craftsman who has bequeathed us so many Albanian neologisms.

From today on, these will be the only units of measurement for Kadare. Just as Sartre is not remembered for the number of visits he made to Moscow, or Gabriel Garsia Marchezi for the endless meetings with Fidel Castro, Kadareja will remain the essential: his literature. By saying goodbye, paradoxically, he facilitated this process./CNA