Hoxha, Enver
Average customer rating:
- Suckers...
- Accurately and beautifully described
- Not Your Typical Travelogue
- Fascinating but false
- Well written
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Biografi: A Traveler's Tale
Lloyd Jones
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
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- The Palace of Dreams
- The Albanians: A Modern History
ASIN: 0156001284 |
Book Description
In 1991, with communism in tatters throughout Eastern Europe, Jones journeyed to a most unlikely destination: Albania. What he found was a relentlessly bizarre world of half-truths and fictions, a world where your status and sometimes your life hinged on your biografi. Named one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year. Map.
Customer Reviews:
Suckers..........2004-12-29
During the Cold War, Albania was one of the most closed countries in the world to the West. Under the brutal and bizarre totalitarian regime of Enver Hoxha, the population suffered unthinkable deprivations while the country's secret police compiled bizarre profiles of virtually every citizen (the biografis of the title). When the Eastern Bloc crumbled in 1991, the first thing many of the young did upon discovering newly open borders was to try and flee to Greece and Italy. This book by a writer from New Zealand purports to be the account of several trips there in the early '90s in an attempt to discover this newly free country and learn why its people were fleeing as fast as they could. This would be a hugely welcome window into Albania for readers in the West if it weren't for the the problem that the book is at least partially fiction. Even worse, it's very difficult to tell just what is true and what isn't.
Although it looks like a non-fiction travelogue and catalogued as such by the Library of Congress, at some level the book is a hoax. Jones begins by describing how his interest in Albania was sparked by an eccentric neighbor in New Zealand. This neighbor was an amateur radio enthusiast, and became enamored of Radio Tirana, and ultimately all things Albanian. Upon the collapse of communism, the Jones read the story of a dentist who had been the dictator Hoxha's body double. Intrigued, he set out to discover Albania, and hopefully this double. It is the quest for this double that is the framework for Jones' exploration of Albania, where he finds an incredibly poor and malnourished population eager to share stories of deprivation and torture under communist rule. The only problem is that there never was any double, nor any accounts of there being one.
Not that Jones ever tells you this. Rather, one would have to do some research outside the book to learn this. And this calls into question what parts ofthe book are real and what aren't. To be sure, the stories of suffering under Hoxha's rule sound authentic and mirror other accounts, but did Jones actually ever travel there and talk to people? There's a portion where he has tea with the former ruler's wife, and this almost certainly is a fabrication. But who can tell? Either way, the entire project is compromised and a betrayal of anyone seeking to learn more about modern Albania. Had it simply been labeled as fiction, it would be an interesting work, and perhaps one should congratulate Jones on accomplishing such a devious piece of misdirection, but it seems a betrayal of the suffering of the Albanian people to do so.
Accurately and beautifully described.......2004-03-30
Having traveled in Albania around the same time as the unnamed narrator in this book, I found the book's descriptions of people and places exceptionally accurate. A great story, a terrific device for conveying the misery and insecurity of immediate post-transition Albania, and well-written besides.
Not Your Typical Travelogue.......2002-05-25
When I started reading "Biografi," I expected a straightforward travelogue on Albania and its peoples. After all, Albania seems to bring out the travelogue in authors. I can think of several on Albania alone off the top of my head. But most of these are 19th and early 20th century journals. What is surprising is that even in the 1990's, and one assumes into the future, travelogues are and will still be written on a country that is, amazingly enough, in Europe. The reason for this is few know anything about Albania. There may be a vague recollection of its Communist past; beyond this people draw a blank. This is where the travelogues come in; they are an easy way of discovering and presenting the unknown. Unfortunately, they are often grossly inaccurate and fraught with bias or outright hostility by the author in question. The topic, in this case Albania, is the problem. To outsiders, Albania is weird. Centuries of Ottoman domination destroyed any chance of development and left the majority of the population Muslim (at least nominally), and the rugged terrain further hindered outside influence. What makes this book different is that it isn't travelogue in the orthodox sense; it is a strange mix of fact and fantasy about a misunderstood country.
I was greatly pleased to read that Jones learned about Albania the same way I did, namely through shortwave radio. I vividly remember listening to Radio Tirana back in the 1980's. Tirana always stood out on the dial because the Chinese transmitters were so poorly modulated that the announcers sounded as though they were talking into a bucket. Jones's neighbor, who plays a prominent part in this book, often listened to Radio Tirana, and Jones became interested. When the Communist collapses came in the early 1990's, Jones decided to take a trip to Albania (lucky duck!). This book is the result.
Jones's quest in Albania is to find Petar Shapallo. Petar, a dentist by trade, is abducted by Communist leader Enver Hoxha's secret police so he can become Hoxha's body double. Shapallo assumes Hoxha's duties when Hoxha is ill. When Hoxha dies, Shapallo is cast out into society, where his likeness to a suddenly unpopular leader leads Shapallo to mutilate his face and go into hiding. During the search for Shapallo, Jones runs into a grand cast of characters, both local and foreign. Jones even talks to Hoxha's widow, Nexhmije, along the way. Everywhere Jones goes, he finds a country in a freefall into chaos. What's worse, the people are decaying just as rapidly. Albanians constantly worry over their "biografi," which are official files held by the Albanian secret police. The stories are heartrending; people locked up, exiled, or executed for trivial matters. A family member of thirty years ago with the wrong connections can land their descendents in jail, or worse. Outside of these biografis, Albanians seem to have no identity of their own.
Jones is very concerned with journeys in this book. Everyone is going somewhere; Jones is going to Albania, Shapallo is trying to return to his village, many Albanians are headed to Italy or points beyond. Jones even relates a tale about his aunt running away from her marriage to his uncle. This obsession with movement seems to be tied up with identity. None of the characters in the book seem to know who they are or why they do what they do. They just know they must GO, somewhere, anywhere. Hope lies just over the horizon and they'll find something if they can just get there. When Jones looks up some Albanians in Italy, they are unhappy because Italy isn't the paradise they thought it would be; now they talk about going to America. Will Albania ever find itself? Will we, as humans, ever find ourselves? It seems that this is a message Jones is trying to convey.
Of course, I could be completely off my rocker. What I do know is this book goes way beyond travelogue. There are dimensions to this book I can only guess at. Even if you don't want to read deeply into this book, there are still plenty of good things to find. Jones goes into some depth in his descriptions of the beautiful scenery in rural Albania, and the characters are, for the most part, well crafted and worth reading about. I do think some knowledge on Albania is helpful. The map in the book is worthy for place descriptions, but a quick web search might help with some basic information and names. You should know who Enver Hoxha is and why he is such a despicable character. I hope they reprint this book soon.
Fascinating but false.......2001-10-21
This appears to be a fascinating account of the aftermath of Hoxha's nightmare dictatorship in Albania. Individuals and places are evocatively described and you begin to get a picture of how they used to survive both the regime and the chaos that followed, often with more dignity and decency than most of us would manage. Extremely annoying is that Jones turns out to have made the whole thing up. He never actually admits it, but I gather from other sources that the central character in the book is completely invented, which means the whole book must be viewed as fiction. An enjoyable read, but is it all a pack of lies?
Well written.......2001-04-09
See how Enver Hoxha ruled with his people... You'll find it hard to believe...
Average customer rating:
- "Albania's Long TIme Boss Tells All" (or almost all)
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Artful Albanian: Memoirs of Enver Hoxha
Jon Halliday
Manufacturer: Chatto & Windus
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0701129700 |
Customer Reviews:
"Albania's Long TIme Boss Tells All" (or almost all).......2000-08-05
Enver Hoxha was never a hero of mine. For most of my life I've been fascinated by Albania, its culture, history, music, and literature, but thanks to him I could only visit the country of my fascination in 1996. I found it in sorry shape, again thanks to this son of a landowning family who returned from studying in France and Belgium to be a teacher and subsequently to lead the Communist Partisans against the fascist invaders during World War II. Hoxha prepared for his takeover by fighting with the non-Communist Albanian resistance just as often as with the Italians and Germans. Remaining in power from 1944 to his death in 1985, this Balkan despot eventually quarreled with every power that aided him---Yugoslavia, the USSR, and China---and became ever more paranoid, never leaving Albania for the last 25 years of his life. It is not too much to say that Hoxha and his policies utterly ruined Albania, even if he kept it from being swallowed by greedy neighbors. He murdered, imprisoned, terrified, and kept ignorant an entire people. Seven years after his death, the whole country lay destitute, destroyed, desperate. Albania has had to begin from scratch. What has such a man got to say for himself ?
THE ARTFUL ALBANIAN is an edited version of the many volumes-long memoirs of Enver Hoxha. Of course, it is possible that what Jon Halliday has not put into the present volume is as revealing as what he has. I rather doubt it though. Whatever the case, he has certainly gathered a number of interesting sections, connected by intelligent commentary. I found the book fascinating for what it revealed about this dictator of a `people's democracy" which, in the end, did not rise far above the Balkan dictatorships of the past. Hoxha emerges as more intelligent and discerning than many world leaders, certainly more than most leaders produced by the Communist "bloc" after World War II. He is at is best in criticizing the vainglorious amassing of the trappings of power of other leaders, in divulging the hypocrisies of the worker states. No word about his own foibles of course. There are a large number of interesting conversations between Eastern bloc leaders complete with open threats and farting dogs, and the intricacies of his relationship with China. Hoxha was a man who can casually speak of "liquidation" of a man or a class without the slightest qualm. In the end he killed his closest ally, Mehmet Shehu, and denounced him as a Western agent. Hoxha's last words in the book are "..the walls of our fortress are of unshakeable granite rock." The pitiful, crumbling concrete pillboxes that dot Albania today, around half a million of them, give a more accurate picture of Hoxha's achievement.
If you are interested in knowing something about Hoxha, about his view of what he did and whom he met, and if you don't mind a fair bit of the old "party line" along the way, (from the horse's mouth) then by all means read this book. For anyone who wants to know what crushed Albania, why it's in the mess that it's in, this book is a good place to start.
Product Description
Published on decision of the Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Albania. Includes works of the 1941-1948 period. It is divided into two parts for the readers convenience. First part includes works written during the period of the Anti-fascist National Liberation War November 1941-1944. Second part comprises those of the period of the reconstruction of the country and of the development of socialist revolution December 1944-October 1948.
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Report on the role and tasks of the Democratic Front for the complete triumph of socialism in Albania: Submitted at the 4th Congress of the Democratic Front of Albania, September 14, 1967
Enver Hoxha
Manufacturer: 8 Nentori Pub. House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B0006EBR0C |
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Reflections on the Middle East, 1958-1983: Extracts from the political diary
Enver Hoxha
Manufacturer: 8 Nentori Pub. House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B0006EJBRS |
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L'Albanie d'Enver Hoxha: 1944-1985
Gabriel Jandot
Manufacturer: L'Harmattan
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ASIN: 2738426034 |
Average customer rating:
- The Best Brief Treatment
- Irresponsable intellectuel game
- Excellent example of honest bourgeois research
- A contraproductive compromise with the facts of history.
- The overpowing anaylisis of Albania kept me on the edge!
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A Coming of Age
James S. O'Donnell
Manufacturer: East European Monographs
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0880334150 |
Book Description
In 1945, Albania was an extremely under-developed nation compared to other countries in Europe. So in studying Enver Hoxha's forty-year reign (1945-85) it is necessary to recognize him as a leader who accomplished great things for Albania while concurrently enmeshing the country in policies that were not only counterproductive but self-destructive. This book studies a wide range of areas pertaining to Hoxha's impact upon Albania's development. O'Donnell shows that, while it is necessary to give Hoxha a mixed report card, he nonetheless enabled a small nation with a multitude of limitations to maintain its sovereignty and modernize through unorthodox methods.
Customer Reviews:
The Best Brief Treatment.......2007-01-01
Eventually the subject matter here will lead to huge volumes written on it. This is a short book however and the author has done an excellent job of succinctly going over the central issues. Some people have been shocked that O'Donnell attaches such significance to the issue of Albania's modernization. The obvious point to note is that in light of some of the hoaxes coming out of Cold War propaganda (e.g. "100 million victims of Communism") the author has a responsibility to treat the issue of Albania's modernization seriously. Did such modernization actually involve a raising of mortality among the Albanian population, or was the average citizen better off? Crackpot charges such as have been publicized by Conquest, Solzhenitsyn, Courtois and others really do require that we go back and look at the basics. At no time does O'Donnell attempt to classify Albania under Hoxha as what we might call "a free republic." There is no "workers paradise" idealization drawn in this book. On the other hand, the claims made by Cold War propaganda go far beyond merely asserting that repression periodically took place in Albania, China or the USSR and cast an image with huge demographic implications, suggesting populations all across Eurasia depleted by mass-killing. Nothing of the sort stands up to a reality check. O'Donnell's book is a well-organized presentation of all of the main points about Albania and its transformation during the Hoxha years. The reader is not at all expected to put the book down with images of a socialist paradise floating in their head, but works like this are part of a steady trend which is slowly shredding the old Cold War propaganda which used to reign. As more documents become available one should expect this pattern to continue.
Irresponsable intellectuel game.......2003-05-31
This is an odd book in every respect, and it reflects an odd historical phenomenon. Sure it is a fact that Albaina--Russia for that matter--industrialised and remained a soveriegn state throughout a period of terrible dictatorship. But these are simple facts, and not bases for a historical reevaluation of the true character of regimes.
This book reflects an attempt by the author to set himself apart by siding with a new historical school, one that I hope and have confidence will be disproven.
We owe as much to the twentieth century and the bitter lessons it has taught us, or most of us I should say.
Excellent example of honest bourgeois research.......2000-07-27
O'Donnel represents "Getty-Rittersporn"-phenomenon, a new scholarship among Western historicians that aims to examine the history of Marxism-Leninism, not at bias, but as history. This objectivity is respectable and refutes the previous Cold War knee-jerk judgements perfectly.
O'Donnels work represents admirable honesty and respect regards historical facts. And the FACT IS, that within only 20 years, Albanians achieved what would had been taken 200 years in capitalist society. I definitely recommed this book for anyone interested in sincere research of history.
A contraproductive compromise with the facts of history........2000-03-04
Modern history witnessed nothing like Enver Hoxha's reign of terror over His own people.From His establishment in 1945,Albania was turned into Gulag,although that is only euphemism for real state of affairs.Untill 1948's Yugoslavia's split with Stalin,His country recevied enormous ammount of help from Belgrade,although it was ally of Axis,but latter He becomed so loyal to Stalin,that He broke-up with U.S.S.R. after Kruschev's turning away from stalinism and embraced Mao's China.So,the idea that Hoxha was pro-independence leaders do not agrees with fact that under His regime,Albania was always attached to "Big Brother" kind of country,in a most servile manner.He brought total devastation and unprecedented poverty to Albania-The Land of Million Bunkers.Compared with Albania,Albanians in Yugoslavia lived in California.Yet,Author glorifies Hoxha as some kind of positive figure,as if His policy is recomendable one for todays World.
The overpowing anaylisis of Albania kept me on the edge!.......1999-11-20
Author O'Donnell has captured the true essence of Albanian life and culture in this "can't put down" hardcover edition. "Coming of Age" is a must read for the entire family and I recommend it highly!
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Biografi: An Albanian Quest
Lloyd Jones
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0374113181 |
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