ALBANIAN LITERATURE

the body of literature in the Albanian language. Writings exist in both Albanian dialects, Geg (Gheg) and Tosk. The development of Albanian literature was seriously hindered by the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Albania from the 15th to the late 19th century and prohibited publications in the Albanian language for most of that time. The oldest fragment of writing in Albanian is a baptismal formula dating from 1462. The scattering of Albanian religious books produced in the 16th and 17th centuries originated largely in the Geg area and reflects the activities of Roman Catholic missionaries, who were able to secure permission from the Ottoman sultan to publish books. These works were supplemented by a Latin-Albanian dictionary printed in 1635. The earliest books in the Tosk dialect were inspired by Greek Orthodoxy and were composed by Albanians living in Sicily. The forerunner of the modern Albanian literary renewal was the Italian-Albanian Jeronim de Rada, who spent his life collecting fragments of old folk poetry and weaving them into poetic epics, such as that on the Albanian national hero Skanderbeg (1873). De Rada also edited the first Albanian journal, Fjmuri (Flag of Albania), which was smuggled into Albania during its four-year existence (188387). Literature became a prime focus for intensifying Albanian nationalism from the 1870s. Albanian societies were formed in Constantinople and the Balkan capitals to publish the works of writers and poets and smuggle them into Albania. Thus the three Frashri brothersthe playwright Sami Bey, the poet Naim, and the political activist Abdylformed a committee of liberation at Prizren in 1878 and dedicated themselves to freeing Albania from Turkish domination and to propagating Albanian books. The society was disbanded by the Ottoman authorities, but its leaders continued their literary activities from exile in Egypt and Bucharest. Mid'hat Frashri, the son of Abdyl, in 1897 began publishing a pocket-sized literary journal that was extensively smuggled into Albania. The literature of the pre-independence period was militantly patriotic and overtly romantic in its presentation of national history and local folklore. A standard orthography (spelling) in the Latin alphabet was devised by the folk-poet and satirist Gjergj Fishta and adopted for the Albanian language at a congress of Albanian intellectuals in Bitola (now in Macedonia) in 190809. The true flowering of Albanian literature occurred in the decades after independence was won in 1912. The novels and poetic dramas of Mihal Grameno, Foqion Postoli, and Mehdi Frashri centred on the local customs, blood feuds, intrigues, betrayals, and rivalries of Albanian highlanders as they vied with each other and fought the Turks and Greeks in the struggle for independence. Mid'hat Frashri wrote the first book of short stories in Albanian, Hi dhe shpuz (1915; Ashes and Embers), about blood feuds and the burning of villages. Albanian poetry in the early 20th century is best represented by the romantic folk-balladeer Gjergj Fishta, the classicizing lyric poet Ndre Mjeda, and the versatile poet Alexander Drenova (pseudonym Asdren). Important contributions to Albanian literature in the period between the World Wars were made in Boston, Mass., by the exiled writers Kristo Floqi and Faik Konitsa, both of whom edited Albanian literary journals, and by the writer-prelate Bishop Fan S. Noli, whose fine Albanian translations of plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, and other foreign authors greatly enriched the language and are still performed in Albanian national theatres. The 1930s were also notable for the short stories of Ernest Koliqi, which centre on his native highland region of Shkodr and are marked by an imaginative use of prose. The Albanian-Romanian Mitrush Khuteli (pseudonym of Dhimitr Pasko) was another short-story writer of this period, and the prolific but uneven playwright Kristo Floqi dominated Albanian drama. The Romanian-influenced mystic Lasgush Poradeci emerged as a prominent lyric poet in this period. The post-World War II communist regime imposed strict standards of ideological orthodoxy on writers, and thus had a deadening effect on the country's literature. A notable exception to the prevailing stagnation was Ismail Kadare, whose novel Gjenerali i ushtris s vdekur (1963; The General of the Dead Army) was translated into the major European languages and remains the only Albanian literary work to win an international reputation.