university of nova gorica graduate school contested spaces and ...

epresent national positions, either pro-Albanian or pro-Greek, and those that are closer to
local positions based on the idea of establishing a distinct locality of Himarë/Himara area. In
what follows I will present the ways in which the historiographers and other intellectuals
discuss their views about the past of Himarë/Himara area. I will pay a special attention to
books and essays that were published in the years of and after my fieldwork in
Dhërmi/Drimades.
2.3. Different Views and Positions
The book of the local intellectual Foto Bixhili was published in 2004, but it came on the
shelves of the bookshops in Vlorë and library of the primary school Gjika Bixhili of
Dhërmi/Drimades in 2005. His book made a stir among local people who criticized it for the
inaccuracy of data which he used to argue for the national, pro-Albanian interpretation of
history. In the Torrents of Epirus, Himariotes (Jipet e Iperit. Himariotët) (2004) Bixhili states
that the local people’s belief that they derive from Meghalihora is a local legend. In his
opinion first settlers actually lived on the hills from the very beginning, somewhere in
between Dhërmi/Drimades and its neighbouring village Ilias. “The settlement of the first
inhabitants was Gjondushe […], a place hidden from the eyes of the pirates who often visited
these places” (Bixhili 2005: 44, translated by Alketa Karafilaj). Such historical interpretations
by Foto Bixhilli, who lived away from the village in different parts of Albania and later for a
number of years in Greece (like numerous other locals), are considered disputable by many
people living in Dhërmi/Drimades and Himarë/Himara area. In their opinion, his
interpretation represents indoctrination by the former communistic regime.
Two months after Bixhili’s book the book edited by the Albanian Academy of Science
entitled Himara through the Centuries (Himara në Shekuj) was published. It came on the
bookshelves of bookshops and libraries in Vlorë, Tirana and other bigger cities. Similarly to
Bixhili’s book this book too was criticised by numerous local people of Dhërmi/Drimades and
Himarë/Himara area. The situation was different in other places such as Vlorë, for example,
where readers, mostly academics and politicians, accepted it with great position and approval.
On March 10, 2005, the Technical University of “Ismael Qemali” in Vlorë organised a press
conference where prominent university professors, social scientists of the Albanian Academy
in Tirana, artists from Vlorë, journalists of the national and local newspapers and television,
and some students of the Vlorë University gathered. At the press conference the authors
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