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urdened by a troublesome history.” Thus, the
introduction and the afterword create a frame
of political oppression and despair, which the
subsequent reviews of the volume pick up.
The problem with such a frame is that
it is historically misleading, potentially
misrepresents Lleshanaku’s own meta-political
poetry, and most importantly, does not do the
poems themselves justice.
What does the word Stalinist achieve
Or rather, what kind of message is sent to the
reader when Albania is referred to as a Stalinist
dictatorship One possible message is one of
political and literary suppression — that the
political dissident and the writer are one, that
they are both victims of a ruthless system,
against which they both fight a hopeless war,
their futures “forever burdened by a troublesome
history.” Besides rudely fusing politics and
art, this picture also suggests that there is no
literary tradition in such an environment outside
of the political one. A poet is either with the
regime or against it; or perhaps there is the rare
third option of being an apolitical poet, but this
implies that the poet purposefully chooses to
reject politics.
Of course, Albania, like Russia (the country
to actually have a Stalinist regime), has a
poetic tradition that does not easily fit into this
dichotomization. In a 2009 interview published
in World Literature Today, Lleshanaku herself
says, “Let’s remember that Albanian poetry
of the 1960s and 70s, even the socialist-realist
works, was heavily influenced by the Russian
avant-garde, by acmeism and especially
futurism: Akhmatova, Brodsky, Pasternak,
Blok, Mandelstam, Tsvetaeva — almost
all dissidents.” Some of these writers and
traditions do have political aspects to them.
However, none of these were originally born
of a political revolution, but an aesthetic one.
And the greatness of these authors comes
from the keenness of their perception and the
power of the craft. Later in the same interview,
Lleshanaku says:
“It is not my tendency to avoid the political
element in my poetry. But I had the chance,
and the misfortune at the same time, to live
in two different political systems. This helps
me understand the people are the same and
politics is only a cover for human vices and
virtues. If you want to interpret history, just
go beyond it and analyze the human being
in every context, and try to understand the
rules of human society from the first day
forward. I tend to penetrate deeper, beyond
the historical, political, religious strata that
artificially make us seem very different from
one another.”
The work in this volume does in fact pass
through the political and historical surface, and
when the translator succeeds in making a good
English poem from the original Albanian, the
result is clear, unpretentious, and powerful, like
the silence in a snow-covered forest.
Fresco opens with the poem “Memory,”
which embodies several of Lleshanaku’s
principal themes.
MEMORY
There is no prophecy, only memory.
What happens tomorrow
has happened a thousand years ago
the same way, to the same end —
and does my ancient memory
say that your false memory
is the history of a light-hearted bird
transformed into a crow atop a marble
mountain
The same woman will be there
on the path to reincarnation
her cage of black hair
her generous and bitter heart
like an amphora full of serpents.
Translation Review 75