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The Loser (Paperback)
Fatos Kongoli; Translated by Robert Elsie
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R282
R230
Discovery Miles 2 300
Save R52 (18%)
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Set in 1991, when over 10,000 Albanian refugees escaped to southern
Italy following the collapse of the Hoxa regime, Thesar Lumi, the
'loser', decides at the last minute to step off the boat and return
to his family. Why ? The novel returns to the numbing years of the
Hoxha dictatorship and the climate of terror and despair which
characterized daily life in Albania. Lumi was born in the shadow of
a state cement factory, which produced more dust than cement.
Despite an uncle who had fled the country, he manages to get
himself registered at the university, and penetrates briefly into a
milieu which he can never truly join, that of the ruling families
of Albania's red aristocracy. Guilty by association with one of
these families during an internal purge Thesar, whose fate in
Albania's suffocating society has been irrevocably sealed, returns
home to live a life of futility and despair as childhood events
also haunt him. Stifled by the hold of the state, Lumi is incapable
of action and of living. His is the voice of all the 'losers' who
glimpse silver clouds on the horizon and know they are
unattainable.
Stalinism, that particularly brutal phase of communism, came to an
end in most of Eastern Europe with the death of Josef Stalin in
1953 or at least with the Khrushchev reforms that began in the
Soviet Union in 1956. However, in one country - Albania - Stalinism
survived virtually unscathed until 1990. The regime that the
Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha led from the time of the communist
takeover in 1944 until his death in 1985, and that continued
unabated under his successor Ramiz Alia until 1990, was
incomparably severe. Such was the reign of terror that no audible
voice of opposition or dissent ever arose in the Balkan state, a
European country that became as isolated from the rest of the world
as North Korea is today. When the Albanian communist system finally
imploded, it left behind a weary population, frightened and
confused after decades of purges and political terror. It also left
behind a country with a weak and fragile economy, a country where
extreme poverty was the norm. In the decades since Hoxha's death,
Albania has made substantial progress in political and economic
terms, yet the spectre of Hoxha still lingers over the country.
Despite this, many people - inside and outside Albania - know
little about the man who ruled the country with an iron fist for so
many decades. This book provides the first biography of Enver Hoxha
available in English, from his birth in GjirokastEr in southern
Albania, then still under Ottoman rule, to his death in 1985 at the
age of 76. Using archival documents and first-hand interviews,
Albanian journalist Blendi Fevziu pieces together the life of this
tyrannical ruler, in a biography which will be essential reading
for anyone interested in Balkan history and communist studies.
M. Edith Durham is best known for her classic travel books about
the Balkans. However, she was also a passionate, articulate and
well-informed commentator on the twists and turns of Balkan
politics and the machinations of the Great Powers. The pieces in
this collection of her writings from the early half of the
twentieth century remind us of the many connections between Britain
and the Balkans over recent centuries -- of Tennyson, Disraeli,
Lord Fitzmaurice, Aubrey Herbert and Margaret Hasluck. With its
wide geographical sweep, the book offers a fair picture of the
Balkans in the early twentieth century: Montenegro, Macedonia,
Kosovo, Albania, Serbia are all represented -- their dangers and
wonders, ugly brutality and startling beauty, history, custom,
geography and politics. The anthology offers vivid pictures of
Balkan locations which will be fascinating reading for anyone
interested in modern Balkan history.
Johann Georg von Hahn - a nineteenth-century Austrian diplomat and
explorer - is generally considered to be the founder of Albanian
Studies as a scholarly discipline. It was he who first studied the
Balkan country and its people, and who brought them to the
attention of the academic world. Despite this acclaim, his work has
not been widely available in English until now. In this volume,
Robert Elsie has translated Hahn's most important works relating to
his travels and studies in Albania during the mid-nineteenth
century. Hahn's interests were broad, but he was especially
interested in the tribes of Albania and Kosovo and made several
ethnographic studies of the cultures and traditions of the tribes
he encountered on his travels - including the Kelmendi, Hoti and
Kastrati tribes. This volume will be invaluable readers for
scholars of Balkan history and anthropology.
The question of Kosovan sovereignty and independence has a history
which stretches far back beyond the outbreak of war in 1998. This
volume is a compilation of key documents on Kosovo from the first
half of the twentieth century. These texts, including numerous
diplomatic despatches from the British Foreign Office, deal
initially with the Albanian uprising against Ottoman rule in the
spring of 1912 and, in particular, with the period of the Serbian
invasion of Kosovo in late 1912 and the repercussions of the
conquest for the Albanian population. The documents from 1918 to
the early 1920s focus mainly on endeavours by Albanian leaders,
including those of the so-called Kosovo Committee in exile, to
bring the plight of their people to the attention of the outside
world - endeavours which largely failed. Further documents reflect
the situation in Kosovo up to the outbreak of World War II. This
collection provides new perspectives on the Kosovo question and
includes many documents which have been largely unavailable up to
now. It sheds new light on many of the major and minor episodes
that channelled and determined subsequent events, including the
Kosovo War of 1998-1999 and the declaration of independence in
February 2008.
The question of Kosovan sovereignty and independence has a history
which stretches far back beyond the outbreak of war in 1998. This
volume is a compilation of key documents on Kosovo from the first
half of the twentieth century. These texts, including numerous
diplomatic despatches from the British Foreign Office, deal
initially with the Albanian uprising against Ottoman rule in the
spring of 1912 and, in particular, with the period of the Serbian
invasion of Kosovo in late 1912 and the repercussions of the
conquest for the Albanian population. The documents from 1918 to
the early 1920s focus mainly on endeavours by Albanian leaders,
including those of the so-called Kosovo Committee in exile, to
bring the plight of their people to the attention of the outside
world - endeavours which largely failed. Further documents reflect
the situation in Kosovo up to the outbreak of World War II. This
collection provides new perspectives on the Kosovo question and
includes many documents which have been largely unavailable up to
now. It sheds new light on many of the major and minor episodes
that channelled and determined subsequent events, including the
Kosovo War of 1998-1999 and the declaration of independence in
February 2008.
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