Among the little known figures of the early years of post-war Albanian literature is Kasėm

Mr.Kasem Trebeshina

Trebeshina (b. 1926). Trebeshina was born in Berat and studied at the Shkolla Normale (Normal School) in Elbasan until joining the communist resistance movement in 1942.

After the war he studied at the Ostrovsky Theatre Institute in Leningrad. A committed communist, but by no means a conformist, Trebeshina left the party and later the Writer's Union in Tirana. Much of his work was written in the late forties and early fifties, but never published



In an extremely rare act of open dissent in Albanian intellectual life, Trebeshina sent a 'pro memoria' to Enver Hoxha on 5 October 1953, warning him that his cultural policies were leading the nation down the road to disaster. It goes without saying that the dictator was not particularly amused. Kasėm Trebeshina, the unpublished author of eighteen volumes of verse, forty-two plays, twenty-two novels and short stories, etc., vanished from the literary scene with scarcely a trace following this voluntary act of self-destruction. After seventeen years in prison, with interruptions, a comparatively light sentence as he later noted, and twenty years of silence, Trebeshina resurfaced with a handful of other writers, artists and intellectuals to see that his prediction had come true.

Of Trebeshina's voluminous writing, only one collection of poetry, Artani dhe Min'ja ose hijet e fundit tė maleve, Tirana 1961 (Artani and Min'ja or the last mountain shadows), and an anonymous translation of the plays of Garcķa Lorca were published at the time. Three of his prose pieces were later edited by Ardian Klosi (b. 1957) in the volume Stina e stinėve, Prishtinė 1991 (The season of seasons), providing the reader with an initial glimpse into a fantasy world not unlike that of the tales of Mitrush Kuteli (1907-1967). The surrealist touch of what the author calls his ‘poetic realism’ is the result of his conscious revolt against the predominant current of socialist realism. Since the fall of the dictatorship, Trebeshina has published twelve volumes of writing, mostly short stories and drama.

The Iceberg

An iceberg broke off in the Arctic,

It longed for and sought the Equator,

It voyaged afar through the oceans,

Day and night in the azure surge swimming.

Kissed by the waves, it was melting,

But ardour and lust burned within it,

The iceberg thus shortened its journey,

And melted to die in confusion.

(in prison, 1954)

[Aisbergu, from the volume Lirika dhe satira, Tirana: Marin Barleti, 1994, p. 3. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]

We Met in the Darkness

The two of us met in the darkness

In the darkness we parted once more,

No words of farewell to each other,

Embarking and leaving the shore.

We vanished then into the shadows

Separated, yes each went his way,

We bid a goodbye to the seacoast,

But no words to each other could say.

(1952)

[U njohėm nė errėsirė, from the volume Lirika dhe satira, Tirana: Marin Barleti, 1994, p. 5. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]

The Storks

Two storks soar over an island,

From the heights do they gaze in flight slow,

Beating wings both in grace and in grandeur,

O'er the cypress trees growing below.

Two storks fly over an island,

They ply the blue skies without rest,

In glory they circle and eye it,

Then continue their path to the West.

(1962)

[Lejlekėt, from the volume Lirika dhe satira, Tirana: Marin Barleti, 1994, p. 65-66. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]

The Pelicans

In a pond are three pelicans paddling,

They're as white as the light in a dream,

Three pelicans gliding in splendour,

As they ponder the mist and its gleam.

In a pond are three pelicans searching

For a life they have not, ne'er will see,

For a place and a realm far beyond them,

For a space in a cosmos to be.

In a pond are three pelicans longing

For fish and themselves in the blue,

In a pond are three pelicans swimming,

As they conjure that cosmos untrue.

(1962)

[Pelikanėt, from the volume Lirika dhe satira, Tirana: Marin Barleti, 1994, p. 67. Translated from the Albanian by Robert Elsie]