Let Us Face the Truth: Albanian Art Will Not Be Reborn Through
the Old Figures
"Nations are not killed by power. They are killed by lies."
By Flamur Bucpapaj
“Nacional” – Cultural and Scientific Newspaper – the only
Albanian newspaper with no party affiliation
For more than fifty years, culture and art in Albania were
trampled upon by a totalitarian regime that used them as tools
of propaganda and ideological control. During this time, most
of those considered “great artists,” “writers of socialist
realism,” and “actors of stage and screen” did not serve art, but
dictatorship. They were not representatives of creative spirit,
beauty, or free expression, but rather spokespersons for the
communist state and assistants to an oppressive machine that,
for decades, built a falsified and ideologically sterilized reality.
Most of them, especially within institutions such as the
National Theatre and Albanian Radio and Television (RTSH), not
only failed to challenge the regime, but became its close
collaborators. While true artists were persecuted, imprisoned,
or silenced, these names built their careers on collective silence
and complicity. They were party members, secretaries of
grassroots organizations, people with a “clean biography,” who
benefited from privileges in exchange for silence, submission,
and loyalty to the party line. Many of them participated directly
in class warfare, in the exclusion of their colleagues from the
stage, from literature, film, and public life.
Ironically, today some of these figures continue to hold
symbolic or leadership positions. They sit on the governing
board of RTSH, are appointed to national institutional boards,
or continue to be promoted as “icons” of Albanian
culture—although the world outside Albania neither recognizes
nor accepts them as representatives of the arts. For example, a
certain Ilir Keko is found everywhere, sitting on boards. Instead
of such figures, the national cultural scene should be led by the
names of the new generation—those educated after the 1990s,
who have won international awards, who bring freshness and
modernity, and who represent the spirit of a free and open
Albania.
The time has come to say “enough.” We cannot build a new
cultural identity while keeping at the top those who zealously
and willingly aided the regime for decades. We cannot speak of
a cultural renaissance while our institutions are still led by
those who denied their origins, who even denied their national
identity by presenting themselves as foreigners in order to save
themselves.
At the same time, it is shameful that some individuals who have
no body of work, no international recognition, and who are
unknown outside the closed circle of official Albanian art,
continue to hold leadership roles in our most important cultural
institutions. It makes no sense that, instead of promoting young
artists, successful directors, playwrights, and writers recognized
in Europe, we continue to recycle names consumed by the past.
The example of Turkish artists making international waves, or
of filmmakers and actors from other former communist
countries who have confronted the past and built a new
creative identity, clearly shows what a nation can achieve when
it faces its history with honesty.
That is why a deep moral and institutional cleansing is needed.
There must be a clear distinction between free art and
controlled art, between the true artist and the propagandist,
between the creator and the sycophant. All former communist
countries have gone through this process, though with
difficulty. Albania must face it too—with courage and maturity.
The cultural rebirth of Albania cannot happen through the old
faces of the dictatorship. It will come only when we open the
doors to the new generation, to independent voices, to those
who are unafraid of the truth and who serve no ideology but
that of freedom and beauty.
Today, there is only one cultural, scientific, and archaeological
platform: the newspaper "Nacional."
WHY THIS NEWSPAPER EXISTS
“Nacional – Cultural and Scientific” is the only Albanian
newspaper with no party affiliation.
It serves no political interest—only culture, knowledge, and the
creative Albanian spirit. It is an open platform for poetry, short
stories, essays, literary criticism, free thought, and new voices
striving to be heard in an increasingly noisy and polarized
world.
This newspaper belongs to all Albanians of thought, knowledge,
and art.
It publishes works by established authors and gives space to
new voices from every Albanian-speaking region.
For us, the word is an act of freedom, and culture—a dimension
of national survival.
Gazeta Nacional Albania is a publication focused on literature,
poetry, essays, prose, cultural analysis, interviews, and news
from the world of art and culture.
It has existed for over 16 years, with a distribution network that
spans across Albania and the Balkans.
Its founder is Dr. Mujë Buçpapaj, a poet, scholar, and educator,
especially known as the editor-in-chief of this publication with
deep experience in culture and press freedom.
Free expression is the oxygen of art
From Glorifying the Past to Usurping the Present Foreign
languages, internationally awarded actors, directors who open
the doors of European festivals — yet in Albania, we continue
to promote figures unknown to anyone outside the closed
media system.
This is a grave injustice to the new generation of talent, and a
dangerous signal to society: as if success does not come from
merit or creative work, but from connections, political heritage,
nostalgia, and clientelism.
This is a new form of censorship — more sophisticated, yet just
as harmful as the old one — where true talent is excluded from
public space simply because they are not "one of us," were
never with the Party, do not sit in cafés with the institution
heads, and do not write in “controlled” newspapers.
Unfortunately, we are witnessing a cloned revival of
dictatorship in the field of culture.
Instead of evaluating a work based on its quality and its impact
on society, judgment is made based on names, family
background, and political beliefs. This is the logic of class
warfare, resurrected thirty years later — silent, but equally
poisonous.
It’s Time for a Deep Change
Today, it’s not enough to merely condemn the dictatorship with
words. We must dismantle its lingering influence — from the
roots — in culture, in the arts, in public institutions, in the
mainstream media, and in the way representatives of Albanian
literature and art are selected both domestically and
internationally.
We must:
Remove from leadership those who represent outdated
ideologies and who have occupied space through political
connections rather than through their work.
Ensure transparency in the selection of directors of RTSH, the
National Theatre, national award juries, and cultural
institutions.
Promote authors and artists who have real success,
contemporary approaches, and who genuinely represent
Albania in the international arena.
Open a broad public debate on the role of art during the
dictatorship and launch projects that analyze and expose the
connections between artists and the structures of dictatorship.
Create new support mechanisms for independent creators —
those not tied to political parties, family clans, or ideological
legacies.
If we want an Albania with genuine culture that is taken
seriously internationally, we must free art from the claws of the
past. Free expression is the oxygen of art. Without it, all
creativity becomes mere imitation, decoration of falsehood —
and at times, a deliberate deception of society.
The history of former communist countries teaches us that
culture does not regenerate on its own. It requires a conscious
act of cleansing. We must have the courage to look the past in
the eye, to separate truth from lies, art from propaganda, and
creators from collaborators of the dictatorship.
Only then will Albania have a true national culture — not one
that emerges from Party files, but one that springs from the
heart and free mind of the Albanian individual.
Culture in Captivity: When False Memory Replaces History and
Value
Just look at what happened during the tenure of former
Minister of Culture, Elva Margariti, to understand the depth of
institutional shame and the disregard shown toward Albania’s
cultural heritage. Instead of preserving values and caring for
our historical and artistic wealth, we were met with
destruction, disappearance, and scandalous mismanagement.
The public garden she loudly promoted no longer exists. It was
either destroyed, paved over, or turned into an urban mess — a
symbol more of the destruction of the public spirit than of any
cultural development. That is the true face of her policy.
The disappearance of materials from Kinostudio “New Albania”
is a national crime. No one knows where a significant portion of
the film archives, documentaries, historical costumes, or
heritage equipment ended up. Instead of transparency, there is
silence. Instead of accountability, there is propaganda.
I have filed a criminal complaint with SPAK, and I once again call
on this institution — the only one left to us citizens to demand
justice — to act without delay, with full transparency,
investigating not only the disappearance of cultural materials,
but also the abuse of public funds and the interventions that
have damaged Tirana’s artistic and historical spaces and
beyond. I call upon citizens, artists, filmmakers, writers, and
scholars to join this voice for justice.
Because culture is not the private property of ministers. It is a
treasure that belongs to everyone. And those who destroy it
must be held accountable.
As in every country that has endured a dictatorship, in Albania
too, a privileged literary and artistic caste was created — one
that survived every regime by serving power. But unlike East
Germany, Poland, Hungary, or the Czech Republic, in Albania
these people were never held historically accountable. On the
contrary, many of them were promoted even after the fall of
the dictatorship. In fact, in the democratic system, some of
them gained more influence than ever, securing key positions
in the media, academia, cultural institutions, and politics.
This is the unhealed illness of Albanian culture: it rewards the
past, not merit. It rewards connection, not creativity. It rewards
past silence, not present truth. And as long as this hypocrisy
persists, Albanian society will remain imprisoned within a
collective illusion, where the former enemies of free speech are
now presented as its defenders.
To think that a former Party collaborator — someone who
excluded colleagues for their beliefs — today sits at the table
deciding the cultural policies of the country, is an insult to the
new generation, to the victims of that regime, and to society’s
moral compass. Culture cannot be a recycling of shame. It must
be built on truth.
Who are the “writers” being served to us today?
We are now presented on screens and in lavishly published
books with figures from the past who, thanks only to their old
networks and carefully nurtured nostalgia, carry the title of
“national writers.” But what have they written? Who reads
them? What do they represent in modern European literature?
Nothing.
They have no presence in international universities, no place in
serious literary journals, no participation in international art
festivals. All they have is a name artificially elevated by the
former state — and which a corrupt system continues to
recycle.
This is why they never win real awards, why they are only
mentioned in Albania, and why they are propped up by media
outlets turned into fortresses of false nostalgia — spaces where
reality is falsified daily and the public is force-fed a list of
worthless names labeled as “national heritage.”
What Must Be Done Now?
We need a cultural vetting — not to exclude indiscriminately,
but to clearly separate the writer from the ideologue, the artist
from the sycophant, the creator from the bureaucrat.
We need to open the free market of ideas and art, where a
work is judged for its value, not for its connections or nostalgic
appeal.
The Ministry of Culture, RTSH, the National Theatre, the
Academy of Sciences, the National Book Center — all should be
led by figures who represent the modern, contemporary world,
not the faded model of state-controlled art.
We must create a new pantheon of Albanian culture, including
those who write under difficult conditions, outside the system,
who challenge clichés, who find international readership, and
who speak in the language of the free individual.
Otherwise, Albania will remain hostage to its past.
If a moral and institutional cleansing does not happen, future
generations too will be fed lies — they will learn about
“heroes” who were ideologues, about “poets” who were
propagandists, about “artists” who were mouthpieces of the
Party. And history will repeat itself — but this time, not out of
ignorance, but out of a lack of collective honesty.
Now is the time to choose:
Will we build a free and truthful culture, or preserve the ghost
of an art that served dictatorship?
There is no longer room for neutrality. Silence is complicity.
What Must Be Done Now? (Repeated for emphasis)
We need a cultural vetting, not for blind exclusion, but to
distinguish clearly the writer from the ideologue, the artist from
the flatterer, the creator from the official.
We need to open the free market of ideas and art, where works
are judged for their intrinsic value, not for their connections or
nostalgia.
The Ministry of Culture, RTSH, the National Theatre, the
Academy of Sciences, and the National Book Center must be led
by figures representing modernity and contemporaneity, not
the yellowed model of command-driven art.
A new pantheon of Albanian culture must be built — one that
includes those who write under difficult circumstances, outside
the system, who challenge stereotypes, who reach
international readers, and who speak in the language of the
free human being.
"Nations are not killed by power. They are killed by lies."
— Flamur Bucpapaj
