Tirana

“ Mais, non!” said he, hurt. “You are Americans, and the stranger in Albania is our guest.”
The road from Durazzo to Tirana crossed the low mountains that, from Trieste to Valona, make the endless monotonous eastern wall of the Adriatic. When you come over the crest of them you see lying before you the green low central valley and the farther blue peaks of the lands of the hidden tribes. And everything accustomed, everything commonplace, everything that reflects ourselves to us, is left behind. ”

“ The new government sat in Government House. Everybody else sat in the cafés. Elbassan did not fight Parliament, because it could not get Tirana on the telephone. Hassan Prishtini’s men in the mountains did not march anywhere, because no orders came. All Albania thought something terrible was happening in Tirana, and wasn’t it funny? Because nothing at all was happening.
“On the third day, Ahmet Bey came with twelve hundred fighting men of the Mati—Catholics, from northern Mati. They came in, and they did not do anything. But there were no other fighting men in Tirana. ”

“ These tribes do not understand that the new government in Tirana is an all-Albanian government. They don’t think as a nation; they think as tribes. They think the government is a Tirana government, trying to destroy their liberty as the Romans and the Turks and the Austrians and Italians and the Serbs and the Greeks and the Peace Council tried to do. ”

“ I do not know Europe, America. Tirana needs factories, Albania needs industries. The people are starving and ragged; they walk with bare feet over the earth that covers their fortunes. We need capitalistic development, not a hundred years from now, but to-day. ”

“ And why, we may be asked, why should not Tirana be the capital? In the central parts of Albania, in the country round Tirana, where the natives are derisively called "llape" by the warriors of the north and by the cultured Albanians of the south, we believe that the assistance of Italy will be unable to prevent a collapse. (It must also be remembered that the people of the district of Tirana are, for the most part, in opposition to the present Tirana Government. This became clear [336] when the partisans of Essad Pasha's policy [98] overthrew and imprisoned the Tirana Ministers.) ”

“ Tirana, the capital and largest city, increased from about 60,000 inhabitants in 1945 to 170,000 in 1967, largely because of the expansion of industry and a growing bureaucracy. It is located on the inner margin of the coastal plain and is surrounded by an area of the better soils of Albania. The streets in the central area of the city, where government buildings are clustered, are wide and attractive; many parts of the city are much like the rural villages. ”

“ Machine guns surround the quarter. Listen well! At twelve o’clock the machine guns will start and the quarter will burn. After twelve o’clock no man leaves it alive. By order of Ahmet Bey Mati.
It is impossible to describe the feeling that day in Tirana. It was as though a giant hand closed upon the heart, slowly, inexorably. Death. At twelve o’clock the machine guns will start and the quarter will burn. No man will leave it alive. Five hundred men. ”

“ Men in the fuller white trousers and embroidered socks of the central mountains. Men in the very full brown trousers and curve-toed moccasins of more southern tribes. Mountain men, all of them. They sat on the low walls around the mosques, talking. They lounged on the curbstones, they sauntered on the streets. More and more of them. Impossible to estimate how many. A thin little trickle going steadily in and out of Government House. And it was strange how a sense of Government House, a sense of the one man alone behind those broken walls, grew upon Tirana. ”

“ THE FIGHTING MEN FROM THE MOUNTAINS WHO CAME INTO TIRANA TO DEFEND THE GOVERNMENT WHILE ELEZ JUSUF WAS IN TIRANA
In this group are men from seven tribes, distinguishable by the pattern of their trousers.
Nearly noon, and talk stopping in the cafés. Shops closing, quietly, one by one. A tightening, an apprehension, in the air. New faces, new costumes, in the streets. Slowly, slowly, little by little, Tirana was filling with tall, keen-eyed, weather-bitten men. Men in the tight white trousers and rawhide opangi of the northern [Pg 327] Tirana mountains. ”

“ Tirana is beautifully situated on the border of the richly wooded highlands inhabited by the Mirdite Albanians. It is a picturesque town with a large bazaar and many mosques, gardens and olive groves. ”

“ If the regions which at present submit to Tirana decline to modify their methods, it would seem that warfare between them and their kinsmen to the north and north-east must continue, and that the foundations of a united, free Albania will not yet be laid. ”

“ At five minutes to four o’clock the roar of an automobile in the streets, and Elez Jusuf appeared, riding to Government House in the English car, Mr. Eyres beside him. Tirana followed them to the gate in a wave of men, a wave that slowed, eddied before the gate, and stopped. It seemed that time stopped with it.
Out of the gate a rider, lashing a galloping [Pg 332] horse. Clatter of spark-scattering hoofs on the cobbles, swish of the whip, and a swirl of wind following. Four o’clock, and the ripping sound of one machine gun, stopped abruptly. No more. ”

“ The Red Cross mail car, gone that morning to meet the Italian steamer at Durazzo, returned with the news that Hamid Bey Toptani, brother of Essad Pasha, had taken Durazzo. He was an hour from Tirana, coming on the Durazzo road, with at least six hundred armed men. How many more were hidden in the hills when the automobile passed, no one could guess. Under the American flag, the car had gone and come through the lines, and no secret had been made of the fact that Tirana would be attacked that night.
There is a point at which human nerves cease to report emotion. ”

“ Perhaps six scientists and business men are my heroes. Why, then, after three minutes of talk with Ahmet Bey Mati, did I add to that short list this mountain chief of semisavage tribes, who certainly knew nothing either of science or of modern business?
Government House in Tirana is an old residence, hurriedly converted into offices. It stands at the end of a street, in a courtyard surrounded by a high mud-brick wall rather badly broken at intervals. A mountain man with a rifle sits at the big gate. ”

“ One might presume, from their bellicose attitude, that the Tirana Government (extending to and including the town of Scutari) is all against a pacific solution; and if one argues that their attitude would be quite different without the support they receive from Italy, then the Italians would doubtless reply that they have as much right to assist the Tirana Albanians as Yugoslavia has to assist those of the north. ”

“ The Turks, alarmed at the growth of Albanian Nationalism, again began restrictions, and hurried to arrange for the election to Parliament of such members only as were pro-Turk. As I wrote at the time: "The so-called election is no election at all. The tyrant of Tirana, Essad Bey, a man who is greatly detested, and has an awful reputation, is to be member for Tirana, elected' by the peasants who are terrified of him. Even Scutari is surprised he has succeeded in making them do it. He is head of the gendarmerie, and this gives him great power." ”

“ In the exercise of political power through the Party, the mass organizations, the state organs, and the security and armed forces, the Tirana rulers have consistently followed Stalinist methods of rule. In major policy speeches these rulers have in recent years often praised Stalin's political system and have consistently attempted to emulate it in Albania. As Zeri i Popullit (Voice of the People) phrased it on April 13, 1963, "without reinstating Stalin and his work, [throughout the Communist world] our revolutionary movement and the cause of Marxism-Leninism can make no headway." ”

“ Coastal cities generally have a small hinterland, and their influence does not extend beyond their borders. The port of Durres, with road and rail links to Tirana, Elbasan, and Fier, is an exception. During the 1960s the area generally bounded by these cities experienced the greatest growth of industry and population of any region. Vlore, a port and naval center, increased almost fourfold between 1945 and 1967, but it lacks links with inland areas. ”

“ We must consider many things.” Rexh used his fingers to check them off. “First, the byraktor must be thinking a great deal about the new Tirana government. You remember that he asked the Shala man about Rrok Perolli. Also he talked a long time with his mother’s mother, and that was about politics. Second, the byraktor holds a council. Therefore he is going to do something that concerns the tribe. The byraktor, you [Pg 268] know, is the war chief; he is the one who leads the tribe to war. Shoshi is in blood with Shala, and Shala has sworn a besa with the Tirana government. ”

“ Thus were the four friends of the Moslem-Italian [103] Government elected, the four deputies who were in favour of Albanian unity under that Government; three of them are Christians (Messrs. Fichta, Andreas Miedia and Luigi Gurakuqi) ; one, Riza Dani, is a Moslem. How the latter travelled to Tirana I do not know, but the three Christians found that the population was so incensed against them that they could not go by the direct road; they were forced to sail down the Bojana on the Italian ship Mafalda, and then along the coast. ”

“ It was lighted—I can only guess by whom—and was stamped out by a chief of the Mati mountaineers, in Albania. A little country, which no one knows. Albania—somewhere in the Balkans, isn’t it? Or is it in the Caucasus? One of those places that are always having revolutions, people fighting among themselves. [Pg 346] Ought to have sense enough to settle down and go to work.
There is no more to this tale. Our trip to the mountains is not part of it. Only a few more pictures come into my mind, when I remember those days in Tirana.
Picture of Ahmet Zogu, riding back from Durazzo. ”

“ Ahmet smiling. “Ah, but you wouldn’t have been surprised if you had known, as I did, the men who were the rebels. They were rich men. I thought, ‘Not all will be killed in the fighting; we will capture some, arrest others. Why try them and hang them? Their money will be more useful than their bodies. We will try them and fine them.’ I thought how much money they had, and decided there was enough money there to pay for electric lights for Tirana, so naturally I sent for engineers to go out as soon as the Dibra trail was clear.” ”

“ The region generally bounded by Durres, Tirana, Elbasan, and Fier grew most rapidly and had the highest population density in the late 1960s. Inland, the mountain and upland basins offer the best conditions for settlement (see ch. 3, Physical Environment; ch. 4, The People) .
The extensive networks of rivers are of little value for transportation because waterflow fluctuates, currents tend to [Pg 5] be violent, and estuaries are heavily sedimented. Road and railroad construction is difficult because of the uneven character of the terrain. ”

“ But on the mountains above it to the north the Serbian armies lay; their mountain-trained eyes were doubtless watching us as we crossed the sodden fields. This is the village, these are the chiefs, whose houses were destroyed by a company of soldiers sent from the struggling Albanian government in Tirana. The Serbs held the Albanian [Pg 121] cities where the men of Thethis have always gone to market; the grazing lands where they have always fed their sheep lie in the grasp of Serbian armies. Scutari, the nearest free Albanian market place, is a hundred miles away across two mountain ranges. ”

“ And learning that we were from Scutari, they asked us what we knew of the Tirana government, of which they had heard. Was it true that the Land of the Eagle was free?
Leaving discussion of politics to Perolli, we sat cross-legged, looking into the straight lines of rain that covered the mouth of the cave like a curtain. Faintly through them we could see a blueness of mountains and a greenness of fields beyond the narrow rust-red ledge of the trail. Time passed, with a murmur of talk and a crunching of leaves, until Rexh touched my elbow.
“Here is a man, Mrs. ”

“ Kenneth Roberts of the Saturday Evening Post lay for ten days ill in Tirana, left with all haste for Montenegro, and later wrote of Albania—entertainingly. News of Albania bears the date lines of Belgrade, Rome, Athens. Since 1910 it has been as accurate as news of France bearing a Berlin date line. This is only [Pg 292] human, for few of us are accurately just to our enemies, and the Hungarian, Austrian, Serbian, Italian, and Greek soldiers who have campaigned in Albania have returned to describe the country as hell with variations. ”

“ They have gone to hold a council. All their immediate interests lie with the Serbs. If they hand me over—well, you know the Serbian armies hold their markets and their grazing lands, and a million Albanians are in Serbia’s power. We have nothing like that to offer these chiefs from Tirana, yet.”
“But we are guests! But we are women!” we exclaimed.
“Oh, they won’t act quickly. But the trails are long, in the mountains. Let me think,” said [Pg 129] Perolli. And we were silent, watching Padre Marjan busy and anxious about the cooking. ”

“ When we go with the flocks to the mountains!”
Then a discrepancy in Rexh’s story struck me. “If the Merdite is five days from Tirana, and Ahmet was fighting the Serbs there, how did he come to Tirana in three days? How did he know there was trouble in Tirana?”
“Ahmet is a Gheg, Mrs. Lane. A Gheg always expects trouble. When he went into the mountains he left behind him men he could trust, hidden in the woods by the telephone wires. There is a small round black thing that can hear on a telephone wire—I do not know what you call it. It is small, and has a wire that goes over the telephone wire ”