Written by: Kurt Gostentschnigg
How can six years of stay in Albania be summarized in just a few pages, without remaining on the surface of things? I'll try. For biographical orientation: two months with a doctoral scholarship at the end of 1992, four months with the same scholarship in 1993. Then six years as a lecturer at the University of Tirana, 1993-1995 in the Department of German Language and 1996-2000 in the Department of History. I had come to Tirana with chronic bronchitis and had to write my dissertation in addition to working as a lecturer. For political orientation: the time of Sali Berisha and the Democratic Party, of pyramid schemes, of civil war-like unrest in 1997, of Fatos Nano and the Socialist Party, of the Kosovo War and Kosovar refugees 1998/1999, of the struggle for power and quick personal enrichment. For socio-economic orientation: a time of land grabbing, destruction of nature, brain drain abroad, corruption, lack of prospects for youth, leaving most of the population in the lurch. For lifestyle orientation: a time of potholed roads, power outages, lack of water, heating with oil, and all-around noise.
It made a big difference whether you were a tourist or an employee from abroad in Albania. For a tourist, this country was a paradise of adventure and hospitality; for a Western foreigner working there and understanding the language, this country was a hell of misunderstandings due to opposing mentalities and standards. I was in constant conflict with the Albanian mentality, which is a world champion of improvisation, doing everything at the last moment. While I, as an extreme representative of the Austrian-Western work ethic, felt obligated to my employer in Austria, to whom I had to present the results of my work within certain deadlines.
On the other hand, I had come to this country with my love for the Albanian language, so I kept in touch only with Albanians, to improve my knowledge of Albanian as quickly as possible and to discover the secrets of this very special and beautiful-sounding language. There was no wise saying that could save me in those days. At the same time, I avoided foreigners, with whom I did not want to communicate with my then poor English. The complete absorption of Albanian had an absolute advantage for my limited brain.
Three times in Tirana I narrowly escaped death. In the first furnished apartment from the communist era, where I lived with my friend and colleague Robert Pichler, I had just finished washing the dishes and turned my back on the sink when the old cupboard filled with heavy dishes hanging on the wall above the sink collapsed. Another time I was returning from a dinner with my friends at night and took a shortcut in an open field, where I almost fell into a large, unobstructed construction pit with the risk of breaking my neck. Yet another time, after the lights went out, I went up the stairs and in complete darkness put my hands in the cable salad, as if I were an electrical expert. I still don't know which guardian angel saved my life from stupidity.
After having changed my apartment dozens of times in Graz, I also had to change my apartment several times in Tirana. I either lived alone or with Albanian families. The apartments were generally devoid of luxury, which I did not seek at all. What was important to me was, first and foremost, peace and quiet for my work, a requirement that turned out to be a vain demand for luxury. Living in Tirana turned into a nightmare: when I was working temporarily as a consular assistant at the Austrian Embassy alongside my teaching position, visa applicants would follow me almost to the entrance of the apartment, thinking that I had something in my hands. In fact, from the very beginning, I revealed myself as a sworn enemy of any kind of corruption, whether at the Embassy or at the University, knowing full well that I could only stay on one side. I did not agree with the treatment of visa applicants at the Embassy, so I broke up with the consul at the time and left on my own.
Another time, in the height of the summer heat, in an apartment on the top floor without air conditioning, a psychopath would come to the courtyard of the buildings every afternoon and scream for hours without stopping in a hoarse voice. I wondered why no one was bothered by this daily noise, and I was going crazy, because I could neither rest nor work. In desperation, I started throwing small stones from the balcony, which did not have the desired effect. After two weeks, on the verge of going crazy myself, I called the police, who finally removed this person. But I soon felt very sorry for him, because I knew that at that time the police used to beat people in the region, supposedly as a disciplinary measure. I saw police violence around 1994 on a bus, when a young couple were traveling without a ticket and a policeman hit the young man in the back and threw him off the bus. I was at the back of the bus and, when no passenger dared to speak, I shouted at the policeman demanding an account of his inhumane behavior. He came towards me and I towards him, as in a “western” movie, and at the last moment, when he should have understood from my accent or appearance that I was a foreigner, he lightly touched me on the shoulder and said “get over it.”
After a week of silence, the noise returned with an overdose of revenge, and I moved to a new apartment for safety. But the demon of noise followed me from behind wherever I went: the gables who sang, played their instruments, and danced below my apartment; the drunks who drank and shouted every night at the kiosk under my window; a workshop in the palace courtyard, where car horns were repaired and tested a hundred times, and so on. My escapes from this demon usually took me to the magnificent park of Tirana, over by the lake. However, there was a risk of trespassing on a couple making love almost behind every bush. Not even in the highlands of Northern Albania with its fabulous nature could I find the peace I was looking for, because the extremely hospitable highlanders watched me as if I were an alien and would not leave me alone for a moment. When I fell silent, communicating internally with nature, they thought I was getting bored, and so they spoke to me immediately.
The year of unrest in 1997 was filled with extraordinary experiences. When I participated in a demonstration at the old university against the government of the Democratic Party, which had not warned in time about the danger of pyramid schemes, and when Berisha’s “malokos” came, my students told me that it would be better for me to leave. I did not think long and fled through the park. A little later, my students were beaten with sticks. I had saved the Austrian Embassy and the Albanian media a scandal with the headline “Austrian lecturer badly beaten at a student demonstration against the Albanian government”. I wanted to go with a Japanese journalist to Vlora, but we were stopped in Fier by the soldiers, because it was too dangerous in the south. With the same journalist, a year later, I went to Bajram Curri, where Serbian cannons could be heard against the KLA.
After the weapons depots were opened, almost all men armed themselves to be able to protect their families in case of need. But often people fired in vain into the air. So one day I went under a hail of bullets to the university, where my students were waiting for me to teach. Once, sitting on the balcony, I saw with my own eyes when a man went to his car, took out a Kalashnikov and fired at body height in a direction that was covered by buildings. When the situation had become too heated for foreigners, we Austrians gathered at the Austrian Embassy, where the then consul wanted to separate an Austrian man from his Albanian wife, just because she had received an order from the Austrian government that only Austrian citizens be allowed to pass. Faced with this inhuman decision, I got angry and started a fight with the strict consul, who finally backed down.
The convoy of cars with foreigners from the embassy district to the port of Durrës passed through the midst of looting of shops. We had to wait all day at the port, until finally a boat with Italian soldiers arrived, who took only the foreign diplomats with them. The armed Albanians became enraged and began to shoot either in the air or in the direction of the Italian boat. However, we were in the middle with our heads down. After two, three hours the Italian soldiers returned, this time with two boats, one for the foreigners and one for the Albanians who wanted to leave their country in a state of civil war. As soon as we arrived at the large military ship, the Italian soldiers separated the Albanians from the foreigners and settled them in a secluded place, where they threw bread to them by hand. Later we learned that they had returned them by boat to Durrës.
My task as a lecturer in the History Department was to teach a small group of students selected by me in the German language and the history of Austro-Albanian relations. My evacuation took place three months before the end of my first year. The completion of this special four-year project depended on my return to Albania, where the political situation had gradually calmed down with the arrival of international troops. Since my Austrian salary as a lecturer had been very modest, I made my return conditional on a monthly support for the payment of rent. This request was accepted by the ministry, and since then all Austrian lecturers abroad have benefited from it. Several graduates emerged from this unique project, who went on to excellent academic careers.
I generally had very good relations with my students, although the line between respect for the teacher and exploitation of friendship was very narrow. We had parties together, played football in the park and went for walks in nature. But my closeness to the students also put me in dangerous situations, e.g. when friendship was understood as a willingness to give undeserved grades. Thus, during the time of the unrest, the brother of a student whom I had given a negative grade came to me once, with a pistol in his pocket. This did not impress me, on the contrary, it made me so angry that I verbally beat him up like a wet chicken. He did not know that I had grown up in the wilds of western Styria in Austria.
However, after six years of working in Tirana, Albania had become a thing of the past for me, so I swore that I would never work in this country again. However, one should never say never, because after a few years I ended up at the University of Shkodra for five years as a lecturer in German. Every time, when I returned after a long time in Austria, I felt like a stranger in my own country. Willingly or unwillingly, I became Albanianized and felt closer to Albanians than to my fellow countrymen. In the 90s of extreme experiences in Albania, I began my journey inland, to engage in Eastern philosophy and yoga. In search of my Soul, I found in the land of eagles some very rare people, who, often living a life of extreme poverty, had a big heart that embraced the whole world. To this day, I am bound by endless love with them.
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