Written by: Ndue Ukaj
I
It seems that Ibrahim Rugova's life is connected to winter, a symbolism that appears in several key moments of his life. He was born on the eve of a winter, on December 2, 1944, in the ruins of the tragedy of World War II, a time when the immaculate human conscience, sadly asked - if man existed at all - and so, under the fever of fear, headed towards an uncertain spring.
Rugova himself had emerged from this war with serious consequences, carrying the pain of his father Uka and grandfather Rrusta, executed by the partisans, without trial and in a fierce winter, when he was not yet six weeks old.
This personal pain would later be linked to the national tragedy. Albanians were divided, with a wild ideological wall between them and on the wrong side of history, part of the red empire, of communist ideology. And when you mention the phrase “communist ideology”, in Rugova’s view, it seems to have said it all: lack of freedom, oppression, violence, deception, backwardness.
At that time, Rugova, a young man, observed social and political realities and felt the need for spiritual transformations: he began to write poetry, showing his talent and soon, literature, that is, the art of language, became the ideal opportunity through which he would express his intellectual and political ideas. By reading the most representative works of world art, he deepened his knowledge.
On the authentic national level, he shows a constant interest in Albanian cultural history, considering it as a starting point for creating his own vision. Pjetër Bogdani's "Champion of the Prophets", which he describes as "a university of our culture", becomes a kind of compass for his orientation, while the patriarch of Albanian literature and the great strategist of the 17th century becomes his guide. By updating Bogdani's life and work, Rugova insisted on revealing the early roots of the European idea among Albanians, not so well known and sometimes even misinterpreted.
The rapid developments that occurred in the last two decades of the 20th century found the intellectual at the head of the Writers' Association, and then, at the head of the first democratic movement in the region.
At that time, repression and violence were increasing against Albanians. The intellectual, formed with Western ideas, after having spent a solid time in Paris, could not remain silent in the face of oppression and was one of the rare Albanians who dared to speak out about the violence being exercised by Serbia, a fact that was also confirmed by prestigious international newspapers.
Rugova had initially spoken of aesthetic rejection as a starting point for a political rejection of oppression and hegemony. And so, in a dark social December of 1989, when Serbian hegemony was rampant in the former Yugoslavia, together with other writers and intellectuals, on December 23, Rugova founded the Democratic League of Kosovo.
Everything happened on Christmas Eve and this was not an unthinkable coincidence. Rugova becomes an intellectual leader, with unwavering faith in ancient Albanian values, which he began to renew in the domain of politics, after a colossal work in the field of literature. And, seeing that communism was collapsing and the dividing walls were falling, he began the political battle to break down the walls of division and hatred among Albanians, and worked for freedom, integration among Albanians, independence and Western democracy.
Rugova's death, on January 20, 2006, in a bitter winter, concluded his earthly life, after opening the way for his country to move from the winter of slavery to the spring of freedom and independence.
II
Rugova appeared in Albanian cultural and political life, in very difficult circumstances and at a time when intellectual sterility, a consequence of ideological uniformity, did not allow for free breathing and plurality of opinions.
He was nourished by Western freedom and sought freedom as a human immanence without ideological frameworks. With the new ideas he brought to Pristina, which went beyond the narrow cultural and political environment, he quickly became a separate phenomenon and an exception. He expressed his views on communism as follows: “Communism did not create a place for the concept of the nation, which was felt as a negation of history. It was based on a fictitious, primitive idea of equality, which denies history. Leaders like – Tito, Mao, Hoxha, Lenin… – then fabricated their own history. Therefore, one of the first goals of communism was to shoot intellectuals.”
So, as an intellectual leader, he was the most beautiful embodiment and sublimation of positive Albanian values, but also Western ones, which he admired, due to the empirical results, and therefore affirmed with astonishing persistence and knowledge.
Yes, Rugova knew how to reveal, affirm and tie the disconnected threads of the Albanian European identity, and he never stopped talking about the most positive aspects of the nation, something that, in a different form, the writer Ismail Kadare did, for whom Rugova had great admiration, since the eighties, when he appreciated the global dimension of Kadare's universe.
For Rugova, the European identity of Albanians was not a definition or a choice, but a deep spiritual feeling, a way of thinking and living, on which topic, similar to Kadare, he was uncompromising and unwavering.
III
Whenever we write about multidimensional personalities and works that have shaped their era, rhetorical questions inevitably arise. For example: what made Rugova special?
And the answer, surely, cannot be a unique one, it takes something from the usual clichés, but in my opinion, what distinguishes and makes his personality quite special, in the field of literature and political action, was the unwavering belief in the weight of the word and culture, as the most important social semiosphere, which, in line with the teachings of Thomas S. Eliot, he did not see as a multitude of activities, but as a way of life. This made him a devout believer in language and the world of ideas, believing in the invisible power of art and the capacities that language has to shape new social realities and to give direction to humane and beautiful ideas.
To the negative Serbian campaign, in the field of thought and action, Rugova responded with a well-thought-out and positive creative strategy, affirming peace as the most humane human value, so much so that his discourse seems to have a superior brilliance and an unwavering faith in the human side of man. And this philosophy encounters a deep incompatibility with the wild political traditions of the troubled Balkans, where shallow ideas and pathological hatred abounded.
The Polish writer, Nobel Prize laureate for Literature, Czeslaw Milosz, in 1946 published a poem titled "Dedication", which, among other things, contains two striking lines:
"What is poetry that does not save nations or people? A fiction of official lies."
Rugova had such faith in literature, which is why he said that "they have the weapons, we have the words."
By opposing the repression of Serbian violence, with peaceful strategies, by responding to the pathological hatred of the Serbian regime and the institutions that supported it, with gentle words, he affirmed a deep dimension of faith in goodness, in the values of Western democracy, therefore, he said that nonviolent resistance was a European idea. And to pronounce such an idea, in a hot-blooded region and at a time when the heat of war had engulfed the region, seemed like an illumination coming from higher forces.
Rugova did such a thing, with unparalleled culture and courage.
IV
Rugova of art and literature, that is, of humane ideas, entered a fierce battle of politics and political games, without an army, without institutions, but armed with words, and with unwavering faith in the power of good words. With this faith, he raised a banner of goodness high under the troubled sky, starting an unequal battle with the Serbian state, which he won, because he made the Western world line up behind the cause of his people. Because, he believed in goodness and was unwavering in this belief; he did not follow violence with violence, nor tooth for tooth, but with the option of goodness, and at the beginning of his political journey he mentions Edmond Burke, who said that the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing, a thought that deeply permeates all of Western civilization.
Ismail Kadare, writing about the figure of Rugova, in the preface to the book "The Kosovo Issue", among other things, writes: "It is enough to read this long account of Rugova to understand his own character as well as his ideas and platform and those of the Albanians. But what is captured even more clearly from this book is how far and how high this Albanian leader stands in comparison to all the other leaders who have turned the Balkans into a log of rage and mourning today."
So, Rugova had ignored the Balkan concepts and in the hierarchy of political values, he did not place bad legacies anywhere. Thus, he wrote the political gospel of the Albanians – the testament of political love, for the Albanian man, his history, culture and identity. And, like the great renaissance men, in addition to political goals, he also had a mission to Occidentalize our society. In August 1991, he said:
"Having always been a people of Western origin with history, tradition and culture, within the framework of new European integration processes, Albanians desire and seek to be united in a process of rapprochement and cooperation in Europe, with the right to self-determination."
His thoughts are empirical, proven lessons and as such serve as a good decalogue on how the state is formed and how people unite around common good and high goals, and he said:
"We should not engage in demagogy with the nation and the national issue, as the communists did: when they needed the nation, they called it, when they didn't need it, they destroyed it. Every party and every individual should know what the national interest is, and not denigrate the other party, individual, or party in the name of the national interest, but contribute to the national interest, express the idea of this interest, and be specifically committed to it."
Rugova's lessons are lessons of peace, progress, and solidarity, and as such, they are related to the permanence of human values, to which he has contributed like no one else in the Balkans.
(Part of the preface to the book, “Rugova the Intellectual Leader”, published by the “Ibrahim Rugova” Foundation)
edition
t7 live
