Part Three
Kaltrina Krasniqi: We are trying, through individual stories to recall how the city was because in the past 60 years, certainly, you as well know how much it changed, many things that used to exist don’t exist anymore. Can you think a little and give us a picture of what kind of city it was, for you?
Ajten Pllana: Pristina?
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Yes.
Ajten Pllana: You know that the city… the city as such, if I compared it to Skopje, I didn’t like it to be honest… but what I liked was that there were many schools in Albanian. There was a gymnasium, Skopje didn’t have a gymnasium, they had barely opened Normale. There was an Economic School, there was a night school, to attend at night. There was a Music School, a lot of our children were there, so a lot of Albanian children. While in Skopje there was only Normale and nothing else, only three girls per school year. Here there were a lot, a lot, that’s what kept me and it wasn’t only hope, but I was sure that one day these children would achieve something, and that there would be progress.
When my father used to come here, he had an appreciation for education. Because my father was a great writer, great orator, and had beautiful handwriting. We would say, “Dad, how many years did you go to school, did you learn?” He said, “For a year.” “Why did you go to school for only a year, where did you learn these expressions…” He wouldn’t tell us, apparently, he only finished elementary school or something more, but he wouldn’t tell us.
And in the mornings, he would come rarely, but sometimes when he would come to stay for two or three days [in Pristina], he went out in the morning and came home at around 8:00 o’clock. He went out earlier in the morning, “Where were you, Daddy?” He would say, “You know what? I stand there by the clock tower and watch the kids go to school at the gymnasium. All of them speak Albanian.” (laughs) That left an impression on him because he didn’t see that in Skopje. I would say to him, “You like them that much?” “How can I not, such nice children…” That left an impression on him fifty and somewhat years ago. He said, “Some nice kids with bags in their hands going to the gymnasium, dressed nicely, clean. It is heartwarming!” You know, I liked that too.
There was a theater, we also had a theater, but compared to Pristina, no. There were plays based on scripts of world-famous writers, while there was something… somewhat more, more, more… there were no artists, there were no artists. The radio here was in Albanian. In Skopje, only the news and some sort of musical program was in Albanian, nothing else. And, since then, it seemed like… then the university opened and everything, it was progress, right? It wasn’t important. People are willing to tolerate the muddy streets and suffer through building construction, yes, but you have to build human capacities too. There was a will for education, to open schools for higher education because that’s what interested me…
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Did you go to the theater and cinema here? In the book you write about going to the theater and cinema?
Ajten Pllana: I loved the cinema from when I was a kid, if I could I would have slept there … I would watch the same movie four or five times and I would know all the dialogue. I can memorize a lot. I remember everything from my childhood, and I really like it. Sometimes I would tell my family I’m going, sometimes I would find the money. Going to the cinema was very cheap, two dinars, three dinars to get in, I would watch the movies.
I also went a lot to the cinema here with my husband, but we went more to the theater and to concerts. He wasn’t a coffee shop person, he didn’t… He didn’t ever want to go to coffee shops. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke and he would say, “No…” But we went to the theater and concerts regularly. But when we would get out of the concert, he would say, “Well, my wife, now I wanna go to a coffee shop and drink coffee, I don’t feel like going home after the concert.” “Let’s, let’s…” I would say, “we have the children waiting at home.” (Laughs) And this is how we rolled… every play in the theater, every concert, classical music, entertainment, folk. We attended regularly.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: In which halls?
Ajten Pllana: Usually in Kino Rinia, they were held in Kino Rinia, those small concerts, but not the children’s concerts, they were held in Shtëpia e Armatës [Army’s House of Culture], there was Shtëpia e Armatës. Then in the theater, it was this theater we have today. At that time, the stage was small, a small stage, the shows were held in the theater’s hall, you know… where the foyer is, there they had the Pjata e Drujtë [The Wooden Plate], a very good play. We sat in a circle, there were a few of us and it didn’t fit the audience. Then, concerts were held, the music chords… the Kosovo Chords festival. During that time the city would burst.
A week ahead of the festival my daughters would ask their father, “Dad, find some tickets for us, the other kids are going.” “Where do I find them?” Sometimes we could find them, sometimes we couldn’t. Usually they would be held in a bigger hall, it was like this. It was very lively, we would often come here from Skopje to see something. Skopje had them too, but not as many, no. The cultural life did not develop at the same level as Macedonia’s, they had more professional staff and opportunities.
I remember when I was a child, I think I was in seventh grade when they started to build Skopje’s National Minority Theater, which was built in the Bazaar. You know where Bit Bazaar is? There was the theater, but do you even wanna go there? The theater calls for a better place… the theater was in the Bazaar; the kiosks, the peppers, tomatoes were sold there. That’s where the theater was, it doesn’t make sense. Now they’re renovating it for the second or third time, it looks good, but it is built in the Bazaar. It bothers me. That has bothered me from day one.
The Macedonian Theater is where it used to be, now that this [Nikola] Grujevski has renovated it, having spent billions. Imagine the stage curtain is from the same velvet as it used to be. I haven’t been there, but my brothers who have been there told me. My sisters-in-law went there, they saw theater plays; and the chairs even, the same chairs, the same velvet, they only took it a floor higher and the entry is from the other side, not on the side it used to be. And so, they work wisely for their own people. Our people are not to blame since that was the location that was given to them.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Why didn’t you study?
Ajten Pllana: Excuse me?
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Why didn’t you study?
Ajten Pllana: Why didn’t I study? How could I study? I got married, I had four children, I was working, I didn’t have… My husband was very ambitious. Once he wanted to enroll me in university. He said, “You are good with languages, I’ll enroll you in Yugoslav literature, it’s needed in the Albanian classrooms.” I said, “You can enroll me, I won’t go. I don’t have time to study, I can’t go there without studying, I don’t have time, I don’t have time.” But he was ambitious and enrolled me. I said, “Take the indeks, you keep it because I’m not going.” And I didn’t go.
At some point, he enrolled me in French. I was very good at French in school, in Normale. Then my teacher used to say, “Only Ajten Gashi…” and I had a friend from another class, “Only Ajten and he can study French, no one else.” There were four or five students there, and my friend was very smart, he did his PhD and studied French in Sorbonne. Ajten came here and had four children and work, but I was very devoted to my children, my daughters. I had to work hard. I wasn’t able to study and take care of my family, and take care of my children [all at the same time].
Kaltrina Krasniqi: When did you retire?
Ajten Pllana: When did I retire, a long time ago, it’s been 22 years.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: How did you feel about that? Because you spent a large part of your life in school.
Ajten Pllana: Well, it was hard at first. At 12:00, I always started class at 12:00. And at 12:00, I would go out and go from one side of the school to the other because I missed hearing the noise that the kids and teachers made. And one day, my daughter said to me, “Why are you going out, Mom?” My husband said, “She hasn’t yelled in a long time, she misses it.” I said, “Who yelled?” He said, “I heard your voice from there.” (Laughs) I said, “You heard me?” He said, “Yes, but I didn’t tell you.” Like that. I missed it, you know, it wasn’t easy. But I’m in contact with my students all the time.
Imagine two years ago, I was given a medal on Teacher’s Day awarded by the municipality and after that I saw my students from the first generation at Emin Duraku Elementary School where I worked. They came up to me, “Teacher…” One that was very active, Naza Sejdiu, she organized a get-together that night to go to a coffee shop. And around twelve or fifteen students of that time, who are retired now, were there. I didn’t recognize any of them except Naza. I went there, they… They came after I did, and they said, “Is this our teacher?” I said, “Yes.” (Laughs)
All of them are grown adults now, and I asked, “Which ones were in our class?” I forgot their names, I only worked there for a year. Imagine, I found out there that Isa Mustafa was my student, the former Mayor, and I said, “Isa Mustafa was my student?” “Yes.” They said, “Yes.” I asked, “What kind of student was he?” They said, “Teacher, there was no better student. In elementary school, in high school, in university, he was great.” I said, “Good, I am glad.” You see most of the generations I taught now have retired.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: When did your husband pass away?
Ajten Pllana: What?
Kaltrina Krasniqi: When did you husband pass away?
Ajten Pllana: On January 4, 1994, a long time ago.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: A very long time ago.
Ajten Pllana: Yeah, in his sleep. That night we stayed up til… It was the New Year and they [family] came, so, it was January 3, January 4, did I say January 4? My sister and her husband stayed here for a while. There was also the son and daughter of my brother from Skopje. They stayed til late and he [Ajten’s husband] got up and took my sister and her husband home. They didn’t have a car, [and left] around 12:00 a.m. We asked them to stay over, “We have room.” My sister, “No, no, I can’t,” she says, “We’ll go home.” And he drove them home.
He returned. We stayed up for a while longer, and he gave me a massage. I said, “Give me a massage…” The children were laughing, they said, “She is making you work.” He said, “Go to sleep.” “Now…” he said, “Do you see, now she’s even asking for a massage.” We laughed at that. It was almost 1:00 a.m. when we went to sleep. He said, “I’ll go sleep with your brother’s son upstairs in the bedroom, and, in the morning bring me a cup of tea in bed.” “Okay” I said. This nephew of mine was very devious, he said, “A cup or two cups of tea?” “No, no,” he says, “only one.” “Uncle Gynsel,” referring to my brother, “he drinks two in bed.” “No…” he said, “I never drink tea, but I want a cup of tea tomorrow.” And the girl stayed here [with me].
This room is joined with the other, it’s a living room, but then we covered her and she slept there. I was sleeping here… in the morning, we got up and I told her, “Go upstairs and check if he’s up, so I can bring him the tea.” When she came downstairs, she was very pale. She said, “Aunty,” she said, “come and see, I think he is sleeping.” And immediately I knew what could have happened. When I went there, he had turned on Radio Tirana, it was 8:10. There was soft music playing… he was taking pills for his blood pressure and he hadn’t even touched them, they were still on the nightstand. His body was still warm, he had passed away, 63 years old.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: So young.
Ajten Pllana: Young, young, like this. My children were abroad. It was very hard, it was very hard, all four of my children were abroad. Then my son, who was in a very good high school, was learning. And my daughters were there, Vjollca and Arta. He [the son] came back, so he would not leave me alone, so like this.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Tell me about the book now. Please explain the journey you took to get your book published this year?
Ajten Pllana: Sometimes it seems so ridiculous that I published it. But I don’t know if I told you, I started writing my life stories, as I didn’t have much to do. I usually wake up very early in the morning. I’m a morning person. Around 4:00 or 3:00 am I’m awake and so I write. Once when my daughter in London called me, “What are you doing, Mom?” I said, “I’m writing.” “What are you writing?” I said, “I’m writing my childhood memories, I want to leave it to you to remember me by.” “And what are those?” I said, “Something like stories.”
I told Rron, my daughter’s son in America, that I was writing. Soon after he sent me a beautiful notebook, it is there, and inside there’s a postcard attached to it, in the notebook, and it says… He was born and raised there [in America], he speaks Albanian, but of course only a little. And he said, “Grandma, it’s a perfect plan,” he says, “the fact that you’re writing.” He also said something else. And I said, “I want to make Rron’s wish come true because he was happy I was doing it.” At the time, he was a recent graduate of the Academy of Music there. I said, “I shall write it”.
When Vjollca heard the first three stories, “Very beautiful, mom.” It was about the shoe left on the street, [a memory] from when I was two and a half years old… Now, I don’t remember that day entirely, but I remember the most important part. For me the most important part was that the shoe was on the street. And my mother said, “Leave it!” But I was just a child, instead of taking it, I left it there as my mother said, “Leave the shoe, run!” Planes were flying over, it was April ‘41. And I said, that is exactly how I started writing. Every morning, Vjollca in London asked me, “Mom, are you writing?” “Yes, yes.” “Read it to me.” And I read each one of them, “Very good mom, very interesting, very interesting.”
I said, “Vjollca, daughter…” “Come on, Mom, please write.” And the stories grew, every day I wrote one, two, and I didn’t know in which direction to head because I can remember like five hundred stories from my life. And two years ago when I went [to London], she printed them. She said, “Mom, you know what? Let’s write, write a book.” I said to her, “Are you nuts?” I wrote about sixty years of my life. “Come on…” she says. Then I said, “These aren’t as…” “Very good…” she says, “and the style is somewhat great. It’s not… you don’t have literary aspirations, but it’s very interesting.” I was laughing. We were joking about publishing them and…
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Then?
Ajten Pllana: And then when she came here two years ago, no, last year, I had already started… One day came, what’s her name, Flaka Surroi, she came to drink coffee downstairs and my daughter, Arta, had told her. She said, “You know what, my mother is writing some stories.” “Let me see them”. I showed her, she read the first one and said, “Very good, teacher.” Because she was a pupil at our school. She said, “Continue.” Now my daughter has more courage, you know, and more will, “Finish whatever else you have, Mom, whatever seems more interesting.” Until there were 72, “You know what?” She said, “80 stories, 80 years old, I will celebrate it and make it so it is published on your birthday.” “Vjollca, are you crazy?” I started panicking, “Mom, they’re very interesting.” And that’s how it happened.
Then she sent it to Flaka, the first mock-up print that she did, and she said, “Look at it!” She said, “It’s a special book.” She really, really liked it. Then, of course, it has to undergo editing, I’m not a philologist, nor a linguist… and then the second time when I gave it to her, she said, she appreciated it and liked it. And she said, “It can be published. We will publish it.” That’s how the book got published. I was surprised (laughs). It’s all because of my daughter. She is very determined, very determined and she says, “The book is a gift for your 80th birthday.” We published it with our own money, not like that… and it was published.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: A lot of people have read the book, what are the comments?
Ajten Pllana: What?
Kaltrina Krasniqi: A lot of people have read the book…
Ajten Pllana: Well, how do I know, me… Some people like the stories from childhood a lot. They mention some from school, about our life, about my father’s imprisonment. Then, what is really interesting, the exodus of Albanians to Turkey. My daughter was really impressed, especially with the excursion story, I don’t know if you have read it?
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Yes.
Ajten Pllana: As it seems that was organized on purpose [the exodus of Albanians to Turkey] because there was a time when it stopped for a while. We didn’t have access, we couldn’t go to Turkey. We weren’t allowed to go and not come back, not as a tourist. We didn’t know what it was, what it offered, what Turkey brings about. And when the bus went there and when it came back, and it traveled through the most beautiful places. Turkey had beautiful places, but they didn’t take them to see the poverty, the unemployment… 60 years ago Turkey was very different, it’s nothing like today.
And then there, my brother, when my dad one day, maybe you read this story, one day my father was fed up {touches her nose}. My dad got out of prison, but knew we were always watched. He said, “You know what?” And he went to the [Turkish] Embassy, though there wasn’t one, it was the Turkish Consulate and asked… And he presented the letter of support that a friend had sent to him. They asked him, “What are you, Turkish or Albanian?” “No,” he says, “Albanian,” he says, “a proud Albanian even.” “Albanian, you stay here.” They said, “You can’t go to Turkey.” And when my older brother Amiri found out, who still hadn’t been imprisoned, he got very mad. He said, “Whom did you ask? Whom? We’re not leaving, we will stay in front of their noses. We’re not leaving.” And, in our neighborhood, only our family stayed. The Macedonians came and bought houses and so on. We never left.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Why were they going to Turkey?
Ajten Pllana: What?
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Why were they going…
Ajten Pllana: Why were they going to Turkey? Well, a better life was offered to them… and look, now I see our people writing in newspapers and stuff. Albania wasn’t opening schools for Albanians in Turkey. They weren’t because every day, not a month went by that some leader from Turkey didn’t come once to Skopje and Belgrade. Especially Fuad Koprulu, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs or something, he visited often. And you couldn’t request to reside in Turkey unless someone sent you a support letter and you yourself had to declare at the Embassy, at, at the Consulate that you were Turkish, not that you were Albanian.
All of that was all orchestrated because if they declared themselves Albanian, one day they would ask for their rights and schools and other stuff. So when people ask for schools today, it’s in vain. Why aren’t there schools in the Albanian language? Because you presented yourself as Turkish, they won’t give you schools in Albanian. Those were things that whoever thought them through would not leave. Even though our people were found, most of them, I mean lately the first [emigre] generations, they couldn’t get an education. Rarely, they found employment. It was a struggle for survival, but now they have achieved a lot.
My sister-in-law went with eight of her children. My nephews left and don’t dare ask me how they turned out. They are getting an education and all, but they have lost their identity. Only the older generation are left [with some knowledge of Albanian], like the son and daughter of my sister-in-law. They speak Albanian among themselves, the rest speak Turkish. That’s how it was, those who thought about it more endured that hard life at that time, you know, to not leave the country. Also, there was no awareness, you know, mostly people were uneducated, not calculating, not envisioning the future. Right, so it was like this.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: What did you learn in your 80 years of life?
Ajten Pllana: What?
Kaltrina Krasniqi: What did you learn in your 80 years of life??
Ajten Pllana: Ooh, what I learned, what I learned. Many things (laughs) I learned even through 80 years, 80 (laughs) years of life. To know how to fight for life. If you can, but I’m not a fighter, I’m not like that, and sometimes I think if I had studied more, and if I had that, but again it’s good like this too, right. What else, nothing more concrete than what I was able to achieve, no. I think I’m content with the profession that I chose. I think it’s one of the most noble professions, most valuable even although some, some don’t appreciate it. But being a teacher, working to enlighten three hundred or more kids, it’s something big, something valuable and so on.
Then my kids have achieved a lot, we live a normal life, nothing more. We don’t have megalomaniacal goals to get rich; normal, just a normal life how an intellectual can live it, like this. I traveled the world enough, there, there I saw, I… It could be better, better things could have happened, but I’m not preoccupied, I’m content.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: From your close family, your sisters and brothers, who is left?
Ajten Pllana: I have a brother, a sister, and two brothers that are now both retired. I have their picture in the book. Even the youngest one has retired. He was a journ… albanologist, he worked as a journalist at the Pristina Radio Television. His wife is also an albanologist-journalist, but, when the television station closed, they had to go back to Skopje. They had their children here, two children, and another girl there. So my brother retired a year ago. They took their first steps in Pristina and they have a very nice family.
The other brother that is alive, he is a lawyer and retired. He translates a lot of books of value from Turkish into Macedonian and from Macedonian into Turkish. My big brother, he was the backbone of the family, he died when he was 64, 74 years old. He was a lawyer, he was a political prisoner. The other one was the cyclist, he also died four or five years ago. When I go there [to Skopje], I miss my brothers… Because we, my father didn’t have siblings, my mother was from Presevo living in Skopje. So we didn’t have relatives there.
My father had an old uncle with a daughter and he died in ‘54, he didn’t leave, he only left his daughter behind. And she later got married and studied French. We were very lonely in Skopje, to say, like a single tree in the desert. But the family expanded with all the children, and now the children of the children, and so on. I go there, they come here to visit, and life goes on.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Once more, so it is more accurate. You were born in 1938, right?
Ajten Pllana: ‘38, yes.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: Okay, thank you so much, it was a pleasure talking to you.
Ajten Pllana: Thank you for the time and interest.
Kaltrina Krasniqi: It was so much fun, it was so much fun, thank you so much.
Ajten Pllana: Really? Thank you, thank you.