Rexhep Ferri

Pristina | Date: Fabruary 4 and 5, 2020 | Duration: 203 minutes

Tajar Zavalani translated that [Mother by Maxim Gorky], he understood what communism is and left, then he worked at Radio London. My mother would listen to it a lot, ‘Communism will end today, tomorrow.’ One is inclined to go from one extreme to the other. When we returned to Gjakova… our property was confiscated and my dad, dad, dad did not, he left, he never… he thought that he would be safe in Gjakova, that he would not have to leave his family. From Fadil Hoxha to Sahit Bakalli, they were his schoolmates and worked together as teachers in the Gjakova Highlands.

We met with Sahit Bakalli, before meeting him… and Sahit Bakalli said to him, ‘Look Shaban, you cannot spend the night in Gjakova. We cannot protect you from Serbs and Montenegrins, you are the heir of Jakup Ferri, Hasan Ferri, the brother of Riza Ferri, Shemsi Ferri that have led the war against the partisans, and you also were with them. You have to leave and go to Albania, in Tropoja, where you used to teach, where your in-laws are. This tempest will pass and you’ll be alright somehow.’ He followed him out of the town, my dad left and we stayed.

[…] sometimes when you are lonely, alone, if one person knows two words in Albanian, you think it’s your brother. He would call my mother sister and she would call him brother, and they weren’t even from the same village or city, but from the Gjakova Highlands. Pashkë, Uncle Peshk [Fish] I would call him. He was unlettered, but he smoked like an aristocrat – it seemed to me that way then – with a pipe. My mother sent to him the clothes that she made with the loom to sell and he sent her off with a couple of lies, ‘Ms. Hatixhe, I heard on Radio London yesterday night that a week will not pass and communism will end.’ And that lie would amuse my mother for a week. Next Monday, he would lie to her again, and the years passed, we grew up.

Erëmirë Krasniqi (Interviewer), Kaltrina Krasniqi (Camera), Jakup Ferri (Rexhep Ferri's son), Renea Begolli (Camera assistant)

Rexhep Ferri was born in 1937 in Kukës, Albania. He is a painter and writer. In 1962 his poetry collection Shëtitësit e lodhur [Worn out wanderers] was published in the literary journal Jeta e Re [New Life] in Pristina. From 1966 to 1970, he did his graduate and postgraduate studies at the Department of Monumental Painting, Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade. In 1971, he received the December’s Prize from the Kosovo Assembly. In 1974, he started working at the Academy of Figurative Arts in Pristina. In 1975, he won the Spring Salon Prize awarded by the Figurative Artists’ Association of Kosovo. In 2000, he was elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Kosovo. Mr. Ferri has published several poetry collections and novels. Currently, he lives with his family in Pristina.

Rexhep Ferri

Part One

Rexhep Ferri: Albanian history is more legend rather than history. I say this because not only my generation, but even my grandfather’s generation {moves his hand} was educated and brought up and formed their personality more from legends, myths, rather than from written history. We also learned cursive writing very late, not only in Cyrillic or Latin, or Arabic, because we were always close to the enemy. Among Albanian people, the families that were known before, we remember their doings in history, they had a tragic life, huge faith in, in their life and in, in their manliness to also keep their personality. Those families have finished their mission, so even their graves are almost lost. We don’t have graves, we have a grave in Plav¹ {holds one finger up}. Our origin, our origin is from Plav, Jakup Ferri, there’s one grave {holds one finger up}. But, the generation which kept Albanians in their territory were our patriots who are not like today’s patriots.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Can you explain what they were like?

Rexhep Ferri: They gave everything. A simple example, Haxhi Zeka² in Peja was a very well-known man. They called him Haxhi Zeka Byberi, he didn’t have children and he sold his assets and gave money to other people, “Go buy weapons because I’m old. I don’t have a son to send to war, buy weapons and go to war.” Hasan Prishtina³ used his wealth to be able to do national work, honorable work for his people. Hasan Prishtina was a person who was very well-known even at the sultan’s royal court in Istanbul. So, my family was among these families, these great tragic families. They fought and died during four wars, they fought and died and they didn’t inherit anything. They left us on the streets. I remember as a kid when my father was a teacher in Kukës.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: What year was he there?

Rexhep Ferri: Well 85 years ago, 80 something… I am 83 now.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Mhm, I believe it must be during the ‘40s, 1940.

Rexhep Ferri: I don’t know, no, before that. And as a big family, I have to start with the First Balkan War, when Europe gave Plav and Gusinje to Montenegro, Plav and Gusinje, Ulcinj and Tivar. It gave Kosovo to Serbia, and during that war, three of Jakup Ferri’s⁴ sons and two nephews were killed, my grandfather was in Istanbul, and he came from Istanbul to Shkodra and he gathered his brothers’ family and he took them to Shkodra. At that time in Shkodra, it was my father and two other children of my grandfather’s murdered brothers, Riza Ferri and Shemsi Ferri, my grandfather was Hasan Ferri. They were in school in Shkodra, and Hasan Prishtina, since he was friends with Jakup, with Hasan Ferri, he asked for three of Jakup Ferri’s sons, three of his nephews to let them go study in Italy. My grandfather Hasan didn’t send his son, my father, but he sent the two sons of his murdered brother, Shemsi Ferri and Riza Ferri.

My mother would tell me, she said, “Father was hurt because he was prepared to go study, and they took Riza and Shemsi to Puka {points left} and Migjen there, taking a salary as a teacher.” So he didn’t take my father, my father was sent to Tropoja. He got married in Tropoja. At that time, 90 percent of people of Tropoja weren’t educated, but they had the school of life, much more ethically valuable than what we have today. The teacher who taught, [the educational system] had established a practice. They would send them [the teachers] to open another school somewhere. They took him from Tropoja to Puka {points left} to open a school, my father. They brought a new teacher to Tropoja, he laid some foundations there. From Puka, they took him to Kukës, where I was born.

I remember in Kukës, I was three years old, two years old, and the first thing I remember, I remember that the house we were renting was a two-story oriental house. We were on the second floor and the windows were facing a main street, a long street, it seemed like a long street to me. I’m talking about when I was three years old, two and a half years old. I remember when my mother went to the window, and so did I, and she beat me {moves his hand} and I remember a little old woman {holds up his finger} who always stayed close to me, she was my grandmother, my mother’s mother. I don’t remember if she had a face, or not. I just know she was small and had a dark brown dress with white polka dots, that’s all I remember. [I remember her] like a silhouette, now I’m talking figuratively like it was the beginning (laughs) of this that I became a painter.

And then the war of Italy got to Albania, Hitler was on the other side, and then the border broke and somehow it became, not Greater Albania, we shouldn’t say that, but Ethnic Albania, because it’s more clear and more correct. Ethnic Albania, Albania of those Albanians, of the lands that are theirs. And Ernest Koliqi⁵ was a very honorable writer, a very respected figure from Shkodra, he studied in Italy, at that time he was Minister of Culture and Education. Even though it was Italy’s reign, they put Albanians [in lead positions] in institutions and he brought Albanian school to Kosovo, and all of those Albanians who originated from Kosovo, and when I say from Kosovo, you don’t know, and a lot of Albanians from Kosovo don’t know that, Kosovo is called all the land outside of the border that today is Albania. Mujo Ulqinaku,⁶ from Ulcinj who was killed in Durrës, is referred to as Kosovar.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: This was a term that was used to refer to…

Rexhep Ferri: For everyone, since Kosovo was a bigger territory, and all other territories {opens his hands} that were not inside the border of Albania were called Kosovars and Kosovo. Now there are Albanians from Montenegro, Albanians from Kosovo, Albanians from Macedonia, Albanians from Presevo, like a mahalla.⁷ And they appointed my father to go to Plav and open an Albanian school.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: So he went back to his family?

Rexhep Ferri: Eh. And we went back, we went back. I remember, I don’t remember how we went back, I just remember in Prizren at the fountain, the truck that took us there stopped near a tree, it was a truck or I don’t know what. My mother was with me and my brother, I was three, four years old, my sisters were born later in Plav. My father went back to Plav, he left when he was ten years old and then he went back to open an Albanian school. In all of those territories there, in villages, in Plav, Gusinje, he opened Albanian schools there. My three sisters were born in Plav, and I don’t remember, but my mother does, my father took out a lira⁸ {pretends to take something out of his pocket} he had in his pocket and gave it to…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Your mother.

Rexhep Ferri: My mother, he said, “Put it somewhere in the drawer,” and I saw it and went and took it, I went to the city and I looked for a necklace {touches his neck}, necklace with charms like sweets for my sister, for Drita who has passed away, and I asked for a necklace. He said, he said to me… I don’t remember this but my mother said that the owner of the store said to me {as if he’s holding a coin}, “Take this to your mother and tell her you wanted to buy a necklace for your sister, but this coin doesn’t work, take other coins and come back.” And I said to my mother, “This doesn’t work, I wanted to buy it.” This is my first memory. Then a later memory when people came over to our house, our yard would be crowded because we were a big house. The popularity sometimes comes at a cost.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you have family in Plav when you went back?

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, we were…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: I mean extended family.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, extended family, we were, Jakup Ferri’s nephews had grown up, they were {counts with his fingers} of them was head of Balli Kombëtar,⁹ the other was the mayor, my father was the director of the school, of all schools there, volunteer leader, they went to war, to fight, it was war time. They came to our yard, we had a big yard. They could come with horse carriages, we didn’t have an army, a disciplined army with generals, officers, with, with… they came to take corn, they took it as if they were in their own house, they took as much as they wanted for the soldiers. And these were the paths of the patriots of those times, not the ones that are now.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How was the Second World War reflected in your yard? I’m interested to know how they were organized?

Rexhep Ferri: And it was, it was, he had, our family had connection with the village {points straight} of Zenun Çelaj, Qosja.

Kaltrina Krasniqi: Plav?

Rexhep Ferri: No, no the village…

Kaltrina Krasniqi: Gusinje?

Rexhep Ferri: No, no, Gusinje is a small town, this one, where is Rexhep Qosja¹⁰ from?

Jakup Ferri: Vuthaj, no?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Vuthaj.

Rexhep Ferri: Vuthaj, we were mostly connected to Vuthaj, we had friendships with them and always… Because there’s a tragedy within the Albanian nation that for centuries has cost us, then and now. Back then in Plav and Gusinje, they spoke Serbian, because Albanian was considered a peasant language. There was no one educated in Albanian schools, there were Bosniaks and even in Plav and Gusinje, Serbian language was spoken, in the villages of Plav and Gusinje up to Vuthaj Albanian was spoken, and they were Albanians as well. And everyone from the village came to our house because they were volunteers in the war, and there was a man Çelaj, a cousin of Zenun Çelaj, and my mother gave him food, he left five bullets, the bullet package {shows with his hands} for my father. “Give these to Shaban because I’m going to war and I will not come back,” he said to my mother. He felt it.

After two or three hours I’m guessing, not more, within a day, I remember they brought his body to our yard. My mother took a sheet and puts it over his clothes {shows with his hands} because he was wearing tirqi¹¹ and they covered him and took him away. And I remember when I got sick once, these were my first memories in Plav, there would come… I don’t know what to call them, they weren’t beggars but some kind of fortune tellers, they would walk around {moves his hands in front of him}. They came, my mother and I went outside and they looked at me, they looked to see if there was any radiation of life or not, how do I know, I was very little. The ground underneath my feet started trembling {shakes his hands} and there was a wood stub near and I hopped there to save myself, I was so little that I thought that’s how I’ll save myself because the ground was trembling. And I yelled and got sick, and I know I suffered from that trauma for a long time.

And then, when the war ended. I can’t judge Albanians why they went to war in Spain {raises his hand to the left} to make Spain communist, while in their own state, their nation was a mess, they had nothing in their hands. But anyway, at that time, it was idealized to be a communist, all youth of Europe had communist ideals.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did these ideas circulate, do you have any…

Rexhep Ferri: Well, in Albania at that time, Tajar Zavalani translated Mother by Maxim Gorky. All the youth of Albania who were in school were reading Mother by Maxim Gorky. In the morning when they saw that your eyes were a little swollen {touches his eyes}, “Ah, he read last night, he didn’t sleep all night, he read.” {points to himself} Tajar Zavalani who translated it, realized early on what communism is and took off and started working for Radio London. My mother listened to it a lot, {puts his hand at his ear} “Communism will fall today, communism will fall tomorrow.” How people go from one extreme to another. When we went back to Gjakova…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did you decide to go to Gjakova, or how, how did it come to that…

Rexhep Ferri: Because they confiscated all our wealth and my father, my father didn’t, my father left, he didn’t… he thought he would be safe in Gjakova, that he wouldn’t need to leave his family because starting from Fadil Hoxha¹² to Sahit Bakalli,¹³ they were classmates and he was a teacher along with them in the Gjakova Highlands. We met Sahit Bakalli, before we met them… and Sahit Bakalli said, “Look, Shaban, you can’t be in Gjakova tonight. We can’t save you from Serbs and Montenegrins, because you are Jakup Ferri’s nephew, Hasan Ferri’s, Riza Ferri’s brother, Shemsi Ferri’s brother, who led the war against partisans and you were with them. You have to go to Albania, to Tropoja, where you were a teacher, where your in-law family is and maybe this will pass and you will be safe somehow.” He accompanied him out of the city and my father went there, and we remained there.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: You stayed in Gjakova?

Rexhep Ferri: We stayed in Gjakova. My mother would work all night with a loom, she would take it on Monday morning to a highlander, but sometimes when a person is lonely, if there is a person who knows a few Albanian words, it feels like he’s your brother. He would call my mother sister and she would call him brother, they weren’t even from the same village or city, but from Gjakova Highlands. Pashkë, I would call him Uncle Peshk [Fish]. He didn’t go to school, but he would smoke {pretend to smoke} like an aristocrat — it seemed so to me — with a pipe. And my mother would sell those clothes to him, the ones she made with the loom, and he would tell her a bunch of lies, “Mrs. Hatixhe, I heard on the Radio London last night that communism won’t last even the week tap-rrap {onomatopoeia}.” And my mother would get through that week with that lie. Then the next Monday would come and he would tell her another lie, and years went by, we grew up.

1 Plav and Gusinje, a locality in Montenegro with a large Albanian population.

2 Haxhi Zeka (1832-1902) was an Albanian nationalist leader and member of the League of Peja, an alliance which in 1899 tried to negotiate autonomy for Albanians within the Ottoman Empire. In this process, a truce was declared among people involved in feuds in order to unite against the Ottomans.

3 Hasan Prishtina (1873-1933) was an Albanian politician, known as Hasan Berisha before he became the Prishtina delegate to the Ottoman Parliament. He led the 1912 uprising in Kosovo against the Young Turks and after the declaration of independence of Albania he held several posts in the Albanian government including the one of Prime Minister. He was assassinated in Thessaloniki on the orders of King Zog.

4 Jakup Ferri (c.1832 – 1879) was a notable Albanian fighter from Plav and Gusinje who served as a local leader in the League of Prizren‘s resistance during the Principality of Montenegro‘s attempt to subjugate his homeland in 1879. He was distinguished in the Battle of Novšiće, where he died.

5 Ernest Koliqi (1903-1975) was a Shkodra-born writer and a poet educated in Italy and a citizen of Italy after the advent of Communism in Albania. During the Second World War he was Minister of Education of the Albanian Kingdom, which included a large part of Kosovo.

6 Mujo Ulqinaku (born Mujo Cakuli; 1896-1939) was an Albanian sergeant of the Royal Albanian Navy, known for his resistance on 7 April 1939 to the Italian forces during the Italian invasion of Albania. He was given the People’s Hero of Albania award posthumously.

7 Word of Arabic origin that means neighborhood.

8 Lira is the name of several currency units. It is the current currency of Turkey and the name of the former currencies, including those of Italy, Malta and Israel. The term originates from the value of a Roman pound (Latin: libra, about 329g, 10.58 troy ounces) of high purity silver.

9 Balli Kombëtar (National Front) was an Albanian nationalist, anti-communist organization established in November 1942, an insurgency that fought against Nazi Germany and Yugoslav partisans. It was headed by Midhat Frashëri, and supported the unification of Albanian inhabited lands.

10 Rexhep Qosja (1936) is an Albanian writer and literary critic from a part of Malësia in modern Montenegro (where locally the region is known as Malesija).

11 Tight-fitting embroidered white flannel breeches with decorative braids at the bottom of the legs and on the pockets, traditional Albanian wear.

12 Fadil Hoxha (1916-2001) was an Albanian Communist partisan leader from Gjakova, who held a number of high posts in Kosovo and Yugoslavia, including the rotating post of Vice President of the Federal Presidency, the highest leadership post in Yugoslavia under Tito, in 1978-79. He retired in 1986, but was expelled from the League of Communist on charges of nationalism.

13 Founding member of OZNA in Kosovo (Serb. Odsjek za Zaštitu Naroda). OZNA an acronym for Department of National Security, the Yugoslav security service operating between 1944 and 1946, notorious for the establishment of a regime comparable to the KGB terror in Russia.

Part Two

Erëmirë Krasniqi: We were talking about the news your mother would get about communism.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Can you explain this, is this about the hope she had for communism to end and the family would be together again?

Rexhep Ferri: Well, for those who lose the war, losing the war of those who won, is a win for them. The loss of communism, in other words, the influence of the Slavs in the Albanian lands would lose its value, would lose its rule. Because in Gjakova, communists from Gjakova from Fadil Hoxha¹ and on, they couldn’t protect my father from Serbs, and they said, “Leave within the night, Shaban.” And hope keeps people going, and honestly we were brought up by a mother who wasn’t educated, who didn’t have a profession, profitable profession, yes. And we grew up on bad terms with the people in power.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: They were on bad terms with you.

Rexhep Ferri: They would come to check in on us during the night from SUP,² some of them were illiterate, they worked for them and they would come to check in on us.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Would they ask you questions? What kind of check-up was it?

Rexhep Ferri: “Where is your husband?” They would ask my mother. And my mother would not open the door. A neighbor of ours was communist, Qumil Xuna. She would say, “Go call Qamil Xuna, I will open the door for him, I will not open the door for you.” They came, they would come time after time and then we were forced to leave Gjakova and go to my [maternal] aunt, a village ten kilometers outside of Gjakova, Bobaj in Boga, to get away from them.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Yes, yes.

Rexhep Ferri: But they would come there as well, because they were also from villages. And I don’t know when they took them, they took the gramophone {counts on his fingers}, they took the radio, they took the records. Zogu³ had published around five gramophone records, for big gramophones {shows the size with his hands} in Bulgaria, at first the plaques were published in Albanian and they took them. The typewriter, in all of Gjakova there might have been two typewriters {shows two fingers}, my mother had my father’s typewriter. One of them took them, my mother remembered. I’ll tell this story later or I will continue…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Continue.

Rexhep Ferri: I will continue. After 30 years or 25 years, the person who took it was now working as a person who comes to see how much electricity you spent. And my mother recognized him, even though so many years had passed, and she said, “Come on in,” she said, “I want to make you a coffee.” He was shocked, he…. What does this woman want? At this point my mother was older, back then she was young and beautiful. “No, no,” she said, “come on, do you remember when you came?” She said, “You took,” she said, {counts with his fingers} “My husband’s typewriter, the radio, gramophone, the vinyl records, this and that,” she said, “and you never brought them back.” Now he didn’t…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: He wasn’t in power anymore.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, and I thought, “Who is this woman talking to, who is she bickering with?” I went out and saw them, he was in the doorway {puts his hand in front of himself}, she didn’t let him come in, she said all of this to him in the doorway, he didn’t even check how much electricity we had spent. He was a fat man, red, he got even more red from embarrassment. I know that he had a red face like he looked straight at the sun. And he left, he didn’t check the electricity or anything. So within that time, the time when he came to measure our spendings, my 17-year-old brother was in the same class as Ali Podrimja⁴ and they talked about leaving, going to Albania. It was interesting in Serbia’s time, when Fadil Hoxha went there, and all of them, they went to school there because there wasn’t an Albanian school in Kosovo. My mother-in-law was in a Serbian school in Pristina in the first grade.

Ali Podrimja didn’t go, he went to Besim Bokshi, his professor, and told him he wants to go to Albania and he said, “Yes, but these poems you’re writing here…” Because he would take some poems he wrote to his professor to check them out, if they’re good or not, “You can’t write these poems there.” And my brother went to Albania alone and met my father after three months. Ehee {onomatopoeia}. My father, my father had authority there, he was best friends with Aleks Buda.⁵ In Aleks Buda’s book, Aleks Buda writes how he visited him. I had five New Year’s cards that Aleks Buda sent to Shaban Ferri as the President of the Academy of Sciences, in a small box {shows the size with his hands}. But you, you lost them [addresses Jakup] (laughs).

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Could you tell us more about your father now that you’re talking about your brother, how much information did you have about him and what kind of life did he have there?

Rexhep Ferri: We knew he was alive… He went there in 1944, me and my mother accompanied until he left the city, he had a gray coat, a fedora {puts his hand to his head}, there was a lot of wind, he didn’t button up his coat {touches his chest}, he had a bag on his shoulder {touches his shoulder}, and said, “Go.” {moves his hand forward} Back then, he didn’t wave, because women back then were a bit more, they weren’t like today, back then women didn’t go to coffee shops alone, now they do that, it’s good, I like it.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: So was more reserved.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, this was in ‘44. We found out he was alive in 1955.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Uaaa {onomatopoeia}.

Rexhep Ferri: After eleven years, we found out that our father is alive.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How, how, where did the news come from, what was the source?

Rexhep Ferri: Ah, the border between Tropoja and Gjakova is 20 kilometers. My mother was in Gjakova, my grandmother was in Tropoja. After ten or fifteen years, my mother found out her mother died. That’s how wild the border was, not wild…. It doesn’t seem real. I thought of Edith Durham⁶ now, when she heard in Shkodra, when she traveled for the first time to Albania she heard the song about the Kosovo woman who had killed, because it was a family from Kosovo, her husband and her two sons, because her husband killed, no handed over her two brothers, you know that song?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Yes, yes.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, when she heard, “When I stabbed my husband, I felt like my brothers have risen from the dead, but when I stabbed my son, I felt as if I plucked out my own eyes” and when Edith Durham heard it she said, “Is it true or fictional?” “No,” they said, “it’s true, it happened in Shkodra. We will take you to see the house where it happened.” So these realities of the border that I’m talking about, people can’t perceive them as truths, but as fiction, as if it’s a novel, fantasy, that’s how harsh that border was. But even with all those difficulties, all that poverty of that time, people had more personality than they do now. People were closer to one another than they are now, and they were more generous than they are now. They shared good and bad together and all of these difficult times had a way out, hope kept them alive.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did you get the news that your father is alive, who told you?

Rexhep Ferri: My [maternal] uncle sent us a picture of my father, we still have it.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Through whom?

Rexhep Ferri: Huh?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Through whom, from whom did it come, was there any communication?

Rexhep Ferri: That uncle, we didn’t share a last name, so he wrote to my mother, “There, I sent you a picture of Shaban.” He didn’t say your husband, but he said in a way a photograph of your father, or brother, or so on. But we received and we recognized our father.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: So it was possible to send letters?

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, but it would take six months for a letter to arrive. And my brother, my brother didn’t suffer in Albania thanks to my father, because my father was a diplomat, he knew what kind of regime he was living in and how he should preserve his personality. To be content with what he had at the moment. We received an education in Gjakova, my mother suffered a lot for my brother who went to Albania because he was young.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Were you surprised by his decision to go to Albania, or was it…

Rexhep Ferri: Of course we were surprised. And he, “In that instant,” he said, “when the soldier came to get me,” because he left on his own, he said, “I regretted it.”

Erëmirë Krasniqi: An albanian soldier?

Rexhep Ferri: He said, “He was worse than Serbian soldiers.” “Huh, you came to die, lock him in, ding.” {pretends to throw something forcefully} Instead of asking if he wants water or something, no, just {moves his hand}. So, we went to school.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: In Gjakova?

Rexhep Ferri: In Gjakova, yes. I, in the beginning, there were books and literature. I’m not saying, because Naim Frashëri⁷ is like a father of romanticism for Albanians, but I liked Mjeda⁸ more.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Mjeda.

Rexhep Ferri: Mjeda’s poetry inspired me to start writing.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: What would you write, and did you start writing at an early age?

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, it was in elementary school.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Would you just reflect or were they also…

Rexhep Ferri: And it’s strange that I loved books more than I read books.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Just as objects (laughs).

Rexhep Ferri: I mentioned a weakness of mine. Lis, my grandchild that I mentioned, reads more than I did at his age. But back then it was a hard time. When I went to school in Peja, there was only one book at the bookstore in Gjakova, Tufa by Latif Berisha, there were no books in Albanian. 99 percent of people in Gjakova were Albanian, the library was full of books in Serbian, only one book {holds on finger up} in Albanian, {shows the thickness of the book with his finger} a 30-page booklet. When I went to high school in Peja, but I’ll tell you about Peja later. A professor of mine sees my drawings, not my art professor, but another professor who had studied in Italy. He didn’t finish school because war had started. But, he had seen the world a little, “You should go to Shkolla e Mesme e Artit.”⁹ {shrugs} Shkolla e Mesme e Artit, that was the first time I heard of Shkolla e Mesme e Artit. Then I started hanging out with other students who were better at drawing, in other classrooms, drawing together and so on… I went to Peja and took the entrance exam.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did you decide, did your family support you?

Rexhep Ferri: My mother, my mother, yes. With my mother and no money. I entered the exam, I got accepted, and there was boarding offered. I started very early to try and make money for myself, and it was very easy to design the signages of different companies {raises his hand as if he’s writing} barbershops, different shops… I would design those, and I would earn a little money to live, to pay. My mother would send me some. Qumil Xuna, our neighbor, got my mother a job in Gjakova, in the tobacco factory, folding. And we made it somehow, I finished high school thinking it would end there and I would go to Skivjan. Skivjan is a village in the direction of Peja, before you get to Gjakova, about three or five kilometers before you enter Gjakova. I thought I would buy a bicycle and I will teach in that school, because in Gjakova they would hire their own people. That was all I could dream of…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Within the realm of possible.

Rexhep Ferri: It was more likely to happen and that was the future of my life.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Let’s stick with the Shkolla e Mesme e Artit, can you tell us more about the school environment, since it was an institution…

Rexhep Ferri: Look, I’m not saying that the professors wanted us, they were all Serbians.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Was it in both Albanian and Serbian or how?

Rexhep Ferri: No, no, it was in Serbian.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Ah, okay.

Rexhep Ferri: It was in Serbian. All the professors were Serbian, and some of those professors were children of chetniks.¹⁰ But forming a personality doesn’t let you embarrass yourself, I don’t remember a professor at the Shkolla e Mesme e Artit, there were a lot of Serbians there because Gjakova, Peja was full of Montenegrins then. So half of them were Montenegrins and some Albanians, there was only one Albanian girl. They did not look at us condescently, they looked at us the same, none of the professors, not even in Belgrade {points behind him}. Except one person bothered me once, it doesn’t matter. It was a good school, after school, this is how poverty affects you. I couldn’t even dream that I could study because Belgrade was very far away back then.

When I say far, I was, I started working as a teacher in Pozheran, Pozheran is near Ferizaj {points left} and on New Year’s Eve, in the morning, on December 21, at 8:00 I went to wait for the bus to go to Ferizaj, to go to Gjakova for New Year’s Eve and I ended up in Prizren, I couldn’t get to Gjakova. That’s why I said Belgrade was very far then. And when I got to Prizren at 7:00, 8:00 in the evening there was nothing I could do. The hotel was prepared for New Year’s Eve, the tickets were sold out and so on. At the fountain, there was a two-story coffee shop, on the second floor, there were three small rooms for like fakira,¹¹ like for poor people. I took a room there to sleep, I got down, I ate, I didn’t smoke, but I had taken a book with me, I always had books with me, I didn’t read them properly, often {pretend to flip through the pages} I would not read some pages.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: What happened?

Rexhep Ferri: When the book was too thick, I couldn’t finish it. So, I told this as a story to show how far and how unreachable it was for my imagination to go study in Belgrade. But there was a time in the ‘50s, ‘55, ‘58 when they were firing professors, “No, you’re not fit to educate the youth, you’re unsuited…”

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Ideologically unsuited.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, yes. Back then, I was friends with an Albanian language professor, Kadri Kusari, he passed away 20-30 years ago, he died 30 years ago, he was in prison for ten years… and he said to me, “Rexhep, leave Kosovo as soon as possible or you will go to prison.”

Erëmirë Krasniqi: As a family persecuted by the government.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes. “But, how?” “You’ll find a way, you’ll find a way.” When he finished school there, he was familiar with Belgrade. When I left for the entrance exam in Belgrade, my [maternal] aunt, Nasibe, accompanied me to the bus station, because my mother, the first time {raises his finger} my mother was in the hospital. And when she said, because before I left, a day before or so, I went to see her in the hospital. When I told her I’m going, she told me where the money was, “Take this money.” I took half of it, and left the other half. Nasibe, my aunt accompanied me, she brought me a towel and Kadri Kusari {pretends to take off his hand watch}, he took his hand watch off and gave it to me. He was the reason I went, “Leave!” But back then, there was a lot of trust in friendships. I trusted him as if he were my father or my big brother and I listened to his advice. I listened to his advice twice, when I went to study and when I left before the flag in ‘64.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: ‘64.

Rexhep Ferri: Then I…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Wasn’t it in ‘68?

Rexhep Ferri: What?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: In ‘68, I know, but…

Rexhep Ferri: No, no, for the flag in ‘68 Adem Demaçi¹² put 120 people in prison.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Yes, yes I know.

Rexhep Ferri: They sew the flags in Turkey, they sew ten in Turkey and God knows where they sewed the rest, but anyway, let’s not get into this because politics are dangerous. And in Belgrade…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: What did he tell you in ‘64, what kind advice did he give you?

Rexhep Ferri: Well I came for vacation from Belgrade, in Kosovo started, in cities of Kosovo there were organizations about…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Unification of Lands…

Rexhep Ferri: For sewing and distributing flags.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: (laughs)

Rexhep Ferri: And in Gjakova, there was, I think Kadri Kusari was the lead in Gjakova. When he saw me…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: The professor, was he also involved in this action?

Rexhep Ferri: Huh?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: The professor or friend, was he also involved in this action?

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, he was the lead in Gjakova. “What the hell,” he said, “brought you here?” I said, “The vacation, Kadri.” “You,” he said, “leave tomorrow. I don’t wanna see you here tomorrow.” I brought some clothes to my mother for washing, she washed them, they were wet, I took the wet clothes and left. So he saved my life twice, but he didn’t save himself. I didn’t have an older brother but I consider him as one, and I grew up without a father but I never… My mother was so strong that I never felt the absence of my father, because I knew he was alive.

1 Fadil Hoxha (1916-2001), Albanian Communist partisan leader from Gjakova, who held a number of high posts in Kosovo and Yugoslavia, including the rotating post of Vice President of the Federal Presidency, the highest leadership post in Yugoslavia under Tito, in 1978-79. He retired in 1986, but was expelled from the League of Communist on charges of nationalism.

2 SUP – Acronym for Sekretarijat unutrašnjih poslova, which translates to the Secretariat of Internal Affairs, of the Yugoslav Socialist Federal Republic.

3 Zog I (1895-1961) born Ahmed Muhtar bey Zogolli, taking the name Ahmet Zogu in 1922, was the leader of Albania from 1922 to 1939. At age 27, he first served as Albania’s youngest ever prime minister (1922–1924), then as president (1925–1928), and finally as king (1928–1939).

4 Ali Podrimja (1942 – 2012) was an Albanian poet. He was born in Gjakova, Kosovo. In the early ‘80s, he published the masterful collection Lum Lumi (1982), which marked a turning point not only in his own work but also in contemporary Kosovo verse as a whole.

5 Aleks Buda (1910-1993) was an Albanian historian. After completion of his education in Italy and Austria, he returned to Albania. Although his education was in literature, he made a career as a historian during the socialist period in Albania. He was a member and president of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.

6 Mary Edith Durham (1863-1944) was a British traveler, artist, and writer who became famous for her anthropological writings about life in Albanian lands in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

7 Naim Frashëri was an Albanian poet and writer (1846-1990) He was one of the most prominent figures of the Rilindja Kombëtare (National Awakening), the nineteenth century Albanian national movement, together with his two brothers Sami and Abdyl. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Albania.

8 Ndre Mjeda (1866-1937) was an Albanian philologist, poet, priest, Rilindas, translator and writer of the Albanian Renaissance.

9 Shkolla e Mesme e Artit, the Arts High School in Peja was built in 1926 and opened in 1949. The first generations of visual artists in Kosovo received their education in figurative and applicative arts from this institution. This education enabled the artists to continue higher education in arts. The historical building of the Art High School in Peja was destroyed in August, 2017.

10 Serbian movement born in the beginning of the Second World War, under the leadership of Draža Mihailović. Its name derives from četa, anti-Ottoman guerrilla bands. This movement adopted a Greater Serbia program and was for a limited period an anti-occupation guerrilla, but mostly engaged in collaboration with Nazi Germany, its major goal remaining the unification of all Serbs. It was responsible for a strategy of terror against non-Serbs during the Second World War and was banned after 1945. Mihailović was captured, tried and executed in 1946.

11 Turk.: fakira, poor man.

12 Adem Demaçi (1936-2018) was an Albanian writer and politician and longtime political prisoner who spent a total of 27 years in prison for his nationalist beliefs and political activities. In 1998 he became the head of the political wing of the Kosovo Liberation Army, from which he resigned in 1999.

Part Three

Rexhep Ferri: In Belgrade, the professors were very humane and very professional and they didn’t differentiate based on where you’re from, are you Serbian, or Croat, or Slovenian, or Albanian or whatever. What they felt inside I don’t know, but we didn’t notice anything. Actually, I’ll tell you a story that Serbia and Serbs today are not like they used to be. In my second year, my classmates tell me, “Ferri, take our indeks¹ to Doctor Pavlo Vasić to sign them.” Because Serbs from Belgrade were more spoiled, “When he sees you, he won’t get mad and he will sign them.” How would I go, I was never in the professors’ room. I knocked on the door. He was old, he was a doctor of art poetics, he studied Art History at the Academy of Arts in Paris. His glasses had slipped down {touches his glasses} and he said, “Come on in, Ferri, why are you entering in such a shy manner?” He was writing something on the table. “You’re older than Greeks in the Balkans.”

Erëmirë Krasniqi: As an Albanian, right?

Rexhep Ferri: Back then, this opinion of his was not in my top list where I have it now, but I never forgot it, and he signed them. There is no Serb today that would say what Doctor Pavlo Vasić said then, that you’re older than Greeks in the Balkans. We were lucky to have such professors.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Can you tell me a little about the background of these professors, because I know that many of them were educated in big European cities and then they taught in Belgrade? What was that experience of being educated from an academic staff like that? How different was that educational experience from the one you had here? Can you tell us about the transition you had from here to going to a place like Belgrade and getting exposed to such advanced ideas?

Rexhep Ferri: Of course, most of the Serbian people weren’t as educated, there was only the elite of the pre-war aristocrats who educated their children. So, my classmates, we were the same, but the difference between the professors we had in Belgrade and the ones in Paris was very small. Because I also was at the Académie des Beaux Arts as an assistant later, and I saw what the professors were like there and what my professors were like in Belgrade, because they were educated [there]. Emancipation does its thing, education does its thing, trusting the rreth² where you live and the energy among the people you communicate with has an impact. If you sit next to a fire with a big flame, there’s more red light on your face rather than dim light.

So, it was a time which I think was golden and, of course, when I finished it in ‘66, ‘67, I had forgotten about Skivjan, that I would become a teacher in Skivjan, I didn’t even think about Pristina, I wanted to go to Paris. And my mother, who also was from a big family with tragedies, her father was also killed, also from my father’s side [of the family], I had a lot of respect, not only because she was my mother, but I had respect for her life. She didn’t know if her husband was alive or not for eleven years. She never said how could my husband leave me on the streets with children. Never! We all have mothers, you have mothers too, but there are mothers who have suffered a lot. I wrote something recently about a mother whose four sons were killed. Did they know why they were getting killed? For this day?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Mister Ferri, can we go back to Belgrade for…

Rexhep Ferri: Belgrade, regardless of the rapports, how much Albanians suffered from the friendship and enmity with Serbs, for me, for those of us who studied in Belgrade, Belgrade was the city of our youth and I have many memories from Belgrade, because I was in the circle of poets, writers, of people who were emancipated and cultured. And they had creative personalities and most of them were older than me. I also hung out with my professor and I learned from them, and I always wanted to be friends with people who knew more than me. Not to steal from them, but to listen to something I haven’t before and not miss out on something that is valuable for life, and learn when it’s possible.

When life allows you, I mean, take the opportunity to learn when you can. In creativity everything starts from rags. Vasko Popa,³ he was a great poet, he has a poem, “Bring back my rags.” And I learned a lot from those people who knew more than I did. I feel sorry that I came so late and was not able to realize my potential as I would have wished to.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Why do you have this feeling?

Rexhep Ferri: Huh?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Why do you feel you’re late?

Rexhep Ferri: Well, you know why? I see that in my compositions I’ve written poems during the ‘60s. During the ‘70s, I started to write prose, in the ‘80s, I also published novels. During the ‘90s, 2000, 2010, I started writing essays. I had works with which I could open many exhibitions but I didn’t. When the demonstrations started, I had an exhibition scheduled in Paris. The demonstrations started, and I couldn’t open the second exhibition in Paris. So, in a way I was just a second late, but for a second, I didn’t get the gold medal, someone else took it.

This is not not jealousy, it’s a regret why I didn’t make more of myself, because I could have done more, I had self-confidence. I got rid of my jealousy when I talked to the gallerist in Paris in ‘77, when Le Monde newspaper wrote about it. In the Le Monde, and the gallerist took me across the street to drink a coffee, because he was looking after his own interests. It was a three steps walk, and during those three steps he said, “It’s a shame you’re not Spanish.” He mainly felt sorry for himself, because he could have sold the paintings more expensively and faster [if I were Spanish]. “But you’re Albanian, an unknown nation.”

Back then, Kadare’s book Gjenerali i ushtrisë së vdekur [The General of the Dead Army] had just come out in French and, in the exhibit Alain Bosquet⁴ has opened for me, he was the first to write about Ismail Kadare⁵ because they were very good friends. And that statement, that it’s too bad I’m not Spanish, the Spanish weren’t going to hinder me. At that time, Picasso, Salvador Dali, Miró were alive in Paris, hundreds and hundreds of world-known artists, museums all over the world were filled with their paintings. But what would bother me was an X, Y in Pristina, or an X, Y in Tirana, and that gallerist, because this happened many years ago…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: 40…

Rexhep Ferri: No, 50 years or more, 50 years, in ‘77.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: 40, 43 no, more. (laughs)

Rexhep Ferri: He helped me a lot with a word that I didn’t even reply to, he didn’t say a thing, we drank coffee together and, from that day on, maybe not exactly that day, but gradually, I buried my jealousy, egoistic jealousy. Not jealousy, but if I see that you’re ahead of me and I ask Rexhep Ferri to work two, three hours more than I already have in order to get ahead of you. Just like in competitions, you run three hours a day for a second, I have to run four hours a day to pass you. This is not jealousy.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Constructive, constructive jealousy.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: It helps you develop further.

Rexhep Ferri: It’s very constructive and very human. That’s why Belgrade and Paris helped me. When I first went to Paris, Paris was still a city of art. Culture after the ‘80s, since 1980 and on, or even now, it has started to not be very research-based, because people now don’t have time for something very thorough. If life had one hundred flavors, today it has one thousand flavors. People are trying in every way, from moral to immoral, they use everything trying to get famous, to materialize their life. It’s not about fulfilling life anymore, it’s about materializing it. This division happened in the 20th century, my son tells me, “Why are you so dramatic with your art and so on,” but my life is very dramatic.

The first year of studies in Belgrade, in the sculpture class, our professor assigned us to sculpt portraits of each-other, and a Macedonian sculpted my portrait, the professor looked at it and said, “Prava rimsak glava,” a real Roman head, rough. Roman soldiers were very disciplined, life made them rough. I don’t have it here to show you. That portrait there {points right} is big but it’s in a book page, there. Albanians’ portraits aren’t soft {touches his face}, they seem like they’re cut with an ax, engraved rram, rram, bam, bam {onomatopoeia} and the tougher life gets, spiritually as well [becomes], not only tougher, but also more powerful, because you want to resist, it’s with untamed blood. The friend who helped open an exhibition in Paris, he was a friend of…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Kadare?

Rexhep Ferri: Kadare, the last time I met him in Paris, in his house, he told me about a friend of his from Croatia, about [Miroslav] Krleža,⁶ that he will publish a book. He said, “Krleža’s masterpiece will be published in French, all the others have been published, but the masterpiece.” It was more voluminous. He said, “I’m scared that the French people will not receive it well, even though he is the greatest writer in the Balkans.”

Erëmirë Krasniqi: He was also very important for art in that moment when art parted ways from realism and….

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, yes, it was him.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: He made the main discussion.

Rexhep Ferri: Him and Tito. Krleža was the only person who said to Tito, “You”[singular], not, “You”[plural] and Tito listened to him and… “He’s the greatest writer,” he said, “but, it’s a little tough for us French, because our blood has tamed.” Our blood was still untamed. My son has a tamed blood, your generation because thankfully you have these opportunities, if only we can survive these people who made Kosovo a mess. So, my art until five or eight years ago was more dramatic and it had less, I can’t say less color, but all the colors were hidden inside a color, two colors, three colors because there was pain in everything.

1 Indeks were personal booklets issued to students under the old university system. It was used both as a student ID and grade register.

2 Rreth (circle) is the social circle, it includes not only the family but also the people with whom an individual is in contact. The opinion of the rreth is crucial in defining one’s reputation.

3 Vasile “Vasko” Popa (1922-1991) was a Serbian poet of Romanian origin. Popa wrote in a modernist style that referred more to Serbian surrealism and popular traditions.

4 Alain Bosquet, born Anatoliy Bisk (1919 – 1998), was a French poet.

5 Ismail Kadare (1936) is an Albanian novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter, and playwright. He is a leading international literary figure and intellectual. He focused on poetry until the publication of his first novel, The General of the Dead Army, which made him famous internationally.

6 Miroslav Krleža was a Croatian writer and a prominent figure in the cultural life of the two Yugoslav states, the Kingdom and the Socialist Republic.

Part Four

Rexhep Ferri: The Demonstrations were brought here. But even us as professors helped because my generation had an urge to go to war with Serbs, to go to war with a strong enemy. We were aware of how many wars we had lost, and our students, being given a freedom in Kosovo to open schools to develop culturally. We were connected, if we talk about visual arts only, we were connected to Belgrade, because the professors at the Shkolla e Mesme e Artit were from Belgrade, most of them. And we, they finished school, they finished school, they were children of aristocrats who had finished school in Paris too. So it wasn’t very hard to go from a province to a capital city, because for us in the Balkans at the time, the only one [city] that we didn’t know but it was like a European capital city [to us], was Belgrade, and Zagreb as well.

Maybe it was difficult, but it wasn’t that difficult to adapt. We were more poor than others, but that wasn’t noticeable in the friendships because there is a lot of solidarity among young people. So, I never felt [like I was] of another nationality among people with other nationalities, but we were all together as if we grew up in the same neighborhood. I have studied and specialized for eight years in Belgrade, because the Academy [of Art] lasted five years, a semester to get the diploma, then the second degree lasted two years and a semester to get the diploma, so it was seven, eight years in total. So, during those eight years, no one has said even one bad word to me in a national sense, no one offended me in a national sense. Maybe because it was the time of those professors and colleagues of mine, my classmates who weren’t biased because even school after [the Second World] War in Yugoslavia was oriented towards Europeanization, not towards churches and Byzantium. So, we felt the same, like me, like them, we dreamed of Paris.

I remember once when the son of the housekeeper of the Academy, because the Academy had its own housekeeper, their apartment [was] next to the Academy, they would clean, there was a café there, and their son once went, he was a driver for some French embassy, he went to Paris and we all gathered to listen to his stories of Paris. Who were we asking, a driver who didn’t know, with high school education, I don’t know what kind of school he finished.

But I remember something he said that turned out to be true, he said, “Everybody works in Paris, not in their profession, they work something else. Someone who studied geography, works as a gatekeeper.” I don’t know if you understand me. He is, he was a driver, he cleaned the streets, and so on. So, no one does their job. This was what he had seen, he also went and visited the Louvre [Museum] so he could tell us about it. But now, since I’m talking about the Louvre, we all dreamed about it. I couldn’t go there during my studies for two reasons: I didn’t have a passport and I studied for eight years without a scholarship, since my family was not on the partisan side for reasons connected to our family’s history.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Was this one of the reasons you didn’t have a passport?

Rexhep Ferri: Huh?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Was this also one of the reasons you didn’t have a passport?

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, I was registered in Albania, because I was born in Albania. So, my mother and I were Albanian citizens. So, then when I, I’ll talk about Belgrade. In the beginning, in Belgrade, it was a little hard for me to adapt. There was a professor who helped me in the beginning, who was a professor in Peja and he went to Belgrade.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Which one was it?

Rexhep Ferri: Miša Đorđević. And he started working at Television Belgrade, back then there weren’t, Television needed commercials and all commercials were done by hand, they were drawn. From letters to every other visual message, and Miša would take me with him to help, to make the signs, to enlarge the sketches, to make his sketches and so on. So, I started doing what I did with the store signage in Peja. I started to work in Belgrade in a quite difficult job, but I sacrificed my free time to make a living.

I have always been modest, I did not pursue luxurious things, I would get enough money to pay for the dorm or a small apartment. I remember I had a room once, I had for two, three or four years. It was two by three meters and it was the room of my youth, the best room of my life (smiles). That’s how big Jakup’s room is, but he left the room now, now he has the entire floor upstairs. In Belgrade, since I was a fan of literature and I spoke Serbian, I started to read but not write.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did you learn Serbian? If you could include that.

Rexhep Ferri: High school was in Serbian, five years.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you have any problems at first?

Rexhep Ferri: Well, I had to learn it. There I started reading the great world writers, we didn’t know them here and we didn’t have them. I have, it was a huge difference, but youngsters learn fast, faster than maybe, I don’t know if hearing or sight is faster, but I think sight. The youngster’s sight catches things maybe much faster than [their] hearing can. I saw Beckett’s plays in Belgrade, in Pristina they were still showing Kryet e hudrës [Garlic’s head], a drama, useless words, or the one by Kristo Floqi,¹ Kushërini nga Amerika [The cousin from America], how a cousin came from America and they all went to look at what he brought home. So, but Kosovo started very quickly, every time I came home from my studies I saw a…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Development?

Rexhep Ferri: A development. For example, in Pristina it happened to me, I was friends with writers, I went to a coffee shop, that was Army’s coffee shop next to the Grand [Hotel], at the house that…

Kaltrina Krasniqi: Kino Armata?

Rexhep Ferri: At Armata, there was a coffee shop and they didn’t let me in, they didn’t let me in, I was with two journalists from Rilindja,² they didn’t let me in because I had long hair (laughs). It became a huge deal. The next day, the officer comes to apologize and so on. It was (laughs) humorous, you know. So everything arrived [in Kosovo] quickly, the wind brought things faster than people think. And apart from following international art…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: What kind of exhibitions would be on display there? Can you…

Rexhep Ferri: In Belgrade, before me, there was Henry Moore’s exhibition in Belgrade. In 1951 was Henry Moore’s exhibition in Belgrade. In Belgrade, I saw the exhibition of America’s modern art, an American art collection. When pop art was trendy and for me seeing pop art was new, and there was a jacket of an American soldier of the Vietnam war and it had a pocket. A Belgrade citizen had the newspaper Politika³ with him, and he put it in that pocket. But I would go to see exhibitions like that two or three times and, like you [addresses the interviewer], I always took a pen and notebook, I would take notes or something. When I went the next day, I saw Politika in its pocket…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Someone had intervened (laughs).

Rexhep Ferri: Someone had intervened. So, there were a few reactions from those who were under the umbrella of socialist realism, because they…. But, Tito’s politics separated art from socialist realism, it wasn’t easy then. There were reactions, there are no restrictions in art but I concentrated more on painting then, not literature.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Did you study painting or graphic arts?

Rexhep Ferri: No, no, painting. Not literature because the word is read and it could be misunderstood, a word could slip, and then it’s read, understood, and it costs you politically if you have a question mark somewhere. But, even as a student, I started to present in exhibits, in Belgrade and out of it. No only me, but to be honest before there were other students there, Muslim Mulliqi,⁴ Gjelosh Gjokaj,⁵ Matej Rodiqi,⁶ Shemsedin Kasapolli.⁷

Erëmirë Krasniqi: He taught at the Shkolla e Mesme e Artit then.

Rexhep Ferri: Yes, he was my professor in Peja. These were the first generation of Albanians who studied, and some others that I can’t remember, there were a couple more. We are the second generation, me, Tahir Emra,⁸ Xhevdet Xhafa, Daut Berisha,⁹ Fatmir Krypa, and many others. Until we had the means to open one in Pristina. The first building of the University of Prishtina was Shkolla e Lartë Pedagogjike,¹⁰ and there was the section of arts and thanks to Muslim Mulliqi, it was a great arts school. And there were still students who came from the Shkolla e Mesme e Artit in Peja with good figurative culture, during the time I was there as a professor, I got to the point where I would rather accept someone who finished the gymnasium¹¹ rather than the Shkolla e Mesme e Artit. The Shkolla e Mesme e Artit had gone from one end to the other. Maybe it isn’t the professors’ or students’ fault, but of those who make the standards for how to profile a school. They made it like a craft school. I don’t know how far it got, but at that time, I noticed that it was too far gone and I didn’t know where it would end up.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Can you tell us more about Shkolla e Lartë? How was it established?

Rexhep Ferri: But, if it weren’t for that school, because the Shkolla e Mesme e Artit was opened in 1949, I studied there in ‘54, the fifth generation. If that school was not on the level it was, with those professors, none of us, starting from Muslim Mullqi to me, we wouldn’t be who we are.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: You couldn’t even have continued your education further, since that…

Rexhep Ferri: We would have gone somewhere else, physics or chemistry, something would’ve happened. And I’m very grateful to the professors who had that culture and weren’t egoistical about keeping the knowledge for themselves, but they loved us like themselves, even though most of them were Serbs and Montenegrins, they loved us Albanians the same. During my studies, because I did my figurative studies in Peja, I started learning there and never stopped. I am still a student, I am still learning. Up to the point that I am strong and capable of opening a book or a new catalog to see how someone young is painting, what they’re painting, so I’m still some kind of a student that is learning something. And I would want there to be more provocations from the new generation because I would feel young also. But the new generation, I don’t know how to explain the new generation.

While I was in Belgrade, I would take a magazine by the American Embassy Pregled [Review], it was published in Serbo-Croatian once a month, it was about culture, and there was an interview with an American painter, a young painter who textually said, “Picasso created 50 masterpieces within 60 or 70 years, or 30 masterpieces, but I’m thinking of to create 30 masterpieces in three years.” Look, I don’t know if this would work, with what kind of machine can you do that, you can’t go to the Moon or anywhere else in three years to make 30 masterpieces, and he was serious, he was in the younger generation.

And I feel like something similar exists in today’s generation. Maybe, maybe because you have figured life out much quicker, as something amazing, with one thousand flavors and that passes by fast, and since it’s like that you have to take advantage of it in every way, in every pore. I don’t know, we were a generation who was devoted to our profession, without the spirit of materialism, without the spirit of treachery, but we believed in what we worked for, but a person believes in their work if they believe in themselves. If you don’t believe in yourself, you can’t believe in your work. This was the generation that I would not want this myth to be over with us.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: When did you come back from Belgrade?

Rexhep Ferri: Excuse me?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: When did you come back from Belgrade? In which year?

Rexhep Ferri: I came back, I came back from Belgrade after Paris in ‘67, in 1967, I finished the Academy, I went to Paris, I came back from Paris to Pristina, I worked at Rilindja as an arts editor for two years. I would also be part of exhibits in Belgrade because I was accepted into the Association of Figurative Artists of Yugoslavia. Not just me, others too, Muslim and others who were here. Then, I started my third-level education in Belgrade, those two years while working at Rilindja I was still undecided, do I stay in Pristina or go to Paris, and I found a medium and went back to Belgrade, but during those two years, I wasn’t a citizen of Belgrade. I went there for a day or two, but I wasn’t there all the time.

A very big change happened in Belgrade, a big change happened in Belgrade and I saw that the behaviors aren’t the same as those of my friends, for example, women were more thoughtful, they always brought us something. Actually, one of the years we had such a great time. The wife of one of the ambassadors of Iraq or Iran, I don’t know, one of these countries, they would bring her with a car. That was the first car that stopped in front of the Academy and she would bring us a jar or jam or something. We would go to the bakery there and would buy bread and she would take care of breakfast. So…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did that behavior change?

Rexhep Ferri: And… I’ll illustrate a change. There was a girl from Belgrade, a classmate, we called her Pegi, because she had freckles (laughs) and, “Come on,” she would say, “Ferri, let’s go drink some hot raki¹² at the bar.” And before we got in, she would give me the money because she wanted to show them that she is going in with a gentleman, not with a person who doesn’t have money, and she wouldn’t go in alone. She wanted to go, but she didn’t want to go alone. After two years, within two years, a change happened, I can’t call it emancipation because it wasn’t, it’s something beyond emancipation. What’s beyond emancipation? Maybe a full stop and a dash and a full stop again.

I found an academy where anyone could go in, anyone could go out. It wasn’t the same dedication as before. It wasn’t the same dedication because this was said to me by my professor when I went for my third-level studies, “Do you think it’s them?” After I finished my studies, I met him because I became a professor here, “How is it going with your students?” He asked me. He said, “Do you think that my students are like you used to be? Things have changed.”

So, it’s good if things change for good, but it’s twice as bad for those nations who have taken the step of forming a national identity late, cultural uplift, cultural representation. Because there are people who have put their history into a drawer and into museums, and we needed to say that we have finished school, we needed to present ourselves.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How did these fast steps affect you?

Rexhep Ferri: They arrived here slower and at that time, to be honest, not with a critical intention, but Kosovo was known in the Yugolav art space, in Yugoslavia, which had 22 million up to Ljubljana and in the exhibitions in the world where Yugoslavia would present, visual art was the only popular art in Yugoslavia, more than literature, music, film…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: They started late.

Rexhep Ferri: Late, even though even in these fields there were some good works. In music, there was Rexho Mulliqi,¹³ Nexhmije Pagarusha’s¹⁴ husband, he popularized Nexhmije Pagarusha, he was a genius, an unfortunate composer who didn’t fully realize his potential as much as he could have, but he was a genius. There was Muharrem Qena¹⁵ for drama. His Erveheja that got all the prizes in Belgrade. This started too, not only visual arts, but also…

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Dramatic arts.

Rexhep Ferri: I was in a concert in Belgrade when Nexhmije, I was a student, the hall was full of people. I went because we were friends, but also, how blood works, it’s strange, it’s also something good. I also went because she was Albanian, I was proud of her. Seeing Bekim Fehmiu¹⁶ in a theater play, Albanians from Kosovo and Albanians in general owe a lot to Bekim Fehmiu. We owe him because with our professionalism and our ego, I’m not helping him because I want to do it, we don’t have him in any of our movies, in any sentence in Albanian movies, Bekim Fehmiu isn’t present, it’s our fault even though he wasn’t a calculating person, he didn’t give up. But people who are devoted to their personality, they don’t give up, they don’t beg, they don’t beg for anything. You have to talk to them nicely like mothers talk to their children, and so it’s a big lack.

I remember an exhibit of mine in Belgrade, since we’re talking about Bekim Fehmiu, in one of my exhibits in Belgrade, I went to the opening and when I went to the opening the next day Ali Shkuriu¹⁷ passes by and sees it, because it was in Palace Albania, there was the Cultural Center Gallery and the advertisement was outside. A high political official came in, I’m not mentioning his name because it’s not worth it, and he asked why I didn’t send him an invitation to the opening. I apologized because I came by train and didn’t know where they sent the invitations. They were used to other painters that sent them [invitations], but I didn’t have those close relations with them, but we weren’t on bad terms either. Bekim was also there, we were hanging out with Bekim.

The next day, he invited us to his house to drink whiskey with him. Bekim apologized, he said, “I apologize but…” Bekim didn’t like him either, I don’t want to mention his name because there were only two other people, I can’t say that they have done any dirty national work, they made some kind national ploys, for the other, but two of them, one of them was this one. Bekim apologized and said, “I’m going to go to Italy,” he was playing Odysseus, Ulysses. He went home and he said, “Come on,” he said, “Rexhep, don’t bother with him,” (smiles) he said, “Bekim will buy you a whiskey. Now we will drink whiskey, we don’t need to go to his house.” It was true, and this is how it ended.

Most of the people who were in high functions tried, it was a very difficult time, they tried to protect their people, Albanians, they tried to protect their personality also. I don’t want to mention names, but there were two, three, people whose ego to build a career made them more Catholic than the Pope.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Were there political interferences in art? You mentioned it a little in literature.

Rexhep Ferri: There weren’t any in painting, in music, because music is abstract by nature. But there was in literature. Those who studied Albanology and literature, their parents would say, “Do you want to study the school of prison?”¹⁸ So this is how it was at that time.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: They would scan everything that was produced, published? I mean were there specialist people who read if there’s any subtext? What happened?

Rexhep Ferri: Look, knowledgeable people, those who know, don’t make mistakes. I had a worker while I was building my house and the workman said to him, “O, Halim, like a dynamite,” he was opening the foundation with a jackhammer, bam, bam {moves his hands up and down}. I put this figure in my poetry, but they removed it.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: How was it interpreted?

Rexhep Ferri: Because knowledgeable people didn’t interpret it, but ignorant people did, “Rexhep is asking for the dynamite.” Just like Ilir Shaqiri’s¹⁹ song about homeland, what does he ask about?

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Oh, give me back what you owe me (laughs).

Rexhep Ferri: Give me back what you owe me or something like this. In Albania they said, “What do we owe him?”

Erëmirë Krasniqi: Yes. (laughs)

Rexhep Ferri: So, it was a time when… now, let’s leave Belgrade behind, even though like all of us during our youth, the best part of our life, the best years, I was there, with all the difficulties that we had, all the difficulties a devoted student could have. We had to be devoted, it didn’t work otherwise. Still those are the best years, as hard as they are {points to the interviewer}, these are your best years.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: (laughs)

Rexhep Ferri: In Pristina, when we just started to walk on our own feet and thanks to our communist leaders, not neo-communists because they’re worse, we still have neo-communists in Tirana and Pristina, who swear on Lenin’s, Stalin’s and Enver Hoxha’s²⁰ head. But anyway, let’s not talk about politics, we never got anything good out of it.

Erëmirë Krasniqi: But there was help from the socialist system to create cultural infrastructure, right?

Rexhep Ferri: But, but the need of our leaders to be equal to other republics of Yugoslavia helped Albanian culture. When you went to the offices in other centers, you would see their best painters, Serbs in Belgrade, Croats in Croatia, Slovenians in Slovenia, and there they also started to not take their son’s, aunt’s painting, but they would take… today, there’s aren’t any paintings by Muslim Mulliqi in any office. I’m taking Muslim as an example, they started to buy paintings, they starting to bring paintings for the Modern Art Museum, because all the republics had a Modern Art Museum, only we didn’t.

1 Kristo Floqi (1976-1951) was an Albanian patriot, playwright, politician and lawyer.

2 Rilindja, the first newspaper in the Albanian language in Yugoslavia, initially printed in 1945 as a weekly newspaper.

3 Politika is a daily newspaper published in Belgrade, Serbia since 1904.

4 Muslim Mulliqi (1934-1998) was an impressionist and expressionist painter from Kosovo. Born into a family of artists, Mulliqi attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade under Zoran Petrović’s mentorship, where he also continued with his postgraduate studies.

5 Gjelosh Gjokaj (1933-2016) was an Albanian painter and graphic artist. He was born in the village of Miles in Tuzi, Yugoslavia. After receiving his fine art degree from the Art Academy in Belgrade in 1963 he started teaching in Pristina, Kosovo until 1969.

6 Matej Rodiqi was born in 1929 in Prizren, Kosovo. He graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade. He specialized in industrial design at the Venice State Institute. He is a well-known Kosovo artist, especially known for his large-scale tapestries that cover one of the interior walls of the Grand Hotel in Pristina, Kosovo.

7 Shemsedin Kasapolli (1929-2006) was born in Peja, Kosovo. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. Upon his return to Kosovo in 1969 he taught aesthetics at the Shkolla e Lartë Pedagogjike and later at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prishtina.

8 Tahir Emra (1938) attended the School of Arts of Peja. In 1966 he graduated from the Academy of Figurative Arts of Belgrade. He was a founding member of the Academy of Figurative Arts of Kosovo in 1974. He is considered one of the proponents of contemporary art in Kosovo in the 1960s.

9 Daut Berisha (1941) was born in Peja, Kosovo. He graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade, in the class of Professor Rajko Nikolic. He received a master’s degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, France.

10 Shkolla e Lartë Pedagogjike, The High Pedagogical School, was founded in Pristina in 1958 as the first institution of higher education in Kosovo. In 1974, the academic staff of the Figurative Arts department of the High Pedagogical School founded the Academy of Fine Arts within the newly established University of Pristina.

11 A European type of secondary school with emphasis on academic learning, different from vocational schools because it prepares students for university.

12 Raki is a very common alcoholic drink made from distillation of fermented fruit.

13 Rexho Mulliqi (1923-1982) was an important Albanian composer from Kosovo, responsible for Kosovo’s earliest classical orchestral and choral pieces. He was also an educator and a longstanding producer of Radio Pristina’s music programming.

14 Nexhmije Pagarusha (1933-2020) is one of Kosovo’s first classically trained singers. Her repertoire covers classical Albanian music and folk songs. She is known as the “Nightingale of Kosovo.”

15 Muharrem Qena (1930-2006) was a renowned playwright, director and singer from Mitrovica based in Pristina.

16 Bekim Fehmiu (1936 – 2010) was an Albanian theater and film actor. He was the first Eastern European actor to star in Hollywood during the Cold War.

17 Ali Shukrija (1919-2005) held important positions in the Yugoslav state.

18 The Albanian language and literature university program in the past was perceived as nurturing nationalist sentiments among their students, in particular an aspiration to the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia. Students from this department often ended in prison. When the speaker says “school of prison,” he refers to that view commonly held.

19 Ilir Shaqiri (1960) is a Kosovo folk singer and songwriter.

20 Enver Hoxha (1908-1985) was the leader of the Albanian Communist Party who ruled Albania as a dictator until his death.