Part Four
Rexhep Ferri: Demonstrations brought it 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 gave us a freedom in Kosovo to open schools, for cultural developments. We were connected, if we talk about visual arts, we were connected to Belgrade, because the professors at the High School of Arts were from Belgrade, most of them. And we, they finished school, they finished school, they were aristocrats’ children who had finished school in Paris. So, so it wasn’t very hard to go from a province to a capital city, because for us in the Balkans, the only one that we didn’t know but that was like European capital city was Belgrade and Zagreb.
Maybe it was hard, but it wasn’t that hard 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 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 didn’t judge, because even school after war in Yugoslavia was oriented towards Europeanness, 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, next to the Academy, they would clean, there was a cafe there, and his son once went, he was a driver for some embassy, he went to Paris and we all gathered to tell us what was Paris like. 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 their profession, they work something else. Someone studied geography, they work 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 and he told us, he also went and visited the Louvre. 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 on the partisan side for old family reasons, historically.
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, me and my mother 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 another figurative message, and Miša would take me to help him, to make the signs, to enlarge the sketches, to make his sketches and so on. So, I started doing what I did with the stores in Peja, I started to work in Belgrade in a quite hard job, but I sacrificed my free time to live.
I have always been modest, I wasn’t luxurious, 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?
Rexhep Ferri: Well, I had to learn. 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 much faster than hearing can possibly catch. I saw Beckett’s plays in Belgrade, they were still playing Kryet e hudres [Garlic’s head], a drama, useless words, or the one by Kristo Floqi, Kushërini nga Amerika [The cousin from America], how a cousin came from America and they all listened to what he brought home. So, but Kosovo started very soon, everytime I came home from my studies I saw a…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: Development?
Rexhep Ferri: A development. For example, in Pristina, I was friends with writers, to go to a coffee shop, that was the coffee shop of the Grand Army, 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, they didn’t let me in because I had long hair (laughs). It was a huge deal, the next day, the officer comes to apologize and so on, (laughs) a joke, you know. So everything came fast, the wind brings things faster than people think. And in Belgrade apart from world art…
Erëmirë Krasniqi: What kind of exhibits would come there? Can you…
Rexhep Ferri: In Belgrade, before me, there was Henry Moore’s exhibit in Belgrade. In 1951 was Henry Moore’s exhibit in Belgrade. In Belgrade, I saw the exhibit of America’s modern art, a collection of America. When pop art was trendy and for me seeing pop art was new, and there was a sweatshirt of an American soldier of Vietnam and it had the pocket there. A citizen of Belgrade had the newspaper Politika [Politics] in his hand, and he put it in that pocket. But I would go to see exhibits 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 that Politika…
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 graphics?
Rexhep Ferri: No, no, painting. No, literature because you can read a word and misunderstand it, a word is 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, Gjelosh Gjokaj, Matej Rodiqi, Shemsedin Kasapolli.
Erëmirë Krasniqi: He taught at the High School of Art then.
Rexhep Ferri: Yes, he was my professor in Peja. These were the first generation who studied, and some others that I can’t remember, there were a few more. We are the second generation, me, Tahir Emra, Xhevdet Xhafa, Daut Berisha, 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, and there was the section of arts and thanks to Muslin Milliqi, it was a great arts school. And there were still students who came from the High School of Arts 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 gymnasium rather than the High School of Arts. The High School of Arts had gone from one end to another. 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 High School of Art 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. And I’m very thankful 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 still learn. Up to the point that I am strong and capable of opening a book or a new catalog to see how they’re 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, it was published in Serbo-Croatian once a month, it was about culture, and there was an interview with an American painter, a painter who textually said, “Picasso for 60, 70 years created 50 masterpieces, or 30 masterpieces, but I’m thinking of to create 30 masterpieces for 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 for three years to make 30 masterpieces, and he was serious, he was in the younger generation.
Think something similar exists in your generation now. Maybe, maybe because you have figured life out faster, 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 all the pores. I don’t know, we were a generation who was devoted to our profession, without materialism, without cheating, 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 Rilindje as an 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, Mulsim and others who were here. Then, I started my third-level education in Belgrade, and I 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 see that the behaviors aren’t the same as those of my friends, for example, women were more caring, they always brought us something. Actually one of the years we had such a great time. The wife of one of an ambassador of Iraq or Iran, I don’t know, one of these countries, they would bring him 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 raki in the coffee shop.” 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 dot and a dash and a dot again.
I found an academy where anyone could go in, anyone could go. 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 the changes are good, but it’s twice as bad for those nations who have recently taken the step of forming a national personality, cultural uplift, cultural presentation. 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 came here slower and, at that time, to be honest, not with a critical purpose, but Kosovo was known in the Yugolav arena, in Yugoslavia, which had 22 million up in Ljubljana and in the exhibits in the world where Yugolsavia 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, Nexhmije Pagarusha’s husband, he popularized Nexhmije Pagarusha, he was a genius, an unfortunate composer who didn’t realize himself as much as he could have, but he was genius. There was Muharrem Qena 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 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 weird, it’s also something good. I also went because she was Albanian, I was proud of her. Seeing Bekim Fehmiu play, actually 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 doesn’t exist, 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 it’s a big minus.
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 Shkuriu passes by and sees it, because it was in Pallat Albania, there was the Cultural Center Gallery and the advertisement was outside. A senior official comes in, I’m not mentioning his name because it’s not worth it, and he asks 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, but I didn’t have those close relations with them, but we weren’t on bad terms. Bekim was also there, we were hanging with Bekim.
The next day, he invites us to his house to drink whiskey. 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 one,” 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 hard 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 create 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. Those who studied Albanology and literature, their parents would say, “Do you want to study the university of prison?” 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 dynamite,” he was opening the foundation with a jackhammer , bam e 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’s 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, they said in Albania, “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’s head. But 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, Slovaks 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.