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Article

Open Access

The Distortion of Historic Memory in the Literary Memory of Social Realism

Author(s)

Eriola Agalliu

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5526/2015.12.005

Affiliation(s)

The Center of Albanological Studies, Albania

ABSTRACT

This study endeavours to assess the deliberate distortion of historical memory in two works written in different periods of time by the same author, namely Vedat Kokona with the novel Me Valët e Jetës (With the Waves of Life) published in the 1960s, as well as his own autobiography Endur në Tisin e Kohës (Woven in the Veil of Time), which was written and published after the 1990s. The novel was written under the censorship conditions of social realism, and consequently the stance toward historical war figures was shaped by the ideological prism: “Enver Hoxha leads the war, opponents like Lumo Skëndo collaborate with the enemy, and the indifferent intelligentsia must feel blameworthy for their non-engagement with the communists”. This scheme apparently collapses after the 1990s, when Kokona took it upon himself to narrate his autobiography, in the abridgment entitled Woven in the Veil of Time. Therein is revealed his realistic assessment of the figures of Enver Hoxha, Lumo Skëndo, Ernest Koliqi, etc. Freed at the time from the chains of ideological censure, in his memoirs, Kokona discusses these historical characters. Supplied with individual human sensitivity, facing good and evil, he reflects upon the past, with the consciousness of the intellectual who has witnessed an era permeated with major changes.

KEYWORDS

Social realism, censorship, deformation of history

Cite this paper

Sociology Study, December 2015, Vol. 5, No. 12, 937-943

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