The National Museum “House with Leaves”commemorated today the writer, playwright, and dissident poet Kasëm Trebeshina.

Kasëm Trebeshina was born in Berat on August 8, 1926. He began his studies at the Elbasan Normal School but interrupted them in 1942 to join the Anti-Fascist National Liberation War. After the establishment of the communist regime in Albania, he served as an officer in the Directorate of Popular Defense. Trebeshina discontinued his higher education at the “Ostrovski” Theatre Institute in Leningrad and devoted himself entirely to literary creation.

From the outset, he opposed the method of socialist realism. His letter “Promemorje” to Enver Hoxha, written on October 5, 1953, denounces the establishment of the dictatorial system in post-World War II Albania. This open opposition to the direction that was intended for literature and the arts led him to imprisonment multiple times and deprived him of his right to publish.

In 1954, Trebeshina was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of agitation and propaganda against the government. On May 18, 1962, the internment commission sentenced him to five years of internment, beginning on May 18, 1962, and ending on May 18, 1967.

In 1961, he published the poem “Artani and Min’ja” and a translation of the Spanish poet García Lorca. Some of Trebeshina’s works began to be published in the early 1990s in Pristina, but the majority of his work—18 volumes of poetry, 42 theatrical pieces, 21 novels, and collections of short stories—is still in manuscript form. His most representative work is “The Season of Seasons,” which includes three novellas: “The Season of Seasons,” “Odin Mondvalsen,” and “The Village on Seven Hills.” Other notable works include “Mekami, Turkish Melody,” “History of Those Who Passed Away,” and “The Legend of What Went Away.”

Kasëm Trebeshina passed away in Ankara on November 6, 2017.

/k.s/