Writer, playwright and dissident poet, Kasëm Trebeshina, is commemorated today on his birthday.

Kasëm Trebeshina was born in Berat on August 8, 1926. He started his studies at the Normal School of Elbasan, but stopped in 1942 because he was active in the National Liberation War since his youth. After the establishment of the communist regime in Albania, he served as an officer of the Directorate of People’s Defense. Trebeshina interrupted his higher studies at the “Ostrovsky” Theater Institute in Leningrad and devoted himself entirely to literary creativity.

He would oppose the socialist realism method from the start. 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 intended to be given to literature and the arts would land him once more in prison and deprive him of the right to publish.

In 1954, Trebeshina was sentenced to 3 years in prison on charges of agitation and propaganda against the government. On May 18, 1962, the exile-deportation commission sentenced him to 5 years of exile, which began on May 18, 1962 and ended on May 18, 1967.

Two of his novels, Rinia e Kohës sonë (The Youth of our Age, 1940) and Mbarimi i një mbretërie (The End of a Kingdom, 1951) were immediately banned. When he was lastly arrested, in his investigation file the authorities labelled his literary work as “amoral”.

In 1961, he published the poem “Artani and Min’ja” and a translation of the Spanish poet García Lorca. Some of Trebeshina’s works started to be published in the early 90s in Pristina, but most of his work: 18 volumes of poetry, 42 plays, 21 novels and volumes of stories, etc., are still in manuscript. “Season of seasons” is the most representative work. Three novels are included in this volume: “Season of the Seasons”, “Odin Mondvalsen” and “The Village on Seven Hills”. 
His novel Odin Mondvalsen was translated into German by Hans-Joachim Lanksch, published in Klagenfurt in 1994. His memoirs-essays Dafinat e thara (The dry laurels) were translated in Italian (Italian: Allori secchi) by Edmond Çali, published in Rome in 2007. Furthermore his novel Pylli – Evandri dhe Nausika (English: The forest; French: La forêt) was translated in French by Anne-Marie Autissier and published by L’Espace d’un Instant editions in 2011.

His first post-Communist work published came out in Prishtina by the intervention of Martin Camaj. Most of his work was published after the fall of Communism, during the 1990s, which made him free to express his ideas in his works.

/Klara Ruci/

Other well-known works of his are: “Mekami, Turkish melody”, “History of those who are not”, “Legend of what is gone”. Kasem Trebeshina would pass away in Ankara on November 6, 2017.

The “House with Leaves” National Museum commemorates the dissident writer Kasëm Trebeshina in the context of curating the past of the communist regime.