Albanian literature begins with oral literature,
with legends which refer back to the Greek and pre-Greek myths,
among which there is a version of the Homeric Odyssey. The first
written text in Albanian dates from 1555 and is religious in nature:
the translation of a missal written by the monk Gjon Buzuku.
The national cultural movement, Romantic in origin,
lasted through the whole of the 19th century. The most outstanding
authors of this period were Jerome of Rada and Naim Frashëri.
The former wrote in the language of the Albanian disapora in Calabria,
and the latter was the founder of modern literary Albanian.
The other highpoint is the period covering the first
decades of the 20th century, from the formation of the independent
Albanian state to the foundation of the dictatorship. During this
time, Albanian literature freed itself from its national-utilitarian
phase and began to follow modern tendencies, above all in poetry
(Lasgush Poradeci) and the short story (Ernest Koliqi, Migjeni
and Mitrush Kuteli). Translations played an important role at
this time, especially due to the work of Fan Noli.
The other period in the development of Albanian
literature is that of deformed modernism and is linked precisely
to the period of the Communist dictatorship. The only escape route
from Zdanovist orthodoxy was that of indirect expression, that
of the metaphor. A dangerous path to follow, given that it often
meant giving proof of ideological loyalty, as was the case with
Ismaïl Kadara, the greatest Albanian writer, translated into over
thirty languages. During the decades following the Second World
War, Albanian-language poetry manifested itself beyond the borders
of the state, in Kosovo. Four authors have had considerable influence
on both sides of the frontier: the historian Rexhep Gosja and
the poets Azem Shkreli, Ali Podrimja and Sabri Hamiti.
After the collapse of the dictatorship, there are
two promising poets who are not yet 25 years old: Ervin Hatibi
and Gential Çoçoli. At the same time, Albanian literature is clearly
attuned to the post-modern spirit, as evidenced by its rejection
of the old hierarchy of values; we are currently at a stage in
which extreme doctrinairism is giving way to eclecticism. Human
reality, that of our recent past and that of the present, is ideal
territory for literature. And this is even more the case when
such territory finds itself in a privileged cultural area: that
of the Mediterranean coast.