A Heinous Crime
by Teuta Mema
by Teuta Mema
Lamtumirë, atdhe I dashtun,
Po të la, po zemërplasun…
Farewell, fatherland dear,
Yet I leave you in despair…
Po të la, po zemërplasun…
Farewell, fatherland dear,
Yet I leave you in despair…
In the criminal courtroom in the city of Kukësi in Albania, on June 24, 1988, the Communist judge, Agim Hoxha, read aloud the verdict: “Dictated by the interest of the Party in Kukësi district, and the spread of hostile activity in the region, the enemy of the Party and people, Havzi Nela, is sentenced to death. Therefore to serve to a better prevention of the enemy activity within the district, he will be executed by hanging.”
The poet Havzi Nela stood up proudly, and, addressing his final words to the Communist judge, Agim Hoxha and to the Communist prosecutor, Nikollaq Helmi, he said, “You only hastened the time of my departure. I ask for justice and not mercy from you.”
Better from this world I depart
Better by worms I eaten be
Better become stone and mud
When the villain abuses me!
Better clod, field or meadow
Better grass, of grazing land,
Better I by not a soul be known
When the ruffian is on my head!
The poet Havzi Nela stood up proudly, and, addressing his final words to the Communist judge, Agim Hoxha and to the Communist prosecutor, Nikollaq Helmi, he said, “You only hastened the time of my departure. I ask for justice and not mercy from you.”
Better from this world I depart
Better by worms I eaten be
Better become stone and mud
When the villain abuses me!
Better clod, field or meadow
Better grass, of grazing land,
Better I by not a soul be known
When the ruffian is on my head!
Havzi Nela
On August 10, 1988, the anti-Communist poet was hung by a rope in the city he loved most.
At the stroke of midnight on August 10, 1988, Communist terrorists put a rope around the neck of the dissident poet and hung him in the main square of Kukësi. At dawn, in front of the bus travel agency, the lifeless body was seen swaying in the air. Many people saw him, and read the inscription on the piece of cardboard hanging around his neck. “Havzi Nela, enemy of the Party and people.” The words Party and people were written in red. The fifty-five-year-old Havzi Nela, wearing a thin, discolored, fully unbuttoned shirt, a pair of worn out cotton pants and a pair of rubber sandals (opinga), stared the terrified onlookers in the eye. There were dark and red scars on his face and hands. When a pregnant woman saw the corpse swinging from the rope, her unborn baby was aborted. Only the members of his family, living in the countryside of Kollovoz, were prohibited from seeing the poet exposed as an enemy of the people.
Havzi Nela’s lifeless body dangled from the rope for a long time. Then the uncovered body was shoved onto the trailer of a truck “Soviet Zis”. The truck then rolled throughout the city as a means to terrorize the residents.
When you’ll find out, I have departed
“May he rest in peace?” whilst say
Do you realize what I’ve suffered
I, the poet passion hearted?
On August 10, 1988, the anti-Communist poet was hung by a rope in the city he loved most.
At the stroke of midnight on August 10, 1988, Communist terrorists put a rope around the neck of the dissident poet and hung him in the main square of Kukësi. At dawn, in front of the bus travel agency, the lifeless body was seen swaying in the air. Many people saw him, and read the inscription on the piece of cardboard hanging around his neck. “Havzi Nela, enemy of the Party and people.” The words Party and people were written in red. The fifty-five-year-old Havzi Nela, wearing a thin, discolored, fully unbuttoned shirt, a pair of worn out cotton pants and a pair of rubber sandals (opinga), stared the terrified onlookers in the eye. There were dark and red scars on his face and hands. When a pregnant woman saw the corpse swinging from the rope, her unborn baby was aborted. Only the members of his family, living in the countryside of Kollovoz, were prohibited from seeing the poet exposed as an enemy of the people.
Havzi Nela’s lifeless body dangled from the rope for a long time. Then the uncovered body was shoved onto the trailer of a truck “Soviet Zis”. The truck then rolled throughout the city as a means to terrorize the residents.
When you’ll find out, I have departed
“May he rest in peace?” whilst say
Do you realize what I’ve suffered
I, the poet passion hearted?
Havzi Nela
Havzi Nela was hung because he dreamed, thought, and wrote differently than the preaching and the orders of the Communist Party, then the state party of Albania. His poems were classified as political crimes.
Who was the dissident poet?
Havzi Nela was born on February 24, 1934, in the village Kollovoz of the Kukësi district in Albania. He finished elementary and high school while living in extreme poverty. He took his schooling farther and began attending college in the city of Shkodra, where he was expelled as a destructive element because of his beliefs. After much difficulty, he found a job as a school teacher in the elementary school of Plan i Bardhë, a small village in the Mati district. He was also banished from this village because of suspicious activity
- reading some of his poems to his students. The poems were considered “repulsive” at the time. Later, he finished college in Shkodra through correspondence courses. He worked as a teacher in various villages such as Kruma, Lojma, and Shishtavec until 1967, the year he was transferred to Topojan. Topojan was where the most dramatic events for the poet and his family began.
Havzi Nela considered what he was being put through: the endless verifications, being taken into custody many times, and limitations on the kind of work he could do and on where he could live. After reciting to his students the poem “Shko dallëndyshe!... Fly (Go) swallow!...” written by Filip Shiroka, Havzi Nela, with his wife, Lavdie, risked their lives by taking the road to cross the border to Kosova on April 26, 1967. While crossing the borderline, he wrote on a piece of paper, “Lamtumirë, atdhe i dashtun, po të la, po zemërplasun... Farewell, fatherland dear, yet I leave you in despair...” and placed it on a branch of a hazelnut tree for the murderous border guards to find.
A more tragic fate would follow him in occupied Kosova. The Yugoslav soldiers handcuffed Havzi Nela and put him, together with his wife, in Prizreni prison.
On May 6, 1967, the Yugoslav occupiers turned Havzi and Lavdie in at Morina army checkpoint, in exchange for Albanian patriots from Kosova that the Albanian Communist government had to hand over to the Yugoslav Secret Police, “UDB.”
On May 22, 1976, the poet received a fifteen-year sentence for crossing to Kosova. All of his property was confiscated. His wife was sentenced to ten years in prison. The poet never compromised with the dictatorship and its marionettes in prisons and camps.
On August 8, 1975, he was sentenced to eight more years in prison as he was considered an ardent enemy of the Party and people. On December 19, 1986, he was allowed out of jail, but only for a short time. Less than one year later, on October 12, 1987, he was placed under arrest and sent into internal exile at the village of Arrën. On June 24, 1988, Albania’s high court consisting of Communist judges Fehmi Abdiu, Vili Robo and Fatmira Laskaj rejected Lavdie’s appeal against her husband’s conviction and death sentence; the court ordered Havzi Nela should be hanged. The final approval of the death sentence by the Head of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, Ramiz Alia, led to the proceeding of his execution.
The poet was not buried; Communist terrorists thrust him into the hole of a removed wooden pole.
After he was exposed all day long on August 10, 1988, at midnight Communist terrorists took his body down and thrust him vertically into the hole of a removed wooden pole. He was deprived of the chance to lie down like all dead. He stood on his feet for five years and ten days, until August 20, 1993. After many attempts by the democratic government of Albania, that was the day it became possible to find the hole, covered with stones and thorn-bushes near the village of Kolsh, two miles away from Kukësi. With the presidential decree of the President of the Republic of Albania, Sali Berisha, Havzi Nela was granted the title “Martyr of Democracy.”
When you’ll ask: “Where is he lying?”
When you’ll search to find my grave.
Say: “He deeply hated the tyrant.”
Say: “The dirt won’t him decay.”
Havzi Nela was hung because he dreamed, thought, and wrote differently than the preaching and the orders of the Communist Party, then the state party of Albania. His poems were classified as political crimes.
Who was the dissident poet?
Havzi Nela was born on February 24, 1934, in the village Kollovoz of the Kukësi district in Albania. He finished elementary and high school while living in extreme poverty. He took his schooling farther and began attending college in the city of Shkodra, where he was expelled as a destructive element because of his beliefs. After much difficulty, he found a job as a school teacher in the elementary school of Plan i Bardhë, a small village in the Mati district. He was also banished from this village because of suspicious activity
- reading some of his poems to his students. The poems were considered “repulsive” at the time. Later, he finished college in Shkodra through correspondence courses. He worked as a teacher in various villages such as Kruma, Lojma, and Shishtavec until 1967, the year he was transferred to Topojan. Topojan was where the most dramatic events for the poet and his family began.
Havzi Nela considered what he was being put through: the endless verifications, being taken into custody many times, and limitations on the kind of work he could do and on where he could live. After reciting to his students the poem “Shko dallëndyshe!... Fly (Go) swallow!...” written by Filip Shiroka, Havzi Nela, with his wife, Lavdie, risked their lives by taking the road to cross the border to Kosova on April 26, 1967. While crossing the borderline, he wrote on a piece of paper, “Lamtumirë, atdhe i dashtun, po të la, po zemërplasun... Farewell, fatherland dear, yet I leave you in despair...” and placed it on a branch of a hazelnut tree for the murderous border guards to find.
A more tragic fate would follow him in occupied Kosova. The Yugoslav soldiers handcuffed Havzi Nela and put him, together with his wife, in Prizreni prison.
On May 6, 1967, the Yugoslav occupiers turned Havzi and Lavdie in at Morina army checkpoint, in exchange for Albanian patriots from Kosova that the Albanian Communist government had to hand over to the Yugoslav Secret Police, “UDB.”
On May 22, 1976, the poet received a fifteen-year sentence for crossing to Kosova. All of his property was confiscated. His wife was sentenced to ten years in prison. The poet never compromised with the dictatorship and its marionettes in prisons and camps.
On August 8, 1975, he was sentenced to eight more years in prison as he was considered an ardent enemy of the Party and people. On December 19, 1986, he was allowed out of jail, but only for a short time. Less than one year later, on October 12, 1987, he was placed under arrest and sent into internal exile at the village of Arrën. On June 24, 1988, Albania’s high court consisting of Communist judges Fehmi Abdiu, Vili Robo and Fatmira Laskaj rejected Lavdie’s appeal against her husband’s conviction and death sentence; the court ordered Havzi Nela should be hanged. The final approval of the death sentence by the Head of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly, Ramiz Alia, led to the proceeding of his execution.
The poet was not buried; Communist terrorists thrust him into the hole of a removed wooden pole.
After he was exposed all day long on August 10, 1988, at midnight Communist terrorists took his body down and thrust him vertically into the hole of a removed wooden pole. He was deprived of the chance to lie down like all dead. He stood on his feet for five years and ten days, until August 20, 1993. After many attempts by the democratic government of Albania, that was the day it became possible to find the hole, covered with stones and thorn-bushes near the village of Kolsh, two miles away from Kukësi. With the presidential decree of the President of the Republic of Albania, Sali Berisha, Havzi Nela was granted the title “Martyr of Democracy.”
When you’ll ask: “Where is he lying?”
When you’ll search to find my grave.
Say: “He deeply hated the tyrant.”
Say: “The dirt won’t him decay.”
Havzi Nela
Now and forever, the poet rests in peace in a modest grave beside his parents in Kollovoz.
When spring will come in fullest bloom,
When nightingale will start to sing.
On stones, thorn-bushes veiled tomb,
A bunch of flowers for me you bring.
When spring will come in fullest bloom,
When nightingale will start to sing.
On stones, thorn-bushes veiled tomb,
A bunch of flowers for me you bring.
Havzi Nela
Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa
Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa
This is so sad! I lived in Kukes during 1988, I was at the court while the preceding was going on, but not inside the court rooom. The court buidling was full of people inside and outside. I remember August 10, his lifeless body hanging by the buss station. That moment when I saw that was probably the most traumatic event I've experienced so far in my life. I'll never forget it. I'm so glad he's being respected and honored, as he should.
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