This site explores the 11th Festival of Song that took place in Tirana, Albania in 1972 and the social, political, and cultural backlash that followed. It provides an introduction to the historical period in Albania, and collects resources for further research on the topic.
I grew up in 1980s Albania and almost every school morning my father woke me up whispering forbidden songs from the 11th Festival of Song, playfully inserting my name in the lyrics. My parents and other adults in my family quietly discussed artists who had mysteriously vanished in the 1970s, and our family friend and beloved singer Vaçe Zela had stopped performing after the 1972 Festival. In her college pictures my mother wore short skirts that were illegal in the Albania I lived in. I grew up idealizing the Festival, but it was only many years later that I realized how consequential this historical moment had been for the country.
Existing digital projects on the communist period in Albania tend to have a singular focus. Some only highlight the crimes of the communist regime and the suffering of people who died, were imprisoned, interned, suffered violence, or were otherwise left out of opportunities to live a full life. Others promote Hoxha’s regime and achievements in the postwar, or simply publish propaganda from the period uncritically. This dichotomy is evident in the digital projects that are included in the bibliography page of this project. Whatever the approach, all investigations of the communist past give limited space to the experiences of women under communism. This dearth of scholarship was the impetus for the creation of Festivali11.com.
Festivali11 does not seek to minimize the crimes of the Hoxha regime, nor does it pursue a single narrative of progress. It is guided by my own narrative of the communist period which was built on the stories told by my family, and my own memories of the 1980s. As such, Festivali11 is part of an effort to challenge and complicate my own narrative as much as mainstream approaches to this time period in Albania. The main goal of this project is to give the generation of Albanian women who lived in the 1970s an opportunity to construct their own histories about this period.
Lola Shehu-Endo is a researcher based in New York City. Festivali11 was created as a capstone project for the Digital Humanities, MA program at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Festivali11 was sponsored in part by the Graduate Center, CUNY. For any questions, suggestions, or contributions to this project email lolashehu@gmail.com.
