Proceedings of The International Conference on New Trends in Social Sciences
Year: 2019
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/ntss.2019.08.490
Albanian Communist Prisons and the Will to Survive, as Narrated in the Documentary Novel “Live Only to Tell”, By Father Zef Pllumi
Eljon Doçe and Erenestina Gjergji Halili
ABSTRACT:
Soon after the fall of communism in Albania, the Albanians, especially those who were subjected to the immense violence and oppression from that political system, felt the urge to tell their stories.For some of them, that wasn’t just something that was done because they wanted to be famous or important in the eyes of the world, but they wanted to inform everyone on what really happened during that dark period of Albania’s history.On the other hand this was also a way to confront themselves with their sad past as a need they had to survive again in the new reality after the communism collapsed.Religion was severely attacked during Albanian communism. In 1967 Albanian communist regime proclaimed Albania as an “atheist state” and everyone who was part of religious institutions had only two choices: that person either had to abandon his faith and in as lot of cases he had to do this disconnection with his religion in public, as an propagandistic way to make the others, either his colleagues or the believers, to follow his example and this was somehow the “easy” way; or he could choose to face the situation, to not accept to do this forced choice and this would mean only one thing: the beginning of living a hell on earth until their last breath.
Keywords: communism; documentary prose; freedom; prison; testimony.