Sejfulla Malëshova
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Sejfulla Malëshova (b. 1901; d. June 9, 1971 in Fier) was an Albanian politician and writer.
[edit] Career
Malëshova was a charter member of the Albanian Communist Party and a member of its Politburo.[1] He used to appear as a self-proclaimed rebel poet of the guerilla war against the Italian and German occupying armies in Albania, and became known by his pen name Lame Kodra. In 1945, he was appointed Minister of culture and propaganda. In the same year, he was elected president of the newly founded League of Albanian Writers, which consisted of seventy-four members initially, with several non-communist intellectuals among them.
Malëshova had emerged as a moderate communist, often inviting publications without regard to their ideological content, which brought him the wrath of Enver Hoxha, particularly after an appeal by the Writers League to Harry Truman and Clement Attlee for Western recognition of Albania. In 1946, Hoxha accused Malëshova of "rightist deviation" and expelled him from the communist party. Following his dismissal, a persecution against the writers ensued, many of whom had been harassed and imprisoned by the authorities.
Malëshova spent the rest of his life as a warehouseman in Fier, shunned by almost all fellow citizens. He died an outcast in 1971.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Joseph Held (1994). Dictionary of East European History since 1945. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 63-64.
- ^ Robert Elsie (1991). "Albanische Literatur und Kultur nach sechsundvierzig Jahren Sozialismus. Ein Zustandsbericht." (in German). Südosteuropa - Zeitschrift für Gegenwartsforschung 48 (11-12): 600-613.
