Partisan theater or the Albanian variant of agitprop theater?

Authors

  • Anxhela Çikopano

Abstract

Consulting the most recent publication on the history of Albanian theater, we find the term partisan theater used to describe a practice that precedes the emergence of professional Albanian theater. It is surprising that (even today) such a minor theatrical phenomenon, which appeared in the years 1941-1944, is accorded such an important role in the history of Albanian theater, one nearly equivalent to the 30 years of vigorous theatrical development that has its genesis in 1874, in Gjirokastra, with Koto Hoxhi. Beyond this unexpectedly significant historical weight, it is surprising to see a phenomenon that has more in common with variety theater (estrada) than with the traditional practice of theater, with its classical elements, nonetheless classified as and equated with theater. In its characteristics, partisan theater contrasts markedly with the theater movement as it developed both before and after the communist regime came to power. So: does partisan theater really deserve its current place on the map of Albanian – and world – theater history?

Keywords:

theater history, Albanian theater, Partisan theater, agitprop theater, history of Albanian theater

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References

  1. Translated into English by Raino Isto.

  2. The terminology used by Papagjoni differs in some cases: for example, the phenomenon that is everywhere referred to earlier as the partisan theater is now called, by Papagjoni, ‘the theater of the Second World War’; what Papagjoni calls the ‘State Professional Theater’ is more commonly known as the People’s theater, etc. However, for the sake of ease in the illustration of Fig. 1 (and later), I have chosen unifying and easily understandable terms, which I will use throughout this article.

  3. Neritan Ceka, “Fillimet e teatrit”, in Historia e teatrit shqiptar 1 (maket), Tirana, Albania: Instituti i Lartë i Arteve, 1985, pp. 11-16.

  4. Ramadan Sokoli, “Teatri folklorik”, in Historia e teatrit shqiptar 1 (maket), Tirana, Albania: Instituti i Lartë i Arteve, 1985, pp. 17-53 (pp. 17-18).

  5. Ibid., p. 51.

  6. Ismail Hoxha, “Mbi disa aspekte të zhvillimit të teatrit folklorik deri në çlirim”, in Nga jeta në teatër, nga teatri në jetë: artikuj e studime kritike, Tirana, Albania: Shtëpia Botuese “Naim Frashëri”, 1983, pp. 274-281 (p.276).

  7. Ibid., pp. 280-281.

  8. Amateur theater is defined in The Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre as performances in which performers and stagehands do not receive payment, other than to cover some expenses. See: Jonathan Law, ed., The Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre, London: Bloomsbury, 2011, p. 15. It is enough to read Vasjan Lami’s thesis (among other accounts) to discover abundant evidence that theater performances were ticketed, and that payments were received by performers. See: Vasjan Lami, Historiku i lëvizjes teatrale amatore para çlirimit në Tiranë, diploma thesis, Instituti i Lartë i Arteve, 1979. Some of the examples mentioned by Lami include: “The income received from the performance was used for the benefit of the group, in order to obtain tools or other necessary items.” (Ibid., p. 19); “Their art was appreciated by the people, who, despite the difficult economic conditions, paid 6 crowns for the lodge and 5 crowns for the stalls, and the auditorium was always full – it looked like this whenever there was a theatrical performance.” (Ibid., p. 19); “[The dearth of films in 1934 caused cinemas to leave more space for theatrical performances. The Gloria cinema] hired Xhevat Serezi, Hasan Reçi, and Mihal Stefa, the first to be paid a monthly salary of 60 francs.” (Ibid., p. 24). Another interesting case that demonstrates that the theater was ticketed is the arts and sport club in Korça, whose second show was Detyra e mëmës (A Mother’s Duty), written by Foiqon Postoli, who had just finished the piece for the club’s theater group. When the author passed away while the play was being staged, the proceeds from the performance went to help the Postoli family. See: Kudret Velça, “Teatri dhe dramaturgjia në periudhën e viteve 1912-1939”, in Historia e teatrit shqiptar 1 (maket), Tirana, Albania: Instituti i Lartë i Arteve, 1985, pp. 138-156 (p. 139).

  9. Eugene Van Erven, Community Theatre: Global Perspectives, London and New York: Routledge, 2005, p. 2. According to Van Erven, “community theatre is united by its emphasis on local and/or personal stories (rather than pre-written scripts)”.

  10. Kudret Velça, “Teatri dhe dramaturgjia në periudhën e Rilindjes Kombëtare”, in Historia e teatrit shqiptar 1 (maket), Tirana, Albania: Instituti i Lartë i Arteve, 1985, pp. 59-68 (p. 61).

  11. Ibid., p. 69.

  12. Velça, “Teatri dhe dramaturgjia në periudhën e viteve 1912-1939”, p. 138.

  13. In several issues of the newspaper Bleta (The Bee), in 1944, there are writings – often critical – about the performances that took place in these halls.

  14. Lami, Historiku i lëvizjes teatrale amatore para çlirimit në Tiranë, p. 24.

  15. Andrea Skanjeti, Njëqind vjet teatër në Shkodër 1879-1979, Tirana, Albania: Kad, 2002, p. 15.

  16. Velça, “Teatri dhe dramaturgjia në periudhën e Rilindjes Kombëtare”, p. 90.

  17. Josif Papagjoni, Historia e teatrit shqiptar, Tirana, Albania: Qendra e Studimeve Albanologjike, 2011, p. 27.

  18. Lami, Historiku i lëvizjes teatrale amatore para çlirimit në Tiranë, p. 20.

  19. Josif Papagjoni ultimately refers to this as ‘the theater of the Second World War’, but beyond this he does not change anything significant vis-à-vis the content of the categorical term.

  20. Kudret Velça and Ismail Hoxha, “Kuptimi shoqëror i teatrit partizan”, in Konferenca Kombëtare e Studimeve për Luftën Antifashiste Nacionalçlirimtare të Popullit Shqiptar – Nëntor 1974, Nr. 6, Tirana, Albania: Akademia e Shkencave, Instituti i Studimeve Marksiste-Leniniste, Universiteti i Tiranës, 1975, pp. 198-204 (p.198). (Note that at the time that Velça delivered this talk, Dr. Ismail Hoxha had passed away.)

  21. Ismail Hoxha, “Teatri partizan: 1941-1945”, in Nga jeta në teatër, nga teatri në jetë: artikuj e studime kritike, Tirana, Albania: Shtëpia Botuese “Naim Frashëri”, 1983, pp. 225-273 (p. 227).

  22. Velça, “Teatri dhe dramaturgjia në periudhën e viteve 1912-1939”, p. 89.

  23. Note that although they were fighting alongside each other for some time, the communist regime later proclaimed the Balli Kombëtar (the right-wing front) to be enemies of the people.

  24. Lami, Historiku i lëvizjes teatrale amatore para çlirimit në Tiranë, p. 37.

  25. Ylber Marku, “China and Albania: the Cultural Revolution and Cold War Relations”, Cold War History vol. 17, no. 4, 2017, DOI: 10.1080/14682745.2017.1307179 [last accessed 19 August 2023]. To be clear, it cannot be claimed that Ismail Hoxha’s article, published in August of 1971, was a direct response to the creation of a completely Albanian narrative related to the breakdown of relations with China and Albania’s complete subsequent isolation, after Kissinger’s meeting in Beijing. All this happened only a month before the publication of Hoxha’s article, when it was probably already on the editor’s desk, and the final breakdown of relations between the two countries would come at the end of the 70s. However, Enver Hoxha held critical attitudes towards the measures and implementation of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and his adaptations of the revolution were specific and localized. According to Ylber Marku: “the Albanian Ideological and Cultural Revolution ended up more closely resembling the Soviet Union’s experiment in the 1930s than China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.” (See Ylber Marku’s article “Socialism in Action: Albania’s Ideological and Cultural Revolution and Lessons from History”, published in this issue of Art Studies.) Any narrative related to the history of the development of socialist art in Albania had to be locally justified. As Marku writes, “socialist realism in Albania was locally distinct because although the forms of creativity resembled those of the Soviet Union during the 1930s and after, unlike the Soviet Union, they were nonetheless not opposed to tradition, but aimed at reshaping its narrative in the interest of forging strong nationalistic feelings.” Ibid., in this issue.

  26. See: https://partisantheatre.agrft.uni-lj.si/; https://sigledal.org/geslo/Gledali%C5%A1%C4%8De_v_NOB#Bibliografija [last accessed 19 August 2023].

  27. Ivan Matković, “The Reception of Anglo-American Drama on the Post-War Croatian Stage: Theater, Politics, Ideology”, Studia Romanica et Anglica Zagrabiensia vol. 31-32, 1986, pp. 55-89 (pp. 56-57), https://hrcak.srce.hr/121613 [last accessed 19 August 2023].

  28. Carol S. Lilly, “Problems of Persuasion: Communist Agitation and Propaganda in Post-war Yugoslavia, 1944-1948”, Slavic Review vol. 53, no. 2, 1994, pp. 395-413, https://doi.org/10.2307/2501299 [last accessed 19 August 2023].

  29. Jessica Christina Piggott, Acts of Commitment: Prefigurative Politics on the Agitprop Stage, doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 2019, p. 14.

  30. Ibid., pp. 16-17.

  31. Jessica Wardhaugh, Popular Theatre and Political Utopia in France, 1870-1940: Active Citizens, Coventry, England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, p. 231.

  32. Lynn Mally, “Exporting Soviet Culture: The Case of Agitprop Theater”, Slavic Review vol. 62, no. 2, 2003, pp. 324-342 (p. 325),

  33. https://doi.org/10.2307/3185580 [last accessed 17 August 2023].

  34. Piggott, Acts of Commitment, p. 258.

  35. Cited in: Werner Hecht, “The Development of Brecht’s Theory of the Epic Theatre, 1918-1933”, The Tulane Drama Review vol. 6, no. 1, 1961, pp. 40-97 (p. 53), https://doi.org/10.2307/1125006 [last accessed 17 August 2023].

  36. Monika Bregović, “Erwin Piscator’s Russia’s Day: Agitprop Between History and Myth”, [sic] – a Journal of Literature, Culture and Literary Translation vol. 1, no. 6, 2015, pp. 1-18 (p. 7), https://doi.org/10.15291/sic/1.6.lc.8 [last accessed 19 August 2023].

  37. Piggott, Acts of Commitment, p. 53.

  38. A performance of the Red Riot Review, in Norwegian, can be seen here: https://tv.nrk.no/program/FUHA00008173.

  39. Mally, “Exporting Soviet Culture: The Case of Agitprop Theater”, p. 326.

  40. For a broad overview of agitprop theater in the Soviet Union see: Lynn Mally, Revolutionary Acts: Amateur Theater and the Soviet State, 1917-1938, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2000; and Stefano Aquilina, Amateur and Proletarian Theatre in Post-Revolutionary Russia – Primary Sources, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. On agitprop theater in Germany, see: Piggott, Acts of Commitment, and Monika Bregović, “Erwin Piscator’s Russia’s Day: Agitprop Between History and Myth”. On agitprop theater elsewhere, see Lynn Mally’s comparisons in “Exporting Soviet Culture: The Case of Agitprop Theater”. Although the author does not describe it as agitprop theater, but as partisan theater, see how the Croatian partisan theater has elements of the agitprop theater in Ivan Matković’s discussion of the Croatian Partisan theater in “The Reception of Anglo-American Drama on the Post-War Croatian Stage: Theater, Politics, Ideology”.

  41. It is interesting the note the perspective on agitprop theater that Lynn Mally presents in her article “Shock Workers on the Cultural Front: ‘Agitprop’ Brigades in the First Five-Year Plan”, where she argues that the way these groups collected funds for the industrialization of the country often functioned as a kind of obligatory extortion. See: Lynn Mally, “Shock Workers on the Cultural Front: ‘Agitprop’ Brigades in the First Five-Year Plan”, Russian History vol. 23, no. 1/4, 1996, pp. 263-275 (p. 271),

  42. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24660927 [last accessed 18 August 2023].

  43. Jessica Christina Piggott, “Playing the Police with the Agitprop Troupes of Weimar Germany”, Theatre Survey vol. 64, no. 2, 2023, pp. 198–221, doi:10.1017/S0040557423000157 [last accessed 19 August 2023].

  44. Mally, “Exporting Soviet Culture”, pp. 324-327.

  45. Ibid., pp. 336-337.

  46. Ibid.

  47. Ibid., p. 329.

  48. Ibid., pp. 339-341.

  49. Piggott, Acts of Commitment, pp. 252-253.

  50. Mally, “Exporting Soviet Culture”, p. 324.

  51. For further details on the performances that took place in this period, see Ismail Hoxha, “Teatri partizan: 1941-1945”, and the following diploma theses (among others): Vasjan Lami, Historiku i lëvizjes teatrale amatore para çlirimit në Tiranë; Fredi Bualoti, Besim Levonja në teatrin partizan, autor i 21 pjesëve dramatike, qytetar-aktor, diploma thesis, Instituti i Lartë i Arteve, 1975; and Besa Thaçi, Mbi historikun e lëvizjes artistike teatrale gjatë lëvizjes Antifashiste Nacionalçlirimtare, diploma thesis, Instituti i Lartë i Arteve, 1978.

  52. Besa Thaçi, Mbi historikun e lëvizjes artistike teatrale gjatë luftës Antifashiste Nacionalçlirimtare, p. 13.

  53. It should be noted that, unlike the agitprop theater that developed with government support in the Soviet Union, or in Germany and France when it was not yet declared illegal, the Albanian agitprop theater developed under occupation; thus, the public would have been relatively trusting and politically potentially susceptible to agitation, without risking the arrest or killing of the agitators.

  54. Andon Pano, Njëzet vjet në Teatrin Popullor: mbresa dhe kujtime, 1977, manuscript, Biblioteka Kombëtare, p. 2. Pano mentions another instance of improvization: “That was all one needed. Everything was easy if one knew the draft idea, knew who was going to enter and exit the stage, and when, and knew what the skit was about. Even though there was no written text, the actors were very skilled in coming up with their own lines to fill out the first draft idea and produce a full production about the war against the occupiers and their accomplices. They were quite conscientious.” Ibid., p. 16.

  55. Ibid., p. 2.

  56. Lami, Historiku i lëvizjes teatrale amatore para çlirimit në Tiranë, p. 30.

  57. “People were kept up to date on current political developments through Party leaflets and communiqués, communist speeches in meetings or different conversations, and their improvised give-and-take dialogue was astonishingly rapid and free of errors. Everyone seemed like they could have been a political

  58. offical, based on their political maturity.” Pano, Njëzet vjet në Teatrin Popullor, p. 2.

  59. Hoxha, “Teatri partizan: 1941-1945”, p. 236.

  60. Lami, Historiku i lëvizjes teatrale amatore para çlirimit në Tiranë, pp. 42-44; Thaçi, Mbi historikun e lëvizjes artistike teatrale gjatë luftës Antifashiste Nacionalçlirimtare, p. 27.

  61. Thaçi, Mbi historikun e lëvizjes artistike teatrale gjatë luftës Antifashiste Nacionalçlirimtare, pp. 12-13.

  62. Hoxha, “Teatri partizan: 1941-1945”, p. 232.

  63. Lami, Historiku i lëvizjes teatrale amatore para çlirimit në Tiranë, p. 36.

  64. Ibid., p. 17.

  65. Bregović, “Erwin Pisctor’s Russia’s Day”, p. 7.

  66. Piggott, Acts of Commitment, p. 2.

  67. Bregović, “Erwin Piscator’s Russia’s Day”, pp. 8-10.

  68. Bualoti, Besim Levonja në teatrin partizan, p. 8.

  69. Pano, Njëzet vjet në Teatrin Popullor, p. 71.

  70. Enver Hoxha, “Letër kuadrove drejtuese politike të divizionit i të UNÇSH lidhur me ngurrimin në zbatimin e urdhrit të Shtabit të Përgjithshëm për kalimin e divizionit në veri dhe me forcimin e pushtetit të këshillave nacional-çlirimtare (1 korrik 1944)”, in Vepra, Vëll. 2, Tirana, Albania: Instituti i Studimeve Marksiste-Leniniste pranë KQ të PPSH, 1968, pp. 263-271 (p. 270).

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Published

2023-11-16

How to Cite

Çikopano, A. (2023). Partisan theater or the Albanian variant of agitprop theater?. Art Studies, (21), 9–33. Retrieved from https://albanica.al/studime_arti/article/view/3012

Issue

No. 21 (2022): Art Studies

Section

Articles