Polish Reporters: Albania’s Journey from the Communist Bunker
- Where: Václav Havel Library, Ostrovní 13, Prague 110 00
- When: April 26, 2022, 19:00 – 21:00
The dictator Enver Hoxa decided to make Albania the only genuine socialist state. He isolated it from the rest of the world, unleashed terror and forced atheism on a strongly religious country. He led it for 40 years. Reporter Margo Rejmer writes in the book Mud Sweeter Than Honey about a state that was turned against its own inhabitants. Nobody could be sure of their life. Informing was extremely common, as were draconic punishments. Now people are learning to trust again. To be part of an open Europe. But is 20 years enough for that?
Recently Albania (population three million) has become a popular destination for tourists, including Czechs, who are discovering its beautiful mountains and villages where time has stood still, as well as ancient landmarks that have survived in the shadow of concrete bunkers. Margo Rejmer will discuss the difficult coming to terms with the past as well as contemporary Albania with Robert Dobra, an Albanian Studies expert and cofounder of the project All Faces of Albania.
Romanian and Polish studies expert Jarmila Horáková will moderate. She translated Mud Sweeter Than Honey, which received the prestigious Kościelski Award and the Polityka weekly Paszport Prize, into Czech (2021), as she had done with the author’s earlier book of journalism Bucharest: Dust and Blood (2015).