Constructing the image of the hero
The hero has always been seen as a mystical figure, one who endures through history, becomes legendary, becomes a myth. The hero has always been seen as a figure to be worshipped, because the hero embodies the model of the ideal person, someone who seeks and fights for an ideal society. That is why human societies are always looking for heroes. These must have been precisely the qualities Enver Hoxha saw “on paper” when it occurred to him to begin trying to pass himself off as a hero.
After he had put the structure of his regime in place, secured absolute power and, above all, institutionalised fear, Hoxha began to demand that history be changed. He began to demand to be portrayed as the central figure of the Liberation, as a Revolutionary, as the leading figure of the ideology (the totem), as the enlightened leader who would take the country forward. To this end, Hoxha demanded that books be written, songs composed and slogans dedicated to him and spread everywhere.
He began to seek the legendary in himself, to be part of the myth, to be an idol, to be worshipped.
This effort began with Hoxha himself, writing his memoirs and ideas, with reinterpretations of the totem (ideology). By the end of his life, these writings would amount to 70 works comprising more than 7000 pages, with only one principal character: Enver Hoxha. He “grafted” this activity onto the elimination of witnesses, killing and sentencing anyone who had been present in his “struggle to defend the totem”. His word would thus be the only word, and history would have nowhere else to turn. Hoxha even imposed this task of setting himself in stone as a hero on the arts, dictating to literature more than any other genre.
Literature, propaganda and fear
The work of Ismail Kadare, the regime’s most talented writer, also bears witness to this. Looking again at Hoxha’s demand to be portrayed and set in stone as a hero, Ndriçim Kulla, in his biography of Ismail Kadare, “Ylli i shkrimtarit” [The Writer’s Star], mentions that Kadare was ordered to produce a portrait of him (as a hero, naturally). Kulla says that Hoxha and Kadare had a tacit pact: Kadare was to dedicate a work of his genius to Hoxha, because on many occasions Hoxha had not only stemmed the torrent of criticism but had also spared him punishment.
Using the relationship between Faust and Mephistopheles[1] as a metaphor, Kulla says that Kadare produced only 40 pages (in “Dimri i vetmisë së madhe” [The Winter of Great Solitude]), and even those with a complete lack of enthusiasm. Without going deeply into this discussion of Kadare, what Kulla mentions demonstrates the dictates Hoxha imposed in constructing his image. An image that would by no means be accepted as a hero or an idol.
For, as Spartak Ngjela says, the worship was merely outward, arising from a general fear. Recalling mass demonstrations such as rallies and parades, including those for the 1 May holiday, Ngjela says that “the crowd screaming for Enver Hoxha was shouting out of fear”[2].
In general, heroes are worshipped because people are not satisfied with the dream, not satisfied with perpetuating the myth; they seek to identify with it, which is why they perform various rituals. In Hoxha’s case, this did not happen (his emergence and acceptance as a hero), because people did not see their ideal world in him. Compelled by the Sigurimi’s murderous machinery, together with the propaganda Hoxha created, people performed the rituals simply to “please” and “soften” his power.
[1] Ndriçim Kulla – Ylli i shkrimtarit [The Writer’s Star] p. 151
[2] Spartak Ngjela – Përkulja dhe rënia e tiranisë shqiptare [The Bending and Fall of Albanian Tyranny] p. 341