Forty years since the death of Enver Hoxha: A million bunkers and death to the Bible

The largest number of people in Albania recognize the exterior of the building in Ismailja Ćemalija Street, the so-called Villa 31, formerly the residence of the dictator Enver Hoxha. A few weeks ago, an artist residency was officially opened in it - after long-term planning and after decades in which it was completely closed, writes Deutsche Welle (DW).

The opening happened coincidentally before April 11, when it is the fortieth anniversary of the death of the paranoid dictator. But it is no coincidence that the population still does not have free access to the former residence of Hodja. Visiting is possible only in exceptional cases.

Villa 31 has no hidden secrets, but the impossibility of access symbolically shows Albania's attitude towards that chapter of its past. The ruling elite is not interested in comprehensively dealing with the past, and the majority of citizens have other, mainly economic concerns.

A million bunkers

Thus, the anniversary of the death of Enver Hoxha in Tirana is an ordinary day. During his rule, that dictator turned the country into one of the most isolated areas in the world.

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Outside Albania, his name has become synonymous with a special type of dictatorship, which has surrounded itself with bunkers, he writes D.W.

Instead of building residential buildings, Hoxha built bunkers all over the country. Those traces are still visible today. A million bunkers made of reinforced concrete in a country with a little over three million inhabitants - these were testimonies of the dictatorial madness of a man who perfected terror.

Hoxha built communism, which in that form no longer existed anywhere, and he remained in power the longest of all communist dictators. He built his cult of personality not only on his ideology and dictatorial rule, but also on his ability to break ties with all allies.

Farewell to "Big Brothers"

He severed ties with Tito's Yugoslavia, with the Soviet Union, and finally with China, accusing those countries of renouncing the only true teaching - Stalinism. Thus he led the Albanians into isolation and severe poverty. He believed that his socialism would function without the outside world. Analysts believe that his stalking mania increased as his diabetes progressed.

Hoxha founded the Communist Party of Albania in November 1941 with the help of Yugoslav communists. Two years later, he became its head and remained in that position until his death. It seems that the break with Yugoslavia was predictable, because Hoxha believed that the Albanian national state should also include Kosovo, and Tito had a vision of a Balkan federation with Bulgaria and Albania, which would be led by Yugoslavia and himself.

Later, Hoxha dared to break ties with "big brother", the Soviet Union.

When Nikita Khrushchev began de-Stalinization in 1956, Hoxha objected. In Hoxha's world, Stalin remained the standard of all things until the end. Historians today argue over whether this was merely an excuse to end the Soviet presence in the country.

The next "big brother" of Albania was China. The alliance with tiny Albania was worth five billion dollars to the Chinese. After Mao's death, Hoxha broke off relations with China in 1978. He said he could not support China's new policy. But the breakup of the alliance brought Albania to its knees economically.

An unusual guest from Germany

In the name of consolidating power, Enver Hoxha sought support in countries that did not correspond to his ideological views. In August 1984, he hosted Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss in Tirana, whom he had previously publicly labeled as a revenger. Although Strauss was known as an ardent anti-communist, this did not prevent him from contracting million-dollar deals with communist dictators. However, for Albanian circumstances, that visit was very unusual. Even to this day, it has not been fully clarified what the two discussed then. The visit took place in complete secrecy.

The uninitiated often ask why Albanians mostly followed the regime without resistance. Until the collapse of the system in 1990, there was no dissident movement like in other communist countries. Hoxha would not tolerate such occurrences even in the womb. The cause should be sought in the tribal basis of rural society, in which there was no anonymity even in the cities. On the other hand, the repression was brutal, comparable only to the worst Soviet times under Stalin.

The death penalty for possessing a Bible

Hoxha almost completely destroyed the pre-war civil elite. He wanted Albania to become the first atheist country in the world. Believers were exposed to great persecutions. This particularly applied to Catholics in the north of Albania. Possession of a Bible was punishable by death.

Thousands of people disappeared without a trace, nothing is known about their fate to this day. Almost until his death, Enver Hoxha personally and extremely consistently led the purges in which many people, mostly politicians who fell out of favor or intellectuals, were sentenced to death or exile.

On the other hand, there was Hodzhin's personality cult that was comparable only to Stalin's or Mao's. This was reflected in the ubiquitous slogans on banners and posters: "Long live Enver Hoxha" or "People-Party-Hoxha". Those slogans were also carved on the hills so that they would be visible from a long distance.

A bad student from a good home

Enver Hoxha was born on October 16, 1908 in Djirokastra, in the south of Albania. After graduating from the French high school in Korča, King Zog I granted him a scholarship to study in Montpellier and Paris, where he came into contact with communist ideas. His fellow students claim that he did not graduate from university. From 1934 to 1936 he studied law in Brussels and worked as a secretary in the Albanian consulate.

After returning to Albania, he worked as a French teacher at his former school in Korca, and then opened a tobacco shop in Tirana. After the Italian occupation of Albania in 1939, Hoxha went underground with like-minded people, fought in alliance with Tito's partisans against the Italian and German occupiers. Two years later, he was a co-founder of the Communist Party of Albania. His wife was Nedmije Hoxha, with whom he had two sons and a daughter. He died on April 11, 1985 in Tirana, he was 76 years old.

What happened after Hodja's death?

Many Albanians hoped that the country would open up after the death of Enver Hoxha. In the Soviet Union, Gorbachev was in power and initiated perestroika. Hoxha was buried with the highest honors. Many Albanian men and women mourned and cried in public. It's hard to say now if those were genuine feelings.

At first nothing changed after Hodja's death. Another five years of isolation followed. Hoxha's successor, Ramiz Ali, continued to cultivate the personality cult of the deceased dictator - many monuments dedicated to Enver Hoxha were erected. The largest of them is located in the center of Tirana. It was toppled by thousands of angry people on February 20, 1991.

Today it seems as if all those scenes belong to the distant past. Hundreds of thousands of Albanians left the country in the 1990s. The younger generation therefore does not have a special attitude towards this topic. And when today's political elite talks about "difficult and painful history", it is usually about leaving it alone.