Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the ceremony for the opening of the National Museum of Medieval Art in Korce:

 

Distinguished guests!

Your Holiness, Bishop Johan!

Your presence here is a special emotion within the great emotion for the opening of this Museum. I am convinced that the Municipality of Korca will put the framework that has been missing to this extraordinary work, by dedicating a special place in the museum to Theofan Popa, a man without whom Korca wouldn’t have this impressive collection.

Dear Lorenc!

Actually, if there is someone who deserves to be applauded tonight, it is you, former and current director of the Museum because without you and without that small group of dedicated people who protected the collection also during the Plague of 1997, we wouldn’t have a museum, we wouldn’t have a collection today.

My respect and deepest gratitude for this work which, I am sure, all the generations of this city will never forget!

Dearest Peter!

The mayor is convinced that the maximum that a person can have in life is to be German, but you’re not German, you are Australian. The mayor must realize that not everybody wants to be German. Some people are not, and they are proud of who they are. But let’s leave it to your slip of tongue, just because you’re not exactly like Australians. However, this slip of tongue can be also excused because Peter’s significant other is German.

Many thanks Peter for this very valuable contribution that you provide to Korce, especially for giving this museum the magical atmosphere that everybody will discover on its premises shortly. Congratulations also to the architects of the building who, I think, are happy also with the contribution of the lovers of this project that came in the form of a transformation that has been good also for the façade. Therefore, Alket, life is a process, and throughout this process some surprises may show up which apparently do harm, but which actually are good.  On this special day not only for Korca, where we are celebrating not only the museum, but also the work done by the Ministry of Culture, under the direction of Minister Kumbaro, work which, I believe, will be recorded as an extraordinary work in the last 25 years.

Today, a precious legacy is eventually protected and available to the public, in addition to being studied under optimal conditions. In the collection of the National Museum of Medieval Art, that could be nowhere else but in Korca, some 150 works have been identified, which are made by a large number of painters, iconographs and fresco painters that have left their mark on the history of this country, among whom there is also Onufri.

250 objects and icons have been exposed for the first time in the new museum. It is worth noting that they have been exposed with the most modern parameters in all respects, giving a new dimension to our new relation with cultural heritage exposed in urban areas.

Thanks to the continuous efforts of the government, of the Ministry of Culture and of the Municipality of Korca, it was possible to resume in October 2014 a work started by one mayor of Korce, who has always left his imprint in this city, and this mayor was Niko Peleshi who with a sort of courage that actually does not characterize him, a madman’s courage, because Niko has courage, but it is not that of madmen, began to build the museum in 2007 with a modest fund provided in cooperation with the government of Greece. But the fund was only enough to start work, whereas many works initiated by Niko here in Korca were not completed as Niko would like because, unfortunately, the then government in Tirana would see things differently, and would think differently. Back then, when Niko began work for the museum, my predecessor said that the museum had to be closed once and for all for it represented an atavism of the past. Later, he changed his mind and said the museum was going to be built within a year. Actually, many years passed by, and what was supposed to be a museum remained a space with several columns and no roof that, as the residents of this city know, became a problematic environment.

But history is already history.

Today, we will open the doors of the National Museum, which is part of a new approach to revive not our cultural heritage, but our relation of respect with it. Today, even though we are a country that does not have unlimited financial possibilities, and have gone through a very difficult phase to emerge from a deep crisis that has affected every sector, although we had to repay hundreds of millions of dollars in debt arrears or hidden to third parties, we have done for our cultural heritage, and I can say this out and loud, what was not done in 25 years combined.

Let’s not forget that at the same time when we took office, it was not only this museum that was waiting for an intervention by the government, along with the collection which, as I said at the beginning, was defended stoically by a few people here in Korca, but another two museum cities of Albania, Gjirokastra and Berat, had entered UNESCO’s black list of endangered world heritage, and were regarded as “endangered assets”.

The whole situation of our cultural heritage could be considered as such, if we applied UNESCO’s evaluation criteria because not only collections or buildings were seriously damaged but there was an ongoing process of demolition. In fact, today Berat and Gjirokastra are not on UNESCO’s black list anymore. Meanwhile, the government has invested attention, knowledge and money to start an irreversible process, I hope and believe, for their recovery.

The inventory of monuments has been made for the first time after more than 20 years, and the national list of cultural monuments has been created for the first time. Because a national list of monuments pursuant to modern standards of the relationship between the state and cultural heritage was missing, many items have actually been damaging or disappeared, and many parts of very precious collections of this country have been stolen of barbarized at an unimaginable degree.

We have started a process of transformation through various partnerships of some key elements of our heritage, such as the old bazaar of Korca which I mention proudly, and which from a ghost in the heart of the city, has been transformed into an area that surely will bring a growing economic impact for Korca, and will be a main reason for which people will be encouraged to visit this city.

The Archaeological Museum of Durres, one of the assets that made us proud of our cultural heritage, remained closed and degraded for five years, while its 2800 objects were left completely adrift. Today, the Archaeological Museum of Durres has been reopened, and its facilities have been fully restored.

Meanwhile, we have continued expanding the list of monuments of culture. We have 170 monuments included in this list, that were previously in no inventory and register of the Institute of Cultural Monument, and of course they risked disappearing, to pave the way for different developments in different urban realities across the country.

An authentic emergency operation to save the traditional settlements, the objects of worship or monuments at risk, has allowed today the church of Ristoz in Mborje, the mural painting in the Church of St. Mary, the church of St. Peter in Vithkuq, the church of St. Athanasius in Karavasta, the Roman baths in Durres, the entrance to the castle of Gjirokastra, the complex of the square “Mother Teresa” in Tirana, the bridges of Gorica and Velabisht in Berat, the Amphitheatre in Durres, the castle of Lezha, the Monastery of St. Mary in Apollonia, the Mosque of Ethem Bey in Tirana, the King Mosque in Berat, the Bazaar in Kruje, Korca and Tirana, not to mention many others, become already a proud part of our cultural heritage.

For the first time, we have launched a joint process with Kosovo to build a common itinerary on the common path of the history of cultural heritage. Obviously, we cannot say today that we have accomplished our mission. It is only at a first stage, for there are still many buildings, monuments, collections that need an intervention by the government.

What is important is that today no monument, no object, no collection, no traditional settlements risks disappearing and being victim of destruction, because of the oblivion, and as such be part of a development that does not consider this an extraordinary asset that cannot be replaced by any kind of current development, no matter how spectacular it may be.

I would like once again to thank with deep gratitude all of those I did not mention, but who are the protagonists of the protection of this fantastic collection, which, let me tell you, is undoubtedly the greatest collection gathered in a museum of Byzantine Art in our region. This also because of history, because undoubtedly there are in the region exceptional collections, but they did not go through the process of downfall in hell, which our collections of Byzantine Art religious objects in general went through. But I believe that it is the greatest collection of Byzantine Art in Europe collected in a single museum.

Therefore, I am convinced that this fantastic museum, starting from tomorrow will be one more reason for anyone who will want to visit Korce. While for the residents of this city, as for all the other interventions made in this direction, the museum will not be just a business card of pride for what this area used to be, but it will be another powerful instrument of economic growth and increased quality of social life in this city.

I will conclude by expressing the highest appreciation for Niko Peleshi who is today very happy, for he could see how a work started from the courage he took when he had lost all hope, today has certainly been transformed into a work showing the normality of a country aware of its values, represented by a government that has its flaws, but certainly has the virtue of living up to the ambition of next generation Albania.

Many thanks!