Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the memorial evening dedicated to writer, publicist and translator Ardian Klosi:
Good evening everyone!
It actually happens very rarely to me to find it hard to speak, and this is one of those times.
What makes it even harder for me to speak is the fact that Ardian and I made a promise to each other. We promised that he who was going to remain behind would not become ridiculous by being too serious, by talking about the other one that left before. I gave it a try, I told these precious assistants of mine to make me a draft. I read it and said to myself: they have done a very good job but if I read it as it is, the vow is broken. So, I thought I would say a few words by combining what my assistants have written so seriously, with what I need to say to keep the promise.
“Be educated to be free” Ardian wrote in an article in 2008 by quoting a Latin phrase. These are the words that open the draft that my assistants prepared, to continue with: Ardian Klosi is known as publicist, albanologist, writer and translator.
In fact – and now it is my turn – I knew him as a very troubled soul with a very sharp mind. The quotation of the Latin phrase “Be educated to be free” was his effort to get rid through knowledge of the ignorant people who were enormously annoying to him, and sometimes made him feel even more the burden of his turbulent nature.
He gave a great contribution by translating in the Albanian language the works by great authors such as Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Max Frisch, Mark Twain, Franz Kafka, Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich Böll, Georg Büchner, Ernest Gellner and François Pouqueville, – my assistants write justly. This is true, but I think that the very reason why Ardian used to translate was a need for hygiene.
I am convinced that had Ardian been someone else and had not been affected by the great stir coming from within, and which was becoming increasingly greater because of ignorance and filth, he would have not translated. Moreover, due to his need to coexist that he could not normally meet in the environment where he chose to live with that nature of his, translation was to Ardian the need to coexist in a society with other people that he used to choose himself in libraries, and with whom he would take a walk and talk with them. Ardian would communicate with them. It was a sort of life on the run, as it was a sort of flirting with the dead.
Death was a force that did not act upon Ardian as it usually acts consciously upon humans, but it acted also unconsciously. Ardian had death always with him, and he could not avoid it. Ardian and I talked about death many times, and while he flirted with the dead he chose himself, his stir would grow and his sharp mind could do nothing to mitigate his stir. On the contrary, it would make it even more of a burden.
He received many national and international awards for his activity as translator. Ardian was actually very indifferent to awards. Arlinda will certainly find an argument that I have not supported enough the fact that he gave Veton a piece of paper for an award so great. But the truth is that any kind of statue or figure that we did, would make the award for Ardian look ridiculous. Whereas, that pieces of paper, the certificate that Veton was handed over, is also the most extraordinary way to do the right thing and to not poke the sense of aversion he had towards seriousness. So I hope that Veton will put that certificate in a frame and hang it on the wall, as those papers of commend given by the party that used to be hanged on the wall, because this will make Ardian happy.
The draft continues with the fact that Ardian Klosi is also known for his commitment to the daily activities of civil society, to issues of cultural heritage and environment, and it notes that when the Pyramid case emerged, he was in charge of collecting signatures against the demolition of the building.
In fact, since the very beginning, since I’ve known him, since the very first contact, Adrian belonged to a school that did not accept the idea of an intellectual without engagement. Actually, Ardian considered John Lennon an intellectual far greater than many others who have written many books and deepened their way of thinking. For him he organized also that famous December 10th of his murder, which was also the moment when the movement against the regime of that time escalated at the Academy of Arts.
For Ardian, an intellectual person was someone who lived connected to politics, not as a politician, but as someone who would counter the power. This is how it happened back then, because when the movement started, the word “intellectuals” was heard a lot, and it was a nightmare for Ardian who translated the book by Vaclav Havel, “Living with the truth”. And for Ardian, an intellectual person was someone who lives with the truth. When we would discuss about what is he who knows a lot, who writers and goes in depth, he said, he is an intelligent person, but not an intellectual.
Such an event – my assistants say – of extraordinary cultural impact that conveyed messages through the art of writing, was the event of “Tirana Open”, a book fair which he wanted strongly and for which he worked very hard, along with some other friends. It was one of those displays of his utopia to socialize with others and to do things together. He tried to unite people, to do things, and he would always come out of these initiatives in despair, and then go on his way, flirting with the dead.
The award “Ardian Klosi” is given in his honour, in the literary field. The first to have this award was Ardian Vehbiu, for his work “Sende që nxirrte deti” (Objects washed ashore) – my assistants have written. It was Ardian Klosi who introduced me to Ardian Vehbiu, and Adrian Vehbiu has been physically materialized for me until recently. I had one Ardian physically materialized in front of me, and another Ardian. And it seemed to me that while one was flirting with the dead, the other one was flirting with the fool. One was flirting with the dead who had taken life too seriously, while the other one was flirting with the happy fool of the Socialist Realism, with characters of all sorts of colours who live life beautifully in the foolishness of conformism, regardless of whether it is the conformism of the regime or the conformism of, let’s say, the democratic system.
There was an extraordinary attraction for me in this binomial because, as I said, one of them was not at all physically there, I did not know him – I knew Ardian Vehbiu really late, – while the other one was present, but it was as if he were a shadow together with him. Whenever he needed to connect to the world of the happy fool, Ardian would say Vehbi, as if he was calling a second last name of himself.
His departure from this life was a tragedy for the Albanian culture, while he keeps being remembered as a great man. Actually, and I am here to witness, we have spoken many times about how that thing could happen. I used to tell him that I imagined that he was going to kill himself. And he would always laugh about it, and I never thought consciously that it was going to happen that way. When he was building the house on the lake, he used to tell me: I am going to build an attic above. The house was located in such a position that there was nothing in the surroundings, and when I went there it was usually dusk and an extraordinary calm, and I would tell him: “approximately on this time of the day a sharp gunshot will be heard, two ducks will fly from the surface of the lake shortly after, and then we will learn that the great Ardian Klosi did not say us goodbye, but said us “go to hell!”.”
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An evening dedicated to the publicist and writer Ardian Klosi gathered today at the Centre for Openness and Dialog (COD) at the Prime Ministry artists, writers, journalists, publicists, representatives of civil society, as well as family and relatives of the famous publicist. The event, which started the cycle “The podium of COD”, was also attended by Prime Minister Edi Rama and Minister of Culture Mirela Kumbaro.
Four years after Klosi’s passing, Swiss historian and Ardian’s friend Oliver Jens Schmitt presented the book “To Ardian Klosi, the German guy from Albania”, a collection of articles and part of studies by friends who have known Ardian Klosi personally, as well as writings by scholars, journalists, poets and Albanologists with whom he collaborated.
Among other things, the book highlights one of the many areas of Ardian Klosi’s activity, that of mediator between the Albanian and German languages and cultures.
The “Podium of COD” honoured the memory of the prominent intellectual by awarding the “Adrian Klosi” for the best publicist of 2015 to the renowned publicist Veton Surroi.
