Also, in this period another equally brilliant mind appeared, Branko Merxhani. A synthetic and creative mind that converged with the best ideas of that time in the field of European philosophy and sociology. Precisely in one of his writings, Merxhani will interfere with Noli’s anarchies, extending his analysis of defects to historical upheavals. “Today’s Albania is a small chaotic world. Many bitterness’s and poisons flow in our veins, traces of destruction, of captivity, of an elusive historical-social upheaval. Turmoil and anarchy, which reign today in our language, are only a part, a picture, a phase of our historical-social breakdown”, emphasizes Merxhani in his article “Organization of Chaos”.
Author: Bardhyl Zaimi
In the Albanian knowledge world therehas been no lack of names, who with great depth and creativity have articulated the defects of the Albanians. They are thoughts, articulations, reflexive expressions that reflect the Albanian realities in a time context, but to make the development remain current even today.
The 1930s are rightly considered as the golden age of Albanian culture, as a period when powerful individuals appeared in the intellectual life of Albanians, each in their own field, each in their own vocation, managed to express thoughts of which remain an extraordinary diagnosis even for our time.
During this period, but also later, one of the names that shines with intellectual thought remains Fan Noli, a multidimensional figure that finds reflection in literature, music, in the field of translations as well as in political and cultural thought. Among other things, in 1924, in a speech held in the Albanian parliament, Noli talks about the confusion of five anarchies among Albanians, an articulation that goes deep into Albanian ethno- psychology, into the socio-cultural dimension and into the general outlook of Albanians.
Noli, as is already known, displays the five anarchies that prevent Albanian prosperity, that prevent the introduction of the Albanian being into the dimensions of stable and progressive values, just as he himself as a politician had claimed to re-dimension the existence of Albanians in the political, social and cultural plane. The first anarchy according to Noli is the religious one. “four different religions, which have not taken root in the heart of a pagan people”, he emphasizes. Another anarchy identified by Noli is social anarchy. “Here the dog does not know its master; here the characters are mashed and change form day by day as in a kaleidoscope. Here ambitions are unbridled and limitless. Here the clueless knows everything and the godless is good at everything”, says Noli, staging the essence of social decomposition and all the anarchy produced on the road of history.
He will be just as accurate when he articulates patriotic anarchy, a permanent problem presents among Albanians. The formulation “here in one day, as if by magic, the traitor becomes a patriot and the patriot a traitor” remains axiomatic. And, through a gradation and hierarchy of defects that appear, Noli finally articulates and displays the anarchy of ideals that remain “dark, distorted and mummified”. Through anecdotal reasoning, Noli exposes the strain of “armchair eaters” who “grow in the infected wounds of Albania”.
Monsignor Noli, this extraordinary mind, this creative soul who had translated Shakespeare, who had written about Beethoven, about Skanderbeg, who through his original poem, the “liberating verse” as Mitrush Kuteli describes it in one of his glances, had whipped the realities politics realities of that time, even in the field of political and socio-cultural thought, had already diagnosed a part of the Albanian defects, which during the whole time had disabled the “living, elegant and bright ideals of the West”.
The confusion of five anarchies articulated by Noli remains one of the truest Albanian diagnoses, a manifestation that was based on Albanian ethno- psychology, on historical cracks, but also on the deep disappointment of the life of a society that makes the answers to be answered his political, cultural and social. As we know, Noli, even with the political one, shows politics in the literary interpretations, which in most cases are related to his cause, which will be in permanent opposition to that of King Zog.
Regardless of its political cause, the formulations on the five anarchies remain a diagnosis for part of the problems of the Albanians, a cry and a luminism that required the change of the Albanian society, that required the establishment of another system of values, which came from its formation intellectual and permanent commitment to well-being regardless of his political orientation and cause. Only a deep and creative mind could synthesize this diagnosis of Albanian realities.
Of course, without absolutizing it, this remains a diagnosis of a desperate intellectual mind that persistently sought to offer Albanian society the problems it faces.
Also, in this period another equally brilliant mind appeared, Branko Merxhani. A synthetic and creative mind that converged with the best ideas of that time in the field of European philosophy and sociology. Precisely in one of his writings, Merxhani will interfere with Noli’s anarchies, extending his analysis of defects to historical upheavals. “Today’s Albania is a small chaotic world. Many bitterness’s and poisons flow in our veins, traces of destruction, of captivity, of an elusive historical-social upheaval. Turmoil and anarchy, which reign today in our language, are only a part, a picture, a phase of our historical-social breakdown”, emphasizes Merxhani in his article “Organization of Chaos”.
As can be seen, Branko Merxhani dwells on the logic of historical causality, while with the very title of the article he suggests a solution, a way out of this chaotic state. Merxhani as a mind protected with the best European ideas and practices goes one step further. In addition to articulating and displaying the problems, through the European philosophical and social theories of that time, he seeks the remedy, seeks the instruments of correction, seeks social improvement. Not inappropriately, his writing opens with a quote from Nietzsche “Every man, every people, to live and show himself, first of all must organize the Chaos, which is found inside his “Self”.
Branko Merxhani sets another objective for Albanian “youth”, a modern objective, which is not amazed by “romanticism”, but which seeks solutions in sociology as a science, which requires “a scientific form in tracking and definitions, as well as an understanding full and current philosophical in national idealism”. He goes beyond, promoting a scientific-objective approach to social realities and demands this from the intellectuals of that time. “An intellectual faces the greatest and most terrible danger: falling into the abyss of error and self-deception, if he wants to make a journey into the rich and chaotic realm of his fantasy. This sphere contains only false worlds, dead values, which only fall asleep and “genius utopians”, writes Merxhani.
He opens another horizon of treatments, persistently seeking solutions, the continuous correction of Albanian society. According to him, light is science, the world of realities. Political life, he writes, should not be defined through romanticism and fantasy. It was precisely after Merxhani established these scientific coordinates that they made it clear that solutions must be sought. “The problem of life, the mystery of the future, need this light. We should not see life through the prism of our fantasy. We must turn our gaze towards life, i.e. see life as it is and not as we want it to be. Life wants a solution. This solution is not found high in the national sky, but is hidden deep in the national soul. This is the starting point. Let’s illuminate the deep causes of our social anarchy, which the past bequeathed to us, with the beacon of sociological science”.
Focusing on historical causality, Merxhani gives the formula of ” organization of the chaos “, always based on the new philosophical and theoretical theories that were circulating in Europe at the time and of which Merxhani had deep knowledge. It is precisely these scientific theories that Merxhani manages to alternate in the definition of the Albanian realities of that time, but which remain permanent everywhere the Albanian world breathes today. They are scientific theories and developments that to this day maintain continuity in the European area, while in the Albanian space they were badly interrupted by the communist period.
The intellectual reflections of that time, whether they are diagnoses of political revolt or pure and unbiased observations of wise and cultivated minds, remain a necessary thread of continuity to provide answers to many problems that are manifested even today in the Albanian spaces. The interference of these two minds shows that the deep observations meet somewhere, in fact they meet in the syllable of those defects that prevent a productive environment, prevent social protection and always remain connected with a model and reflective intellectualism, which has knowledge, spirituality protected within itself and human commitment.
In the time of the omnipresence of barren gibberish, of empty arrogance, of improvisation and the great facade of knowledge, how necessary and profoundly necessary does that profound knowledge that holds these Albanian fatalities, that breeds them patiently and with the coordinates of theories modern that protect within themselves these preliminary reflections, which serve as an illuminating light for the countless Albanian wounds.