WHAT VATRA MEANS TO ME/

“Te lidhim besa besen, te leftojme per te drejtat e per nderin e Shqiperise dhe t’u refejme te huajve se rojme e duam te rojme me nder ne vendin tone.”

“Let us pledge our sacred word that we will fight for the rights and honor of Albania and to show the world that we live and want to live with honor in our land.”

I read those words of Faik Konitza to a gathering of people at Anthony’s Pier 4 in Boston on April 30th, 1995 which was the occasion of the removal of his remains to Albania. My talk back then was entitled “In Search of Faiku” which dealt with the visit by me and my family to Konitza in Northern Greece in August of 1988 to find the birthplace of Faik Konitza. The search was unsuccesful but it kindled my interest in Faiku whose name to me was synonymous with Vatra.

As I said back then, my first real introduction to Faik Konitza was his own incompleted book “Albania: The Rockgarden of Southeastern Europe” (edited posthumously by Qerim Panarity and published by Vatra in 1957). His name, however, was not unknown to me because as a young boy, I can still remember heated discussions between my cousin Llambi Misho, my uncle Lazi Christo, the ever-articulate Fan Noli, and others where the names “Faiku” and “Vatra” were prominently mentioned. Since I was too young at the time to have any clue about who Faik Konitza or Vatra were, I did, nonetheless, get the strong impression that my elders were talking about a very important Albanian person and a very important Albanian organization.

Many years later, I was privileged to participate in the Skanderbeg 500th Year Commemoration in Rome that was organized by Vatra in 1968 where I had the opportunity to meet Albanians from various parts of the USA, from Germany, Italy, and as far away as Australia. The one common thread that made the biggest impression on me was the absolute reverence with which these Albanians held Vatra. At the various seminars in Rome, speaker after speaker got up to exclaim the good and noble deeds that Vatra undertook on behalf of Albania and the Albanians. At no time in my life before then or afterwards have I ever heard of an Albanian organization spoken of with such high esteem and respect. Back in Rome in 1968, I had the good fortune to meet Prof. Ernesto Koliqi of Italy and Prof. Martin Camaj of Germany, and to become re-acquainted with them later in Boston when Vatra sponsored a visit by the Arbereshe of southern Italy. One of the first places these Italo-Albanians wanted to see was the Vatra office then on Huntington Avenue in Boston. Indeed, their impatience to visit what was to them an almost holy shrine was both fascinating and heart-warming to see!

After my good friend, Agim Karagjozi, invited me to come to New York today to address this body, I picked up Faik Konitza’s “Albania: The Rock Garden of Southeastern Europe” and became re-impressed with his articulate writing style and marvelous command of the English language as he described the history, manners and mores of the Albanians. Indeed, his book is worth re-reading many times for the amount of information it imparts.

In my judgement, it’s time for a new Vatra. Albania is now democratic, and a new wave of immigrants from Albania is arriving on our shores. There must be a place, common ground, where these new Albanians — Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim — can all come together in a brotherhood and sisterhood of shared experiences. It’s time for one organization under whose banner we can gather in a common quest to prove ourselves as a Balkan people worthy of notice. It’s time for us to set aside political differences for the greater good of all, to avoid the previous damage done by the in-fighting amongst the diverse political groups that defeated Vatra’s noble objectives. It’s time to re-establish Vatra as the Pan-Albanian organization that it should be by reaching out to the Albanians everywhere they are in the world — Kosova, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Greece, Romania, Turkey, and elsewhere. It’s time — the time is ripe to sow the seeds to reap the eventual harvest of new Vatrans. It’s time to establish ourselves as a presence that should be treated with dignity and respect and not as the second-class citizens that some Albanians are regarded as in countries such as Germany, Italy, and Greece! I believe it can happen, and I cite Konitza’s own words: “It should be borne in mind…that even though the Albanian is too independent and too individualistic to be subjected against his will to anybody’s influence, he still strongly believes in birth and the right of precedence and all that which is conveyed by such ideas.”

Vatra is that precedence, and if we can awaken the feeling deep within us that we can work together for the common good of all Albanians, Vatra will arise once again to assume that leadership position for Albanians it was destined to hold in the hearts and minds of the Albanian people wherever they are!
Now, perhaps more urgently than ever before, is the time for an organization like Vatra to inspire us with a “Shqipetarizme” that is so needed today – both in this country and in Albania! To me, Faik Konitza and Vatra are one and the same, and there is no more fitting salute to Vatra and to Faik Konitza than his own, truly inspirational words so let me leave you again with:

“Te lidhim besa besen, te leftojme per te drejtat e per nderin e Shqiperise dhe t’u refejme te huajve se rojme e duam te rojme me nder ne vendin tone.”*
“Let us pledge our sacred word that we will fight for the rights and honor of Albania and to show the world that we live and want to live with honor in our land.”

This entry was posted in Culture and History, History, Lectures on December 10, 2008 by Van Christo, Executive Director, The Frosina Information Network,