Fehmi Ajvazi, an eminent author from Kosovo, has shared his book ‘In the Kingdom of Death’ published in Albanian in 2012 in Pristina, and in Romanian in 2019, and was translated from Albanian to English
[In March 1999, the Serbian regime blanketed Kosovo with a contingent of 120,000 regular police, military, and civilian paramilitary forces. Just about two weeks before NATO’s intervention in Kosovo began, the region was surrounded on all sides, while pockets of the interior (villages and towns) were hit with arrests, liquidations, and massacres. Kosovo became a reservation. A kingdom called the “Kingdom of Death” established authority everywhere! However, some areas were controlled by insurgent liberation forces, and in some places, Serbian forces couldn’t penetrate. Well, the hatred between Serbs and Albanians was the same, but the bullets were the same too: they brought death to everyone, and it was no problem for the “bullet” whether the target was Albanian or Serbian. I mean, the forces of the Kosovo Liberation Army held some territory and kept it free! But about ten days before NATO planes launched their attack in their battle for Kosovo, Albanian insurgents managed to have the world’s most powerful force as their ally: the NATO alliance. However, no one had managed to master a pact with death. Just a few days before March 24th, the “Lady of Death” was the ruler of Kosovo, in reality, she was the ruler of the Albanian citizens of this extremely small territory! And for the third time in history, the state of Serbia wanted nothing more and nothing less than: the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Over 1 million residents before March 24, 1999, challenged “this kingdom” by saying, “Here we are, your power is not the power of God!” I had decided to stay, not to leave. I was a journalist, but also a creator. And so, I had no idea what dilemmas lay in this direction, despite the open threats from the Serbs, and I knew well that they would try to wash their hands of us like Pontius Pilate! Regardless of every situation and circumstance, I sacrificed to be a witness to a time and a history without parallel! Yes, a witness…! And everything I have said and written about literary-historical conditions is in this book – a testimony. Therefore, this book is a source and my personal experience of a time I pray will never be repeated – anywhere. Just as I pray for the souls of those who did not come out alive in this “kingdom of death” in the third millennium! Read the truth about Kosovo… Author]
May, 7th
I now reside in another unfamiliar “home,” unknown to me until yesterday. There are people in this house, just like all the people in this village-town named Veleshta, unknown to me. They are strangers to my wife as well. However, they are ours, brethren in language, blood, and culture. The waves of displacement brought us here, to Veleshta. These waves brought us to the Vrënezaj family. I’m not alone in this “newcomers” category in Veleshta; there are hundreds of thousands of other Kosovar Albanians brought here by the waves of displacement. Myself, Shpresa, and Niku found ourselves in this beautiful village in the Struga region almost by chance. All of us, collectively, represent the long lines of those displaced from Kosovo.
Veleshta, this previously unheard-of village to me, has taken in brothers and sisters from Kosovo, offering them a warm and genuine welcome, without any ulterior motives, as they say, but rather a brotherly reception. I call it the “village of slogans.” Why? Wherever you go in the village, on its streets and alleys, everywhere, the walls of houses, gates, various electrical poles, are filled with slogans and graffiti. And what slogans and graffiti they are! The slogans and graffiti carry texts as meaningful as they are resonant messages: “UÇK, UÇK…,” “Down with the traitors,” “Kosova Republic,” and so on. This picture of the environment in which we breathe is preferable and, in a way, comforting. It’s also supportive of us. I stop and read these slogans time and time again. Then I read them once more. Every day…
My days and nights pass with heavy footsteps. Sleep weighs on me like a night of captivity. Strange thoughts, depressing thoughts, cut through the living threads of life at the core of my spirit. Nothing is in its right place. Fear for loved ones, for people in Kosovo (both known and unknown), for our future relentlessly shears through the images of our truncated life. I write, just to write. The letters and words, the paragraphs, feel like the “cross” on which Jesus was crucified. I can barely connect my thoughts, the letters, the words, and the sentences. The blank page appears to me as a black abyss, like Byzantine-Balkan dark nights. This, in a way, is my confession, my way of feeling and experiencing it. I want to take this confession all the way to the end.
(Additional Note: It’s late at night. I stand on a small balcony connected to our room, on the third floor of the beautiful Vrënezaj family house. The house’s balcony, seemingly tailor-made, faces towards Kosovo, meaning the northern part of the house. I stay there through the night for hours, sometimes lost in contemplation, facing north, in other words, facing Kosovo. Even as I write these lines, it’s almost under the pale light of the moon. The clock is nearing midnight. I light a cigarette. Midnight knocks. In the village, there’s an eerie calm. My wife is asleep. So is Etnik. The late spring calm is broken by the noise of NATO military planes heading northeast. These fragments of the night, despite the fundamental political changes at the turn of the century, are vibrations of times within a threatening sphere, within a tragic reality of international proportions. How can this be possible? I ask myself hour by hour. What has befallen us, and why? I must accept it: I feel lost, desperate, insignificant, like a raindrop. I know it’s not sincere to engage endlessly with my personal feelings, emotions, and concerns (here in this book), even though I can’t escape those feelings, pains, and worries. It doesn’t solve anything. Worse yet, I torture myself profoundly. Bastard. So, isn’t it also a time for resilience and survival? Yes, it is. It’s a time for cultivating a universal morality, solidarity, and courage to challenge the evil that has befallen us. Because we cannot accept this fate. May God not allow it! Then, this is what the Serbs want: to crush, subdue, disorient, ruin, bloodstain, and scatter us to the four corners of the world. I focus my gaze upon the darkened sky, towards the north, towards the Balkan plateau of Kosovo. Somewhere in its depths, right there on the plateau, life and death coexist, hour by hour. They clash, kill, torture, massacre, rape, scream, all without witnesses, without God. Everything seems upside down in my eyes. Spring, now in its second month, doesn’t follow its usual rhythm. It has arrived somewhat ominously, with delays: with cold, mist, frequent rains. The locals say: spring hasn’t had this kind of weather before. In silence, I say to myself: “This is not a normal spring; it’s a spring of blood and cries.” Without saying anything aloud, I steer my thoughts elsewhere: “Could it be the spring of Freedom?” Ah! The sky above Struga and its surroundings is indeed not visible through the thick and damp fog. They twinkle like eyes blurred by great pain. Up in the highlands of Ohrid, to the east, and in the border areas of Librazhd and Pogradec, to the west, the snowfall still threatens pilgrims. March has left; April has arrived. I think to myself: “Could the weather be our enemy as well?” Spring is being delayed, even though it’s in its prime. During this time, it (spring) shows its intoxicating power. But, it’s said that hardship – the bad weather – often coincides with political turmoil, or during times of escalated conflicts. Nature appears and extends itself with its various signs. With unusual signs. Do some unusual natural signs appear parallel to human disturbances, with the birth and emergence of conflicts and wars, or is it merely a coincidence? No one can know for sure. Nevertheless, although I am not superstitious and have no preference for parapsychology, there exist many popular sayings, legends, stories, and myths that, in a way, try to connect them, suppose them, prejudge them, and validate them – these strange coincidences of “natural states” with “human conditions.” Thus, traditionally, these preoccupations and superstitions persist among people, in different human societies (regardless of race, nationality, or religion): a way of offering explanations and analyses, almost without answers. In our case, in contrast to what is happening in Kosovo, there’s no better time and occasion for believers, fortune-tellers, seers, and Nostradamuses to engage and wrestle with this turmoil, more so than in a secular way, prophetically. However, despite the situation and the unreal state in Kosovo, the genocidal crime and war in Kosovo, it’s nothing but a real theoretical and practical project designed to be realized today by the Serbian state. Therefore, there are no extraordinary, mystical, or superstitious things here: Serbia has surged to depopulate and occupy Kosovo. This is the reality. Period.)
Dialogue with Etnik
-Baaaa…naa…naaa…! Ta, tiiii… a…laaa…!”
-Hey, young man!? What’s wrong? Learn to speak! Learn to walk faster, to understand, to read! You neither understand nor know where you are, why, and how you got here. In this place. With whom? For what?
-Ba..laaa…baa…!
-Heyyyy…! Smile a bit, young man, at least you should smile, because there’s no one else to do so. Take whatever you need from my spirit, from my blood, and live to become a man one day, to seize the strength of the bloodied mountains, the pain, and the legacy of the brothers. Just don’t shed tears, don’t get sad! There will be, in the days to come, great violence, crimes, massacres like in Hell; there will be material destruction, displacements, identity destruction, etc.
-Aaaa…ee…a… Baaa…
-Come here, Nik! Look into my eyes! Kosovo will never have its old face again. Never. The physical loss of Kosovo will be that loss where thousands and thousands of its people will no longer be in this world. With thousands of others, they will suffer the consequences of this wretched war for the rest of their lives. With thousands of others, Nik, they will spread across the world and will never return to the soil of Kosovo to rebuild its burnt and shattered gardens.
-Maaa…na…ma…naaa…na…
-Oh, boy! It’s better that you don’t understand. Who is like you? Meanwhile, you will enjoy freedom in its fundamental form: natural and human freedom. It hasn’t cried before coming to Kosovo. You will grow up with it. Just what is happening in our land, Etnik, is shaking even the dead in their graves. But you don’t understand now, the wild abyss of genocide. Crime has cut the real image of our normal life in half. Nature doesn’t breathe. The truth is overturned in the abyss. Nik, there in Kosovo, there are barbarians. You will learn (one day), in general, about their nature, their codes, their ugliness.
-Baa…ba…laaa…ma…
-Ah, boy! Trying to break free from the chains of slavery, freedom will be our only star of hope and reality for our tomorrow. For our future. Kosovo has become (today) for us, the “Promised Land.” The shadow of this land, or rather, the shadow of Kosovo, follows us everywhere. And remember: it will follow us and call us wherever we go, to the ends of the earth!
On May 8th, according to various sources, more than 500,000 residents of Kosovo have already been displaced. Who knows how many more will be displaced. Thousands of people have been scattered across Balkan countries, and thousands more have departed towards various European states, including France, England, Italy, Germany, Turkey, and others. Thousands are even heading to Canada, the United States, Australia, and so on. Despite being disheartened and physically and emotionally shattered, the current situation we find ourselves in has historical significance: we never wanted to abandon our homes due to psychophysical pressure and violence, etc. We are being systematically expelled, perhaps according to a state project, with over 120,000 different police, military, and paramilitary forces on our backs. (Continues)
Click here for Part-1, Part-2, Part-3, Part-4, Part-5, Part-6, Part-7, Part-8, Part-9, Part-10, Part-11, Part-12, Part-13, Part-14, Part-15, Part-16, Part-17, Part-18, Part-19, Part-20, Part-21, Part-22, Part-23, Part-24, Part-25, Part-26, Part-27, Part-28, Part-29, Part-30, Part-31,
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[The book ‘In the Kingdom of Death’ is being reproduced in episodes with the consent of the author]
