Musine Kokalari

Musine Kokalari (10 February 1917 – 13 August 1983) was an Albanian prose writer and politician in Albania's pre-communist period. She was the founder of the Social-Democratic Party of Albania in 1943.[1] Kokalari was one of the first published female writers of Albania. After a short involvement in politics during World War II, she was persecuted by the communist regime in Albania, and not allowed to write anymore. She died in poverty and complete isolation.

Quotes

• I don’t need to be a communist to love my country! I love my country even though I am not a communist. I support its progress. Even though you won the war, even though you won the election, you cannot persecute those who hold different political opinions from yours.
  • [1]
• The people who must rule our country must come from the ranks of teachers, doctors, artists. A group of them must travel to every corner of Albania for six months, meet people, get to know their reality, and then sit together and draft a platform. Another group must do the same thing for another six months, and only this way we can have a decent political and economic government program
  • [2]
• I do not need to be a communist to love my country! I love my country even though I am not a communist. I want its progress. Even though you won the war, even though you won the elections, you cannot persecute those who hold different political views from you. I think differently from you, but I love my country. I do not apologize because I haven’t done anything wrong.
  • =en
• The main reason for the restriction of political freedom is [the lack of] social justice.
  • =en
• the October Revolution brought new revolutionary ideals that found their way into Albania, and communists’ groups were established, albeit not at a national level,scantily, with unclear and diverse principles.
  • [3]
• Thus began the tragedy of the democratic

individual under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus ended the age of Awakening and the humanist democratic tendency to defend the common people.

• • [4]
• Thus began the tragedy of the democratic individual under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus ended the age of Awakening and the humanist democratic tendency to defend the common people, to save the working man from physical and spiritual slavery and give him human dignity. Violence and bloodshed came to destroy democracy, with the cruel joy for bloodshed, with force and contempt.
  • [5]