DOI: 10.3986/Traditio2020490207 TRADITIONES, 49/2, 2020, 123–140
This paper focuses on the death, state funeral, and national 
mourning for the Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha 
(1908–1985). This exploration of the emotional experiences 
and cultural strategies of coping with the death of a deathless 
leader aims to shed light on the performative roles of the 
ruling party, the workers, and the class enemies, as well as 
on the methods of ruling in a dictatorial system. 
Keywords: Enver Hoxha, death, mass mourning, state funeral
V članku so obravnavani smrt. državni pogreb in nacionalno 
žalovanje za albanskim komunističnim diktatorjem Enverjem 
Hoxho (1908–1985). Raziskava emocionalnih izkušenj in 
kulturnih strategij za spoporijem s smrtjo  neumrljivega 
vodje želi osvetliti performativno vlogo vladajoče stranke, 
delavcev in razrednih sovražnikov ter tudi metode vladanja 
v diktatorskem sistemu.
Ključne besede: Enver Hoxha, smrt, množično žalovanje, 
državni pogreb
EVEN THE GODS DIE . . .
THE STATE FUNERAL AND NATIONAL MOURNING
FOR THE ALBANIAN COMMUNIST DICTATOR ENVER 
HOXHA
BLEDAR KONDI
INTRODUCTION
“The dictator died, but the dictatorship continued.”
—Former political prisoner
“The star fell, but its light remained.”
—WWII veteran
Enver Hoxha is one of the longest-serving communist leaders in the world. He ruled Albania 
for more than 40 years, following his “special Albanian path.” After coming into power 
in 1944, the “Balkan ex-Muslim Stalinist” (Halliday 1986: 6) “killed god”
1
 and became 
a replacement deity
 
for the youthful generation, transformed Albania from a backward 
post-Ottoman province into a modern industrial country, installed a violent isolationism, 
and led a life hollowed by paranoia (Lendvai 1985: 64–65; Fischer 2007: 249–266; Mëhilli 
2011: 7–13). Hoxha’s first (natural) death in 1985 and second (political) death in 1991 
generated a full circle of events, from the immortalization to the damnation of an absolute 
monarch and from anti-communist iconoclasm to bittersweet nostalgia for the dictator-
ship. The apparatus of sonic and visual (re)presentation of the leader’s loss was construed 
to produce effects about the entire history of Albanian communism, and especially the 
life and deeds of a man “born of a mother, reborn of the Party” (i.e., Enver Hoxha). The 
weeklong funeral commemorations, the public work of mourning, commemorative rites, 
and national folk festivals, and his Pharaonic glorification in a pyramidal museum were 
1 
After systematic persecution of the clergy, ca. 740 mosques, 530 tekkes and turbes, 608 Orthodox 
churches, and 157 Catholic ones were closed within a few months in atheist Albania in 1967. They 
were partly maintained as “cultural monuments,” partly transformed into cinemas, storage depots, 
and sports venues, and some were destroyed (Bartl 1995: 255).

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required to demonstrate how one’s physical mortality in individuo is transcended by politi-
cal immortality in genere. Though obsequies would mark a smooth transfer of power, the 
irreplaceable loss of the “sultan rouge” contained the seeds of the end of the communist 
regime. The female vocalization of painful shock and grief through the public rituals of 
“crying with howls” (e qarë me ulërimë) and “crying with words” (e qarë me ligje)
2
 aimed 
to tell of the unspeakable, release the unbearable, and deny the unimaginable: the death 
of the deathless leader.
State funerals and public mourning for great communist leaders constitute a great 
show of panic, sorrow, and devotion that was repeatedly restaged in the past century of 
catastrophes. Paradoxically, the more information we have about the criminal misadventures 
of communism against populations and national cultures, the less we seem to understand 
the mass mourning for a past dictator, the inherently human “thirst for obedience,” and 
the apparent “longing for self-sacrifice” (Freud 2001: 91). Hannah Arendt has clarified the 
tremendous difference in the attitudes of German workers and Russian peasants towards 
their rulers in the first half of the twentieth century: “the former looked upon a not too 
beloved monarch as the symbol of national unity, and the latter considered the head of 
their government to be the true representative of God on earth” (Arendt 1962: 237). It is 
no wonder that the natural death of a leader regarded as a repository of power and author-
ity based on an unchanging eternal order signifies an intolerable scandal and causes a true 
panic in a headless society.
3
The shocking death of Lenin made Russian people burst into “unmistakable grief,” 
“unanimous sobs,” “wails,” and “crying like children” in a “hysterical frenzy” (Tumarkin 
1983: 134–140). There was unprecedented mass hysteria upon Stalin’s death, when a mourn-
ing crowd moving chaotically towards Moscow was crushed and trampled to death in the 
train station (Koenen 1992: 260). Even the people whom Stalin had put in prison and labor 
camps were “reduced to tears” at the news of his loss (Schoeberlein 2003: 218). Kim Il-sung 
and Kim Jong-il in North Korea were mourned by brainwashed masses in a paroxysmal-
theatrical style, but “poor mourning” for the great leader was punished immediately by the 
higher authorities (Min 2012). The death of a beloved politician like Zhou Enlai in 1976 
2 
The Lab area in southern Albania is well-known for the emotional power of its funeral performances 
and the poetic virtuosity of its many crying-women, who have strongly influenced the mournful 
polyphonic songs of the men and their instrumental repertoire. According to the Lab custom, a 
woman “cries with tears” (qan me lotë), “cries with voice” (qan me zë), and “cries with words” (qan me 
ligje), which means she sobs, complains aloud, and laments for the dead through the melodic-poetic 
formulas of the village. The technical term e qarë me ulurimë (lit. “crying with a howl”) means “to 
announce death with howls” and it has been reserved for mutual exchanges of vocal signals between 
the bereaved kinswomen on the way to the house of the deceased (Kondi 2012: 127–190, 313–319).
3 
Concerning the so-called “funeral anarchies” or “ritualized tumults” caused by the deaths of emperors, 
kings, or political leaders in a historical and transcultural perspective see also Di Nola 2003: 63–69, 
538–555. For comprehensive documentation of the state funerals and political cults of twentieth-cen-
tury dictators, see Koenen 1992; Verdery 1997; Rader 2003: 222–249; Borneman 2004; Großbolting 
and Schmidt 2011.

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BLEDAR KONDI
shook 900 million people in the People’s Republic of China, but the “leftists” prohibited 
every spontaneous demonstration of grief beyond the official frame of reference. The loss 
of Mao Zedong some months later urged the common people to again show to the world 
their “ability to mourn.” Despite the “shocking scenes” in front of the cameras, Western 
journalists observed that national mourning for Mao was a well-orchestrated ritual, in 
which nothing was left to chance (Koenen 1992: 436–39). Mass grieving for charismatic 
controversial figures uncovers a special type of “normative disorganization” based on the 
ideological ethos of situation. Release creates the crowd, but despite the contagious power of 
genuine feelings, the imposed “uniformity does not produce strong emotions” (Durkheim 
2001: 74). The relationship between individual emotional states and social conventional 
attitudes in dictatorial systems, namely the impersonality of mourning, can be approached 
from the sociological theory of mourning in pre-industrial societies: (1) “mourning is not 
the spontaneous expression of individual emotions”; (2) “there is no connection between 
the feelings experienced and the gestures performed by the actors of the rite”; (3) “[people] 
lament not simply because they are sad, but because they are compelled to lament” (op. 
cit.: 2001: 295). The death of a deified dictator breaks apart the ideologically frozen forms 
of collective consciousness and the synchronized rhythm of communist life; it sheds light 
on the unpredictable past
4
 of the regime and contributes to an essential understanding of 
“dictatorship as experience.”
A MISSING SOURCE AND DESTROYED DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE
The state funeral and public mourning for the “Beloved Great Leader”
5
 constitute a unique 
cultural event in Albanian history and a significant representation of a closed society. The 
funeral commemorations for the head of the state, lasting from April 11th to 18th, 1985, 
were the first to be broadcast live on Albanian television. After the collapse of the dictator-
ship in 1991, almost all audiovisual recordings of the funeral commemorations—no less 
than seventy-two hours’ worth—disappeared without a trace from the Albanian Radio-
Television (RTSH) archive.
6
 Some live footage of the funeral ceremony in the capital city 
of Tirana was “artistically elaborated” by Kinostudio (a film production company), and 
4 
“The past cannot be predicted, because even it obeys the changes of the party line” (Alexander Vatlin, 
quoted in Großbölting and Schmidt 2011: 11).
5 
During the funeral commemorations, the official media glorified Enver Hoxha as a “beloved great 
leader,” a “precious son of the people,” a “glorious commander,” a “great teacher,” and so on.
6 
It is rumored that many recordings and personal diaries of Enver Hoxha might have been given to a 
favorite journalist of the commercial broadcaster Klan. One of the fifty camera operators that shot 
Hoxha’s funeral ceremony told me that the film cassettes varied from three to twelve minutes and 
the archival collection comprised more than 400 cassettes. He further added that in 1992 “anticom-
munist” directors threw away many historical tapes and the peasants used them to tie the vineyards.

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EVEN THE GODS DIE . . .: THE STATE FUNERAL AND NATIONAL MOURNING FOR THE ALBANIAN ...
around four to five hours of footage do still circulate on Albanian media and the internet 
nowadays. Another part of the story is that 800 Kinostudio staff members were required 
to blanket Albania with recording groups during the national mourning days: each city 
(or two) was to receive one film director, one cameraman, and one editor. Field recordings 
were collected for the documentary film Dhimbje e thellë, betim i madh (A Deep Pain, a 
Great Oath) to the memory of the “Great Commander,” which was hastily assembled in 
only five days. “All the cuttings—that is, miles of footage—were destroyed because we 
didn’t have room to store them” recalls the film director Kujtim Gjonaj.
7
The archives of the Institute for Folk Culture in Tirana (today the Institute for Cultural 
Anthropology) constitute a small but an important source of historical documentation: 
around 120 tape recordings of individual and collective laments, and around 300 lament-
like, commemorative, and glorifying songs for the leader, which were mostly copied by 
Radio Tirana, Radio Korça, and Radio Gjirokastra. Folklore researchers adopted a selec-
tive attitude toward local traditions, recording more lamentations in the south and fewer 
in northern Albania, probably because the leader came from the south.
8
 Ritual funeral 
lamentations improvised by women and men were recorded in the Lab region of southern 
Albania (May–October 1985). Though folk music was a powerful medium in which political 
language was installed and ideological messages were transmitted, the folklore researchers 
were mostly focused on the verbal content of the funeral crying. They recorded dozens of 
poetic texts from rural areas to distill the political-affective message of the people, while 
mostly ignoring the performative situation, emotional behavior, and musical expression of 
grief, pain, anguish, and denial of death.
9
The funeral ceremony and national mourning for Enver Hoxha were systematically 
described in the daily newspapers Zëri i Popullit and Drita as well as in a special issue of 
the 1985 Albanische Hefte (Albanian Notebook), published by the Association of German-
Albanian Friendship. The periodicals Kultura Popullore (1985) and Nëntori (1985) are 
saturated with pseudo-scientific and pseudo-artistic glorifications of Enver Hoxha as a 
great thinker. In addition, the Ministry of Education ordered all the pupils from six to 
eighteen years old to write a poem for Enver Hoxha, but only a small selection of this huge 
repertoire was published, in three volumes, as a sign of young people’s unlimited devotion 
and self-sacrifice for the leader. One of the former political prisoners fortunate enough to 
survive the death of his persecutor, painter and architect Maks Velo, offers in his book Kohë 
antishenjë (A Time against the Sign) many keen observations and reflections of the event 
mixed with poetic imagination (2005: 214–234). Nowadays, the death of Enver Hoxha has 
7 
Conversation with film director Kujtim Gjonaj, Tirana, 2016.
8 
Enver Hoxha was born in the southern town of Gjirokastra, and according to Albanian custom, every 
dead person is honored and mourned (more) in his/her birthplace, no matter where s/he is buried.
9 
An anthology with glorifying and mourning folk songs created during the communist period for the 
death of Enver Hoxha was published by the Institute of Folk Culture under the title: Enver Hoxha 
tungjatjeta (Hail Enver Hoxha!; Kruta and Shituni 1986).

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BLEDAR KONDI
become grist for the mill of media gossips, politically senseless debates, post-communist 
melodramas, and art exhibitions.
10
Starting from these premises, the goal of this study is to discover something new or 
to rediscover what is already known about Enver Hoxha’s death, state funeral, and public 
mourning. Taking into account the high political sensitivity of the topic, I avoided using 
a camera or audio recorder with informants in order not to influence our bisedë e lire (free 
conversation)—as one called it—and their individual memories and collective life stories. 
The historical sequence of mortem and post-mortem events is reconstructed within the 
narrative framework of diverse versions of reality. Even so, the qualitative methods, the 
narrative interviews, the group conversations (especially with former political prisoners 
and war veterans), the empirical-analytical inquiry of the data, and the superimposed 
interpretation from one’s own experience cannot protect the researcher from stumbling 
from “uncertain truth into certain untruth” (Voegelin 1999: 310).
DYING, DEATH, AND REACTION
How can one “measure” the loss of a leader that was both adored as a folk deity of modern-
ism and feared as a cynical killer protecting his absolute power? Do the limits of crying 
imply the limits of loss? The emotional trajectory of the dramatic situation comprises the 
disequilibrium of the political class, the self-absorbing involvement of common citizens, and 
the inward emigration of politically persecuted groups. Role taking and role performance 
can be grasped through the interpretation of the actor himself, who has internalized political 
guidelines and feels morally obliged to come into play and stay in play.
11
 Isuf Kalo, Enver 
Hoxha’s personal doctor from 1973 until the end, offered me one of his favorite answers 
for the journalists: “I cured the dictator, but not the dictatorship.” He considered Enver 
Hoxha a very “cooperative patient” with a “strong personality,” who was never afraid of 
death. Dr. Kalo describes Hoxha’s last moments on his deathbed surrounded by doctors 
and several members of his family and the politburo:
On April 9th, Enver collapsed senseless on the bed. He was hit several times in the 
chest and his heart rhythm was reset. His brain was not supplied with blood and he 
fell into a coma . . . . His heart was still working but he was artificially kept alive. He 
passed away on April 11th . . . . Enver died happy and convinced that he had done the 
right things for his country. He saw all the jubilation and the euphoria of the crowd 
10 
The Albanian painter Ardian Isufi created an installation with Enver Hoxha’s death mask called “Anti-
Homage to the Dictator,” which was exhibited at the National Historical Museum in Tirana in 2015.
11 
Today, one can easily observe that many Albanian citizens misremember their conformist behavior 
under the communist dictatorship.

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EVEN THE GODS DIE . . .: THE STATE FUNERAL AND NATIONAL MOURNING FOR THE ALBANIAN ...
as a confirmation of his justice . . . . In a certain measure, we [the privileged people 
of the system] were all cheated, but Enver was the most cheated person.
12
Enver Hoxha’s widow was self-controlled
13
 and did not betray the slightest emotional 
reaction. She offered well-wishes to her husband’s immediate successor: “May you have a 
long life, Comrade Ramiz!” (Të na rroni ju shoku Ramiz!). Hoxha’s sisters, daughter, and 
daughter-in-law started to sob in an anxious, repressed way, each one “on her own” (e qarë 
në vete) without words, but no one was allowed to wail aloud at home. At five o’clock in 
the morning the lifeless body of the communist leader was carried by soldiers to the Tirana 
morgue. Muharrem Xhafa, the head of the propaganda department at the Central Committee 
in Tirana recalls that, on that dawn, Ramiz Alia called an extraordinary meeting with top-
level functionaries in Hall No. 80 of the Central Committee and ordered them to travel 
all over Albania and “to communicate the bad news orally, in order to keep the situation 
under control and avoid any tumult.”
14
 The burial committee had been already established 
and logistical measures had been taken based on prior Soviet-style funerals for politburo 
members Gogo Nushi (1970) and Hysni Kapo (1979).
15
 The official announcement of the 
Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labor was broadcast on TV and radio at 12:00 
noon on April 11th, 1985. It was also published in a special issue of the newspaper Zëri i 
Popullit on the same day and few days later in the weekly newspaper Drita. 
Life, time, and normal activities were literally suspended and the whole population 
came together in big crowds to hear the breaking news. Virgjil Kule, the former director 
of Radio-Television and one of the most emblematic newsreaders in communist Albania, 
read the death announcement:
Comrades, communists, workers, cooperative-peasants, intellectuals, women, 
and young people of Albania, war veterans and compatriots. In deep sadness and 
pain we announce that today, on April 11th, 1985, at 2:15 am, the heart of our 
beloved and glorious Leader of the Party and the people, Comrade Enver Hoxha 
. . . ceased beating. (Announcement of Enver Hoxha’s death 1985)
12 
Conversation with Isuf Kalo, Enver Hoxha’s personal doctor, in Tirana, 2016.
13 
The widow’s emotional reaction is described in different versions: to me, Teuta Hoxha re-confirmed 
that “she was very restrained,” emphasizing her “strong character.” But in her book she writes that 
Nexhmija “could barely stand . . . ; she didn’t cry, murmured indistinct words to herself in a low 
voice, but the name Enver was uttered clearly” (Hoxha 2015: 199). Whereas Hoxha’s escort, Sulo 
Gradeci adds in his book: “the crying with words (vajet e ligjet) of Comrade Nexhmije, his children, 
and his sisters were heard from the workroom” (Gradeci 1988: 414). Many informants affirmed to 
me that this “faithful servant” is not the actual author of the book on Enver Hoxha, thus pointing 
to the Institute for Marxist-Leninist Studies.
14 
The word “tumult” (rrëmujë) seems to hint at the rebellions of political prisoners in Spaç (1973) and 
Qafë-Bar (1984) that were bloodily crushed by state authorities. 
15 
Enver Hoxha orchestrated the state funerals for his “brothers-in-arms” himself.

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BLEDAR KONDI
Announcement of Hoxha’s death in the weekly newspaper Drita, April 14, 1985

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EVEN THE GODS DIE . . .: THE STATE FUNERAL AND NATIONAL MOURNING FOR THE ALBANIAN ...
The emotions aroused by this “breaking news” varied extremely in intensity according 
to the social class hierarchy (peasants, workers, and intellectuals) and also one’s affective-
political attachment to the system. B.F., a bookkeeper from Lumi i Vlorës in southern 
Albania, would never forget that “black day” when Enver Hoxha’s death was communicated 
to the peasants of the area:
It was very hard to utter that HE had died, it was almost impossible . . . I was in 
the village of Kotë. People from the Central Committee had come precisely to declare 
the tragedy. We all gathered at the hall of the House of Culture. The politburo repre-
sentative stood up with trembling hands. “Brothers and sisters . . . what we had never 
expected has already happened.” Again silence. “Based on a decision of the Central 
Committee of Albanian Party of Labor as well as on behalf of Comrade Ramiz Alia, 
I must communicate you that the supreme commander of Albania, Enver Hoxha, has 
closed his eyes” [here my informant’s voice became very plaintive]. The people in the 
hall stood up and burst into shouting and howling. Even now I have emotions. I was 
there. I spent about fifteen days without eating [only water, coffee, and cigarettes
16
]. 
God in the heavens knows that I am telling the truth. And not only me, but also my 
old mother and my wife. That was our time, and man cries his own time.
17
The death of Enver Hoxha was suffered as a “devastating catastrophe,” bewailed as 
“disappearing of the sun,” and denounced as a “scientific failure” (see Kultura Popullore 
1985: 165–199; Zëri i popullit, April 11th–30th, 1985; Drita April 21st–May 12th, 1985). 
Various experiences of being deeply shaken were enacted all over rural Albania, and these 
were also confirmed by politically persecuted people. The historian Uran Butka, who had 
been interned by the communist regime in the Martanesh area of northern Albania (1975–
1988), brings onstage a plurality of dramatis personae with conflicting emotional reactions:
I was in Martanesh. We heard the news about Enver’s death on the radio. It was an 
incredible joy, I embraced my wife, we forgot our troubles, we forgot that we were 
in Martanesh. We felt hope and joy. [Persecuted] people expected the death of Enver 
to be a salvation. After that, on April 11th all the residents were called to join at the 
central square in the village of Peshk. A loudspeaker and a portrait of Enver Hoxha 
were put in front of the House of Culture. About 300–400 persons from four to 
five nearby villages were present. A State Security officer was ordered to watch the 
reactions of the politically persecuted people. One could read satisfaction in the faces 
of the reactionaries and the banished and dispossessed wealthy farmers (kulak) [but 
16 
When Lab men were “poisoned” by bitter sadness and painful anger, they did not smoke their ciga-
rettes but ate them up.
17 
Conversation with B.F., a bookkeeper from the village of Kotë; Vlorë, 2016.

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BLEDAR KONDI
they had to hide it]. The privileged people of the communist system: the head of the 
cooperative, the administration staff, the teachers, and the community were at the peak 
of despair. Men and women cried in horror. All the pupils of the elementary school, 
even the children of the politically persecuted people, cried with them, because they 
all were indoctrinated. A lamenting-woman from the village-quarter of Kasollexhinj 
started “to cry with words” (e qarë me ligje),
18
 “with a wail” (me oi) for about 3–4 
minutes. She recounted the values of the leader. The wife of a communist tore her 
hair out and shouted. Another woman fainted, while foaming at the mouth in a kind 
of epileptic seizure. One could notice a fakery, a “making as if” among some intel-
lectuals and kulaks, and it was precisely here that the situation became tragicomic.
19
Class roles and reference groups, projected onto a plane of simultaneity, became ritu-
ally and symbolically present. The extraordinary funeral situation was penetrated by latent 
functions that were fulfilled without being expressed, by the exercised power of instru-
mental control and the spiritual assets of the communist regime. The xenophobic fear, the 
paranoid state of siege, and the warlike attitude toward predatory neighbors and internal 
enemies that characterized Hoxha’s ideology and regime were temporarily increased after 
his death: if a foreign enemy attacks Albania, we will kill you first! said an officer to political 
prisoners.
20
 Despite this, the political prisoners in Burrel, in northern Albania, refused to 
sign the letter of condolences for the widow Nexhmije Hoxha demanded by the prison 
authorities, and their dangerous resistance signaled the triumph of the survivors and their 
celebrated togetherness.
PAYING HOMAGE TO THE LEADER
Meanwhile, the Central Committee of Albanian Party of Labor decided to announce eight 
National Mourning Days (from April 11th to 18th) in order to honor the memory and 
deeds of the beloved leader of the party and the people:
All theater performances, cinemas, concerts, and other entertainment and sports 
activities must be cancelled.
21
 During the burial ceremony, work must be inter-
rupted in all institutions and production centers and the sirens of factories, trains, 
18 
The technical terms e qarë me ligje and me oi are used only in the south but not in northern Albania. 
The local terms for northern funeral crying are me kja (to cry), me njeh (to recount), me kukat (to coo).
19 
Conversation with historian Uran Butka, who was interned in Martanesh, northern Albania; Tirana, 2016.
20 
Conversation with former political prisoner Uran Kostreci, held in Burrel, Peqin and Sarandë; Tirana, 2016.
21 
During the mourning days even alcoholic drinks were prohibited, and this measure was based on 
Albanian traditional practices: when men participate in a funeral ceremony, they put the glass to their 
lips without drinking the alcohol; this customary gesture symbolizes the sad event.

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EVEN THE GODS DIE . . .: THE STATE FUNERAL AND NATIONAL MOURNING FOR THE ALBANIAN ...
and ships must sound for five minutes. At the same time, a twenty-one-gun salute 
must be fired at the capital city of our Fatherland, Tirana, and a five-gun salute 
in the cities of Gjirokastër, Vlorë, Krujë, Korçë, Peshkopi, Shkodër, Kukës, Berat, 
Durrës, and Elbasan. (Zëri i Popullit, April 11, 1985, p. 2)
The official obsequies for the leader took place at the Presidium of the People’s 
Assembly (Presidiumi i Kuvendit Popullor). Three RTSH make-up artists went to the Tirana 
morgue to prepare the corpse for public display, but one of them was terribly shocked and 
fainted on the spot. Enver Hoxha had undergone plastic surgery, and the skin of the face 
was stretched, tightened, and gathered on the back side of his head: I gave him a light pink 
nuance to make him look alive, she told me in a reluctant voice.
22
 The military structures 
for the funeral procession were arranged by Rustem Peçi, the commander of the united 
military school in Tirana. As soon as the lifeless body was prepared for the ritual mise-en-
scène, the widow Nexhmije Hoxha said to family members: Control yourselves! I don’t want 
to hear you crying in front of the people! Maintain your dignity!
The shocking situation called for broad public participation in order to reaffirm the 
national unity, increase the significance of party leadership, and regenerate the inner bind-
ing force between them. Five representative members from each of the political, military, 
and academic institutions, factories, and cooperatives throughout Albania were designated 
to participate at the funeral ceremony. Two halls of the presidium were opened: one for 
public viewing of the dead body and one for receiving the politburo, diplomatic corps, 
personalities, Heroes of Socialist Labor, and mothers of dead heroes. The homages started 
at nine in the morning and ended at eight in the evening; they were periodically interrupted 
two to three times per day, to enable the bereaved family to be alone in the hall with their 
deceased. These breaks lasted only ten to fifteen minutes, because the line of the people 
waiting outside was three to four kilometers long. When Nexhmije stayed next to the coffin 
of her husband, she lamented with words (vaj me fjalë) but not aloud, reports Teuta, the older 
daughter-in-law. And she further recalls that the southern Albanian women’s crying with 
words were very short but emotionally powerful: people showed a truly felt pain and there 
was no falsity in that. During the funeral ceremony at the presidium, we had to console the 
people crying for Enver Hoxha.
23
The grandiose public mourning in capital city of Tirana turned the state funeral into 
a musical drama within the political drama. The noisy, emotionally uncontrollable state 
of collective “perturbation” (trazim) is culturally resolved through women’s “crying out 
of order,” or free integrative crying.
24
 But the circularity of official images between the 
22 
Conversation with E.L., a make-up artist at Albanian Radio-Television (RTSH); Tirana, 2016.
23 
Conversation with Teuta Hoxha, the daughter-in-law of Enver Hoxha; Tirana, 2016.
24 
Within the Albanian cultural domain of death and mourning, free crying signifies the most dramatic 
situations of a funeral ceremony, where bereaved kinswomen sob, wail, and speak to the dead simul-
taneously but each on her own. This practice, locally known as tuj kja ni hierit (crying at the same 

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BLEDAR KONDI
imposed duty of public mourning and its affective object, or the ideological discourse and 
its eventful referent, are only the tip of the iceberg.
25
 The former director of RTSH observed 
that “many people at the ceremony cried and wailed only to attract the attention of the 
higher authorities”; especially striking one’s head with one’s fists was very theatrical and 
ridiculous in the observers’ eyes. Conversely, a former political prisoner projected his own 
feelings and imagination on the mourning crowd paying homage to the leader:
I was in prison and saw the events on TV. It was a theater. I guess the majority of 
the people were happy that he died . . . but they couldn’t laugh openly . . . [t]hat’s my 
impression. The crying of some brainwashed bitches, stupid women, and hypocrites 
does not represent the majority of Albanian society . . . . The people who were deeply 
saddened and really cried hard had committed crimes during the communist period.
26
Despite these entirely opposite interpretations of the same event, many participants 
unanimously affirmed to me that the orphans of the Shtëpija e Fëmijës (House of Children) 
were shaken to the bottom of their hearts and cried more than anyone else. Unlike women, 
Albanian men assume that “not crying is an act of bravery” and this customary attitude 
was politically integrated into the motto: “turn pain into strength!” (ta kthejmë dhimbjen 
në forcë!).
THE MUSICAL AND POETIC LANDSCAPE
Dictatorial regimes have the most self-evident manifestations of music as an attribute of 
power, social control, and cultural repression. Culturally patterned sounds facilitate the 
consumption of nationalist mythology more suggestively than images and thus establish 
an interactive medium of communication free from the bi-referentiality of language. The 
adequate employment of ethnographical concepts enhances the understanding of musical 
events and their specific situations in which they are created, performed, felt, and perceived. 
The musical landscape of “pain until shock for Enver Hoxha” was shaped by a constella-
tion of diverse sonic events:
time) in the north or e qarë pa rend (crying out of order) in Myzeqe, southern Albania has a liberat-
ing and integrative function on an emotional, moral, psychological, and social level. Free integrative 
crying undermines the formal order of a disciplined performance and regenerates a collective unity 
in loss and pain (Kondi 2012: 127–131).
25 
I was seven-year-old child when Enver Hoxha died, and the conflicting attitudes of my parents have 
been carved into my memory: the tearful anguish of my mother, a worker, and the indifferent qui-
etude of my father, a high officer.
26 
Conversation with former political prisoner Uran Kostreci, held in Burrel, Peqin and Sarandë; Tirana, 
2016.

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EVEN THE GODS DIE . . .: THE STATE FUNERAL AND NATIONAL MOURNING FOR THE ALBANIAN ...
(a) Natural sobbing, verbalized crying, funeral singing;
(b) Folk instrumental crying;
(c) European classical music transmitted on the radio and TV;
(d) Funeral marches composed ad hoc by two Albanian film composers;
(e) The howling sirens.
The Albanian term qaj has four complementary meanings: (a) “to sob,” “to shed tears”; 
(b) “to cry,” “to lament” with or without words; (c) “to complain”; and (d) “to do something 
perfectly” (Kondi 2012: 314). Within the framework of customary mourning (zija) as an 
affective state, color of bereavement, and lamenting act, it must be clarified that natural 
mass sobbing (dënesa) for Enver Hoxha was documented nationwide, whereas ritual “crying 
with words” was basically a local event, observed more in southern and less in northern 
regions. Many ritual collective and individual funeral crying episodes for Enver Hoxha 
were generally adopted from the oral funeral traditions of the village and were performed 
in front of his portrait. A significant case comes from Lumi i Vlorës: a bereaved woman 
praised her dead brother-in-law in a very short, condensed, expressive crying, typical of 
the Lab region in southern Albania:
27
Viti nëntëqind e tetë   In the year 1908,
u kthye lumi përpjetë,   the river flowed upwards,
se lindi Hamzua me fletë.  because Hamza, a brave man with wings,
28
 was born.
These poetic verses in a haiku style affirm that, whenever a great man dies, the natural 
order of things changes. A folk poet from the same area appropriated this female crying 
that was fixed in social memory and attributed it to the dead Father of the Nation. But all 
the texts collected in the field were published by folklore researchers without crediting the 
sources. Feti Brahimaj, a well-known folk poet from Lapardha, southern Albania, wrote 
two long poetic texts when he heard the death news and when he was watching the burial 
scene on TV . Both multipart songs were recorded by a Lapardha folk group at Radio Tirana 
on April 28th, 1985. I will tell you some verses for the darkest day, Feti told me:
29
Ditët e prillit u nxinë,  The April days were blackened,
s’bënë as bar as trëndelinë,  Neither grass nor flowers would sprout,
ç’janë ato shirita zije,  What are those mourning bands [the dark clouds]
që po i bëjn malit hije?  Casting their shadow on the mountain?
Ndaluni shokë, ku po shkoni, Stop, my friends, where are you going,
27 
Conversation with Bardhosh Gaçe, folklore researcher at the University of Vlora; Tirana, 2016.
28 
The “brave man with wings” symbolizes the dragon in the Albanian folk imagination.
29 
Conversation with Feti Brahimaj, a folk poet and singer with the folk vocal group of Lapardha; Vlorë, 
2016.

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BLEDAR KONDI
flasin zëmrat a dëgjoni?  The hearts are calling, do you hear them?
Enver Hoxhën ku e çoni?  Where are you carrying Enver Hoxha?
Aman në vorr mos pranoni!  Please, don’t accept putting him in the grave!
Ktheheni se e pret timoni,  Bring him back, the steering wheel is waiting for him,
e pret zyra ku punoi,  His work office is waiting for him,
tribuna ku ligjëroi,   The podium where he delivered his speeches,
në kongres e pret salla,  The crowd is waiting him for the congress,
e pret nënë faqebardha,  The white-honored mother is waiting for him,
e pret shamikuqja motër,  The sister with red scarf
30
 is waiting for him,
Tiranë, Gjirokastër, Shkodër… In Tirana, Gjirokastër, Shkodër . . .
për ty bie cula dyjare,  The double reed is playing for you,
për ty këndon çiftelia,  The lute is singing for you,
të do isua dhe oi-ja,  The drone and the wailing are imploring you,
sa shumë të do historia.  Oh, how much does history need you.
The melodic type and crying style are based on a “song of pain for a killed hero” (këngë 
derti për një trim të vrarë) which represents the powerful softness of multipart songs in 
Lab area. But the strictly prescribed order of mourning events left nothing to chance. One 
of the members of the famous traditional ensemble Sazet e Përmetit in southern Albania 
recalled that on April 11, the local authorities woke up the musicians at midnight and sent 
them immediately to Radio Tirana to play kaba labiko (instrumental crying in the Lab style) 
for the death of the Leader.
31
 Unlike Albanian traditional music, which filled certain hours 
of the daily program, the funeral march from Beethoven’s Third Symphony was heard 
constantly in the hall and on radio and TV. It served to color the dramatic situation, to 
hide the anguish behind a sonic curtain, and to keep the situation under control. During 
the mourning days, the high authorities ordered the film composers Limos Dizdari and 
Kujtim Laro to each compose a “national funeral march” for Enver Hoxha within forty-
eight hours. This request was simply based on the ideological principle that “we must rely 
on our own forces!” (të mbështetemi në forcat tona!).
The composers were individually sequestered at different institutions and guarded 
by soldiers, because making music at that moment would have been misunderstood as 
entertainment, and that would have been politically dangerous and brought harsh con-
sequences. Both marches were composed within one night, immediately orchestrated by 
the chief conductor of the military band, and performed on the burial day, April 18th. 
Unfortunately, the score and recording of Dizdari’s funeral march are lost. The composer 
recalled that his Romantic-style funeral march had a three-part structure: mourning (A) 
– hailing (B) – mourning (A), which aimed to express the emotional and political attitude 
of the people: we are really crying for you, but we will celebrate only your birthday.
32
 Indeed, 
30 
The “red scarf ” is a symbol with multiple meanings: it refers to the bride in Albanian tradition as well 
as the Albanian national flag, but also to the color of communism.
31 
Conversation with Fredi Daci, member of the Albanian traditional Ensemble Sazet e Përmetit; Bonn, 
2019.
32 
Conversation with composer Limos Dizdari; Tirana, 2016.

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EVEN THE GODS DIE . . .: THE STATE FUNERAL AND NATIONAL MOURNING FOR THE ALBANIAN ...
even the date of Hoxha’s death was not inscribed on his tombstone and his death date was 
never commemorated in communist Albania.
Because the Bolsheviks had abolished church authority, the deaths of Lenin and 
Stalin were not announced by tolling of the bells but by factory sirens
33
 and train whis-
tles (Tumarkin 1983: 162). Tito’s death was commemorated every year in Yugoslavia by 
observing one minute of silence associated with wailing sirens (Bringa 2004: 169). The 
five-minute silence observed for Enver Hoxha during his burial ceremony was filled with 
multiple sirens, which symbolized the alarm of an anxious Albania and the howl of the 
imaginary bereaved world proletariat.
WORSHIP, SECOND BURIAL, AND POLITICAL AFTERLIFE
The unique memory of the name, power, and myth of Enver Hoxha called immediately 
for glorious representations of his public presence and permanent radiance. On April 13th, 
1985, the eleventh plenum of the Central Committee of the Albanian Party of Labour 
(PPSH) adopted a decision for the “immortalization of the name and deeds of Comrade 
Enver Hoxha”: statues of the leader were raised in Gjirokastër (his birth town), Korça (where 
he had worked as a teacher), and Tirana (where he entered as a WWII victor and lived and 
worked until his death). The state university of Tirana, the port of Durrës, an agricultural 
enterprise in Korça region, and the Organization of Pioneers were all named after him. The 
Day of Enver was proclaimed and all the children and students celebrated it with songs, 
dances, and making red stars all over Albania (Zëri i Popullit April 11th–18th, 1985).
34
The leader’s grave, in the shadow of the “Mother Albania” monument, became a locus 
of worship rituals and solemn oaths on the Day of Heroes (Dita e Dëshmorëve). A new 
“altar” was raised in every Albanian family: a small white bust of the Great Leader against 
the dark-red background of 70 volumes written by him. This religious form of reverence 
for the leader is undoubtedly derived from Lenin’s icon corner of Russian peasant homes. 
In May 1985, the politburo issued a directive intended for all film directors to produce 
documentaries covering Enver Hoxha’s visits to the twenty-six regions of communist Albania. 
Only half of them were finalized and production of the new series Enver Hoxha dhe rrethet 
(Enver Hoxha and the Regions) was interrupted a year later due to the progressively wors-
ening economic situation.
35
 The National Folk Festival of Gjirokastra (1988), which was 
33 
The rising and falling sound of air-raid sirens also served to announce Hitler’s speeches on German 
radio during WWII.
34 
Elidor Mëhilli reports that Enver Hoxha “had occasionally objected in PPSh Politburo meetings to all 
kinds of excesses: plans to name factories and schools after him; party officials’ eagerness to convert 
his childhood home into a communist shrine; and the engrained habit of showering him with gifts 
at birthdays and anniversaries” (Mëhilli 2011: 4).
35 
Conversation with film director Kujtim Gjonaj; Tirana, 2016.

137
BLEDAR KONDI
held every five years in the leader’s birth town, brought 353 songs, dances, instrumental 
pieces, and ritual scenes to the stage. Twenty-eight commemorative songs were created 
for Enver Hoxha (ca. 8% of the whole festival) and the message they transmitted can be 
summed up in two complementary key phrases from northern and southern Albania: “A 
song is too small for such a great man” (nuk ka kangë që e nxe at burr’) but “when he enters 
a song, he remains there forever” (hyn në këngë e nuk del kurrë). When Mother Teresa was 
finally allowed to visit communist Albania in 1989 and found her Mission of Charity, the 
political leadership asked her to pay homage to Enver Hoxha at the cemetery of National 
Heroes. The media images showing the “Great Mother” placing flowers at the grave of 
a dictator that had uprooted religion and executed the clergy aroused many contentious 
debates in post-communist Albania.
Enver Hoxha’s peaceful passing in 1985 contrasts strongly with the violent rituals of 
state disintegration in post-communist Albania (1991–1992, 1996–1998).
36
 His repressive 
cult was convulsively rejected in a Oedipal patricide: his statue in the central square of 
capital city was overthrown in the style of a public execution and his remains were exhumed 
from the Hill of National Heroes and disposed of at the civil cemetery of the capital city. 
But all these acts do not complete the mythical twilight of gods, their damnatio memoriae, 
because the old traces are rediscovered in a series of new beginnings. The Albanian dictator 
was still “present in absence,” and his death directly affected the old structures of author-
ity without changing the substance of his regime.
37
 On significant dates in the Albanian 
political calendar, his grave was either violated and defiled or repaired and flower-bedecked 
(Hoxha 2015: 259–264).
The figure of Enver Hoxha is gradually being reanimated and rehabilitated by members 
of the Communist Party, war veterans, and nostalgic groups in Albania and Kosovo. They 
gather at Hoxha’s graveside and openly celebrate his “unforgettable deeds and memory” while 
holding speeches and singing multipart songs for the (re)construction of socialism because 
Albanian socialism was the right line but its application went wrong.
38
 In many weddings 
in Kosovo, it is customary to sing the glorifying song “Hail Enver Hoxha” (Enver Hoxha 
tungjatjeta) as well as a commemorative song for Adem Jashari, a symbol of resistance against 
the Serbian genocide. But the ambiguous relationship with Enver Hoxha seems to reflect 
more affinity for stern, fair leadership as a bulwark against corrupt post-communist politics 
rather a respect for the dictator himself. Many former political prisoners feel assaulted by 
36 
Despite the societal modernization of a belated nation, the implosion of the communist dictatorship 
in 1991 revealed a politically naive populace that was unable to form a democratic state.
37 
Conflicting attitudes towards Enver Hoxha share similar traits with the ambivalent cult of Tito in the 
Yugoslav successor states, in which he is both glorified as a hero and denigrated as a traitor (Stevanović 
2016: 106–112). Concerning the discrepancies and ambiguities of hero cults in post-communist 
Central Eastern Europe see also Povedák 2014 and Fikfak 2014.
38 
Conversation with Etem Halili, former officer and member of the National Committee of the National-
Antifascist War Veterans; Tirana, 2016.

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EVEN THE GODS DIE . . .: THE STATE FUNERAL AND NATIONAL MOURNING FOR THE ALBANIAN ...
the communist nostalgia spreading among the public, but they still are strong enough to 
come to terms with their past and present. As one of them states:
Let me tell you something with my whole heart. Forget my personal sufferings in prison, 
forget what communism did to me . . . . Thank God I am alive . . . . Enver Hoxha 
not only killed or imprisoned his people, stole their property, and isolated them from 
the world for fifty years, but he deformed the mind and character of Albanians. For 
that, I will never forgive communism.
39
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Durkheim, Emile. 2001 (1912). The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. New York: Oxford University Press.
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im 20 Jahrhundert. Munich: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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Hoxha, Teuta. 2015. Enveri në kujtimet e mia. Tirana: Ilar.
39 
Conversation with former political prisoner Uran Kostreci, held in Burrel, Peqin and Sarandë; Tirana, 
2016.

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TUDI BOGOVI UMIRAJO...:
DRŽAVNI POGREB IN NACIONALNO ŽALOVANJE ZA ALBANSKIM 
KOMUNISTIČNIM DIKTATORJEM ENVERJEM HOXHO
Avtor obravnava državni pogreb in nacionalno žalovanje za diktatorjem Enverjem Hoxho 
(1908–1985). Za propagando komunistične diktature v Albaniji (1945–1991) je bila nesmrtnost 
voditelja pomemben simbol nacionalne nesmrtnosti. Zato je smrt oboževanega vladarja doži-
vela kot nevzdržen škandal, ga objokovala kot »konec sveta« in hkrati obsojala kot »znanstveni 
neuspeh«. Pogrebne komemoracije, javno žalovanje za »Velikim ljubljenim vodjem«, spominski 
obredi in glasbeni spektakli ter »faraonska ovekovečenja« Enverja Hoxhe v piramidalnem muzeju 
nam dajejo predstavo o diktatorskem sistemu v najbolj izolirani državi v Evropi.
Ritualno dramo ob diktatorjevi smrti avtor razlaga z analizo neposrednih izkušenj treh 
ciljnih skupin družbene hierarhije, tj. politbiroja, navadnih ljudi in razrednih sovražnikov, 
ki ponazarjajo ljubezen do vodje ali sovraštvo do diktatorja. Na žalost je iz arhiva albanske 
radiotelevizije izginila avdiovizualna dokumentacija celotnega državnega pogreba; zato je mogoče 
zgodovinsko zaporedje dogodkov rekonstruirati le v pripovednem okviru različic resničnosti.
Ob tem je paradoks razlage v tem, da več ko je na voljo informacij o zločinskih »nesrečah« in 
nasilju komunizma nad prebivalstvom in nacionalnimi kulturami, manj je, tako se zdi, mogoče 
razumeti slavnostno orgijo malikovanja in množičnega žalovanja za preteklim diktatorjem. 
Žalne slovesnosti so bile po zgledu Lenina organizirane za komunistične diktatorje, npr. Stalina, 
Mao Zedonga, Kim il Sunga, Enverja Hoxho, pospremljene z množično histerijo, obrednim 
gledališčem joka in čaščenjem prednikov. Diktatorski režimi uporabijo najbolj samoumevne 
manifestacije glasbe, da z njimi izrazijo moč ter izvajajo družbeni nadzor in kulturno represijo. 
Raziskovanje glasbene znotraj politične drame tako omogoča razumeti, kako smrt vodje razbija 
ideološko zamrznjene oblike zavesti in sinhroniziran ritem komunističnega življenja.
Dr. Bledar Kondi      
Martin-Luther-University, Institute for Music, Media Studies 
and Linguistics  
Kleine Marktstrasse 7, D – 06108 Halle, Germany, 
bledar.kondi@musikwiss.uni-halle.de