Pjetër Arbnori
| Pjetër Arbnori | |
|---|---|
Pjetër Arbnori
|
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| Chairman of the Parliament of Albania | |
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In office 6 April 1992 – 24 July 1997 |
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| Preceded by | Kastriot Islami |
| Succeeded by | Skënder Gjinushi |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 18, 1935 Durrës, Albania |
| Died | July 8, 2006 (aged 71) Naples, Italy |
| Political party | Democratic Party |
| Occupation | Politician |
| Known for | Political Prisoner |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Pjetër Filip Arbnori (January 18, 1935 – July 8, 2006) was an Albanian gulag survivor. He was dubbed "the Mandela of the Balkans" by Albanian statesmen because of the length of his 28-year internment. He was born in Durrës, on the Adriatic coast. President Topi bestowed the Nation's Honor Order upon Pjetër Arbnori (post mortem).
Arbnori was orphaned at the age of seven when his father was killed while fighting against Enver Hoxha's partisans during the civil war that underlay World War II. Although he earned a gold medal when he graduated from high school at the age of 18, this did not suffice to earn him the right to go on to college, because of his early affiliation, while still a boy, with the resistance fighters struggling against the communist regime, together with his mother and two older sisters.
After graduating, Arbnori found a job as a teacher. In a matter of a year, however, he was fired for political reasons. Once having completed his military service, young Arbnori roamed the mountains in search of a living, and started to labour in the fields as a farm hand. While holding down this job, he managed to enroll in the University of Tirana's Philology Department under fake documents, and succeeded in finishing a five-year correspondence course in half the time.
In 1960, Arbnori began to teach literature at a school in the city of Kavajë. Here he soon gathered together with other intellectuals to form a Social-Democratic movement, in the hope of edging forward towards a pluralistic society. The Sigurimi (secret police) got wind of this and arrested seven of them. After a trial that lasted two years, which entailed lengthy interrogations and torture, he was sentenced to death. This verdict was subsequently commuted to 25 years' imprisonment, because the authorities hoped that Arbnori would eventually lead them to catching other ringleaders.
In prison, Arbnori organized the inmates' protests and resistance. One of the ways he preserved his sanity was to write, at every opportunity he had. He would write in the tiniest possible lettering along the margins of the newspapers allotted to the prisoners to read. In this way, he put together a novel and many short stories, some of which have since been published.
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