Albanian “Popular Theater” and Soviet directors!

Facts and opinion!

The fact that Albanian Theater was never created by Russians, (Greeks, Turks, Serbs or Italian fascists) or any other foreigner, as is unfairly and unfortunately written on some portals conditioned by ardent and fanatic militant leaders and historians of political parties, must be made known to all new generations, crystal clear, if not to the whole world, to spread like a ray of sunlight.

The post-war professional theater was created by the Albanians themselves. It had its roots in the Albanian lands from ancient times and the Middle Ages until the national liberation war, with the Partisan Theater, with the community theaters and various private amateur companies in Shkoder, Tirana, Vlora, Gjirokaster and elsewhere, where many prominent names from that time gathered in a single troupe in Tirana, creating the State Theater, as it was named at the beginning, to become the “Popular Theater” and, after the 90s, the “National Theater”.

The National Theater has experienced, in a way, the entire history of the post-war Albanian state. Its creation and the beginning of its activity occurred when Albania had just emerged from the devastating war, when there was still extreme illiteracy, when there was no institution of higher education, no television, no film studio, and no library.

The theater thus gained a new dimension, that of the educator of generations, of the open school, of television and of the national library, where the Albanian language was taught, where the best values of Albanian and world literature were spread.

The first masters of scenic art, those who had been trained in the courses of the first Yugoslav and Soviet pedagogues, or who had studied in the best academies of Eastern Europe, were the same ones who lit up our screens, in the first Albanian films, which began to be shot in the 60s and were the same ones who began to radiate their experience to later generations, through the “Aleksandër Moisiu” High School of Actors, today the Faculty of Scenic Art at the Academy of Arts.

The theater could not continue on an amateur basis, so they turned their attention to Soviet dramaturgy, also for political reasons. Since our dramaturgy was quite weak, with few and low-level works, Soviet dramaturgy fulfilled not only the artistic condition, but also the political condition. As early as May 1946, the first Soviet work was shown in the “Popular Theater”, the comedy “The Wonderful Connection / Lidhja e mrekullueshme” by the writer Kirshon, directed by Pandi Stillu, a personality who had returned from studies in Romania.

The play was a success and gave the Theater the right to rely on this dramaturgy. Then came a series of other works, such as “The Russian Case / Ceshtja ruse”, “The Voice of America / Zeri i Amerikes”, “The Conspiracy of the Convicts / Konspiracioni I te denuarve”, “The Leipzig Trial / Procesi I Lajpicingut”, “The Kremlin Clocks / oret kremlinit”, “The Prodigal Son”, etc.

The theater was also helped by the arrival from the BS of two great directors for the time in 1947 Vladimir Dudin and in 1948 Andrei Ivanovich Krichko, who put great works in the history of this theater and helped the actors reach high levels of interpretation. This Soviet-Albanian relationship continued until the early 60s.

However, at this time, great Albanian plays were also staged such as “The Prefect / Prefekti”, “The Fisherman’s Family / Familja e peshkatarit”, “Our Land / Toka jone” from national dramaturgy and “The Inspector”, “Othello”, “The Kremlin Clocks”. “Hamlet”, “The Fox and the Grapes / Dhelpra dhe rrushte”, etc. from the great world dramaturgy, where theater stars such as Margarita Xhepa, Sulejman Pitarka, Pjeter Gjoka, Marie Logoreci, Ndreke Luca, Kadri Roshi, Loro Kovaci etc. shone.

In conclusion, it can be said that from the creation of the theater until the 1960s, it had the Soviet influence, which gave the Albanian theater the experience and professionalism of a contemporary artistic institution for the time, but in no way can it be said that they (the Russians) created it, and even such a statement is not only completely wrong but also maliciously intended, to minimize the achievements and sacrifices of this martyr theater, to denigrate it as incapable in everything it does, even to the point of censorship of the works, performances and pioneering actors, the fundamental basis of Albanian theater, and finally, the last step together with the collapse and ruin of the building, came the destruction of an entire memory of actors, of a colossal work and a sacrifice of a people that is treated as a crowd and continues to be taken by the feet by the rulers of politics, just like in every field of life.

By E. K

© Reserved Material | Exclusivity is dated August 27, 2025
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Albanian Cinematography Classics in activity since 2013