Migjen Kelmendi
The riverless city
These first days of the millennium I was thinking, somewhat content, how my
city Prishtina finally appeared on the world map. Yes, written exactly like
this, in Albanian alphabet. This is the first year that the name of my city
is written only in Albanian language. In the past ten years not only the
language but the people who spoke it too, were forbidden in this city. The
name of the city had only its Serbian spelling, Pristina (de s met een
v'tje erop, ck). On the big boards placed on the entrance to the city, the
Serb administrators who had come from Serb villages around Prishtina when
Milosevic had abolished Kosova's autonomy, had erased or covered with spray
the Albanian spelling of the city's name. These are the same big boards
placed in Tito's time when names of cities and places were written in two
languages, Albanian and Serb.
It's not much of a name. The city is not much of a city either. It looks
new, though somewhat torn and worn at its edges. Very close to the meaning
of the English word 'pristine' - preserved, as new- that suits the city so
well. I would also add 'saved'! And, as I was saying, I was thinking of how
my city finally appeared on the European map, although unfortunately not
owing to any architectural or urban distinctness or some unusual finding of
its own but only (and only) owing to its tragedy and its stupidity. And,
believe you me, these two things are linked in some bizarre relation of
causality. The city's tragedy helped uncover the madness that was kept
secret, buried under the bulwarks of the city.
Prishtina has not only made it to the map of the European cities, it has
appeared on another map: the map of the deported cities. Only when the
whole city was deported, Europe saw us. It saw us for what we were then,
saw us for what a victim can look like - ugly. And only when the city was
emptied, as if in a somnambulist screenplay of a movie directed by a weird
director, who has decided to empty a whole city so as to achieve the effect
of the protagonist's footsteps echoing in a bare city; only then was it
possible to hear the sound of something alive that was kept buried deep
underneath the bulwarks of the city- the sound of the groaning of the
river. Only when a grave-like silence crushed on Prishtina, the silence of
a deported city, an emptied city, only then was it possible to hear the
touching gurgle of the buried river of Prishtina. And just as a family
would conceal earth disease (epilepsy), my city concealed the burying of
the live river. Some mad communist city-planners had decided to cover up
the innocent river of Prishtina. This sometimes makes me think that
Prishtina is not after all just an ordinary city but a city with a secret.
It reminds me of a secret of a woman. Isn't it a secret that makes a woman
beautiful, secretive, alluring? It is maybe this secret, this gurgling and
this hidden and enigmatic flow of the river underneath the city that I
unconsciously felt, that best explains why I was always madly in love with
the city.
Alas, instead of building a riverbed together with a riverbank and benches
on it, that mad communist city planner had decided, unfortunately with the
consent of the citizens, to build a massive underground collector for the
river. They undertook the huge and expensive task of covering the river and
built for it a sarcophagus of concrete and steel, thus getting rid of
another problem, that of litter and rubbish that the citizens were throwing
in the river which especially during summer covered the city with a
terrible stench. The mad city planners and the citizens failed to think
of a very simple thing: to clean up the river. Instead they chose a more
difficult and more expensive thing: they buried the river in a huge
concrete sarcophagus. In burying the river they thought they buried their
own madness too. They bet on forgetfulness. They believed that the hue and
cry of the city would kill every memory of the river. The gurgling and the
groaning of the river were locked behind seven locks of concrete, it
appeared forever.
But strange can the ways of God be. Something unexpected, unbelievable
happened. Who could have imagined that a whole city could be deported? Who
would have thought that Prishtina would one day at dawn be deserted?
Deserted to death. Without people. Without its hue and cry. With a sort of
silence which even hushed the birds. Only the river did not know what was
going on.
When I think of it today I realise how much harm have these mad city
planners done to my city. They deprived the city of its natural mirror.
They broke the city's mirror because in it they saw their ugliness and
chimera. Even the citizens disliked their reflections of servants and
subservient people. We allowed the city to obey ugliness. We deprived
ourselves of the chance to watch ourselves on the smooth surface of the
river and take pride in vanity.
A city without a river is a city without a reflection. Maimed. Forsaken.
Ancient Greeks knew of this maimedness. In their mythology the river is the
mirror from which the Ego and love for one-self is reflected. It all
culminates with Narcissus. But what would happen to us without this
reflective narcissism? What are we without the city's river, the river as
our individual and collective mirror? How can this city ever love itself
without a mirror?
The idea of the city as an embodiment of the people who live in it might as
well be a correct one, but it somehow does not befit my city. The history
of Prishtina is bizarre, sad and cruel. Yes, many mistakes were made. Many
a thing has happened without the consent of the citizens, committed fatally
by those who disliked the city, be they foreigners or town folks. It had to
take a deportation for us to understand this. When the river of people was
driven away, surfaced the river of our madness.
Today when I think of my city's future I see a vision of freeing the
covered river. I see the city with the river in it, with the built
riverbank on which people take strolls looking at their reflections on the
smooth river surface and taking pride in their vanity. And maybe they're
happy.
And do not be deceived with the river's ugliness before the river is freed.
If you happen to drop by, do not pause and look at its outside.
Krijoni Kontakt