By Aurenc Bebja
The magazine “Les bonnes soirées” published on September 18, 1960, on pages no. 6 – 8, the exclusive interview with Queen Geraldine of Albania, held at that time in Cannes, France, which Aurenc Bebja has brought to the Albanian public. Geraldine Apponyi, the beauty of Budapest, was forced to leave her kingdom and suffer the horrors of exile. A large villa surrounded by palm trees and flowers. A villa that has the face of many others and where it seems that only the sweetness of life can find asylum. Despite this appearance, these bougainvilleas, whose purple foliage has the elegance of flowers, “La Pierre Grise”, is not a villa like the others.
Its inhabitants have a story, because the unfortunate heroes of one of its tragic pages are part of the history of Europe. This large villa created for happiness houses the former King Zog I of Albania, his wife Geraldine and their only son Leka.
Right in the city garden, a tall, slender, blonde beauty welcomes me. She was wearing a light blue dress, with two rows of pearls around her neck, a magnificent diamond on her finger, and a blue flower on her white jacket. Her voice was clear, soft, without any accent. Her blue-gray eyes radiated tenderness and intelligence.
– I am happy to welcome you, ma'am.
I have before me Queen Geraldine, whose tragic fate had shocked all of Europe a few months before the great upheavals of World War II. April 1938: Europe is not yet in flames, but civil war brings tears of blood to Spain. Hitler has just annexed Austria, but life goes on. The crowds soften over the four-year-old five-year-olds of Canada.
King Zog will marry the beautiful Countess Geraldine Apponyi. The Apponyis are representatives of one of the oldest Hungarian families. Geraldine inherits Hungarian blood and a fiery character from her father. She is so beautiful that she has been called the “Beauty of Budapest”. She counts more than fifteen crowned heads in her ancestors. She is related to all the royal families. The Habsburgs, the Saxons, the Bulgarians, the Portuguese, the Romanians, the Greeks and the Yugoslavs.
Her mother, married for the second time to the French colonel Girault, is of American origin. It is precisely this Anglo-Saxon origin that the young girl undoubtedly owes her love of sport and her magnificent stature. Geraldine, as a child, spent two years at the lyceum of Nice (Nisse). As a young girl, she already spoke four languages, to which Albanian was added.
This king of Albania, born in 1895 and whom he will marry, already has an extraordinary past. His country lived for five hundred years under Turkish domination and Ahmet Zog, the son and grandson of the Pasha, had sworn to make Albania independent as a child. At the age of seven, he was sent as an “ambassador extraordinary” to the Turks. The child proved so determined that they kept him in Constantinople.
But when he returned to Albania, he returned to his beloved mountains and at the head of his ever-growing supporters, fought on peaks from which the warriors were almost invincible. But the Serbs, after the Turks, invaded his country. Step by step, Albania will nevertheless gain independence. In 1926, the republic was admitted to the League of Nations, then, in 1928, the Kingdom. Ahmet Zogu is proclaimed king under the name; Zogu I.
From this land will become queen a young Hungarian girl, a charming creature called Geraldine from Europe. Located in the south of Yugoslavia, on the border with the Adriatic, Albania has about a million inhabitants. It is a mountainous region without trains and roads, where the inhabitants devote themselves to agriculture and livestock. But Zogu and Geraldine have big plans.
They will clean, build, improve. Already oil exploration has opened up great hopes. All the newspapers of the world have talked about the magnificent wedding in Tirana. Here, twenty years later with me, still as beautiful, still as calm and seductive, Queen Geraldine recalls her memories.
Geraldine in Wonderland
– My wedding? It was above all a great celebration for all the Albanians that I already loved with all my heart, a celebration that lasted three days and three nights. The streets were covered with red banners. Black eagles adorned all the balconies. Of course, Tirana hosted many more people than usual that day. Everywhere was a diverse, colorful mix. Everyone was wearing their best suit.
There was a big ball at the Royal Court. The ballroom was decorated with the letter “Z” made of weapons and with very ancient and embroidered costumes. People were dancing all over the place. All of Albania was like a book with colorful pictures. Every square, like every crossroads, was full of colors and songs. Then I remembered an image that had struck me in a magazine of that time.
The caption read: “Geraldine in Wonderland.” There were children in red shirts and black pants, a knight in a green overcoat, and two ladies in gold-embroidered dresses. A meeting between East and West.
A dress from One Thousand and One Nights
My wedding dress?
Geraldine has a soft smile about this memory. Her toilette certainly came from Paris. Her long blue veil embroidered with diamonds, filled with bouquets of roses, looked like a silver foam. The dress was white, long, completely covered with pearls. All over Tirana and in all the Albanian villages, the trees were in bloom.
The whole country was thus dressed in a white cloak, a festive cloak. Count Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law, had made a most extraordinary arrival, standing in an open car surrounded by bicycles that disappeared under bouquets. One hundred and fifty young couples, paid for (their wedding) by the King, had joined together that very day. They formed around the future queen a touching and enthusiastic court of love.
The powerful of the day had sent precious gifts. Mussolini, a yacht that swayed in the port of Durrës; Hitler, a long car that looked like a nickel carriage. Hungary had offered Geraldine, as the perfect knight, four purebred white horses. In images of the time, three young girls with brown curls emerge from a white hat. In full white uniform, they are Myzejeni, Ruhija and Maxhidja, colonels of the Albanian army regiments and the young sisters of the King.
April of joy
April 27, 1938. As Zogu, a Muslim, and Geraldine, a Catholic, were united in a civil marriage, a hundred and one cannon shots shook Tirana and a shower of spring flowers fell from the trees that covered Albania with a festive carpet. In the villages, shepherds with large mustaches roast lambs in front of their doors amid streams of juice and flames. The people are happy. There is a brave king and the most beautiful queen in the world.
A queen who has just declared: “Above all, I want to take care of the women and children of my country”. The young couple set off for their honeymoon in their amazing and luxurious nickel-plated carriage. They barely had a year of happiness. A year in which they began to put their plans into practice. In the euphoria of the moment, Albania believes in Italian friendship, moreover, it has signed a pact of alliance in Rome. The king wants to build a highway connecting Durrës with Tirana. It will bear the name of the Duce.
Then a large concrete cathedral will be built, and finally the Royal Palace. Zog and Geraldine's house is really a simple square house in the middle of a garden. The new residence will include twenty-five rooms and three large salons. There will be a cinema, a swimming pool, a winter garden and – Geraldine is very interested in this – a rose maze.
Soon, the Marconi Society will inaugurate a radio station. New stamps will be issued. Zogu and Geraldine love each other. The Queen will soon have a child.
April of disaster
– Alas! meanwhile the storm is breaking out. Hitler swallowed Austria with an axe. Mussolini's pride suffers from the fact of being unable to balance this lofty fact. He thinks that of all the nations surrounding him, Albania is the only one that cannot withstand him.
Negotiations are underway between the governments of Rome and Tirana to transform Albania into a protectorate under the Italian-Albanian treaty of 1927. Acceptance of the Italian conditions meant that Albania would renounce its independence. Zog, supported by all his people, refused.
And on April 7 at dawn, Italy invaded Albania without warning. The Italian squadron violently bombarded the main cities and landed its troops in Saranda, Vlora, Durrës and Shëngjin. The entire coast was immediately occupied. Albania resisted with the energy of despair. But what can the rifles of the highlanders do against organized armies? King Zog tried to negotiate to avoid the massacres of a hopeless war.
Everything was in vain. On April 8, Italian troops entered Tirana. During this time, a young woman had given birth to a child, a boy, in the simple house of Tirana, which she loved because it was the one of her loves./ Memorie.al
