Everything that is preserved in the form of memories from Xhemal Broja is located in a small old house on "Dibra Street" in Tirana. They are not far from that building that is often hypocritically called a "temple" by people who shrug their shoulders when you ask them who Xhemal Broja was for the Theater. In a month, it will be 20 years since the death of one of the creators of the People's Theater who, along with the actor's shelter, also built a edifice of knowledge on the theater and the history of this art, at a time when ¾ of the population was illiterate. It is certain that no one has thought of remembering along with Broja a series of his contemporaries, and this for a simple reason.

While our National Theater insists on a repertoire of Albanian drama and a mostly Albanian identity of the theater, for years the anthems have been sung to the actors, shifting attention from playwrights and real dramaturgy or from those personalities who helped to practically and theoretically have a national theater.

September 17 could have had a few hours in memoriam for Xhemal Broja in a corner of the Theater. To remember on this occasion the life of the intellectual that resembled a unfortunately perfect drama. It could have been an occasion to remember that some of the persecutors of the Broja couple and their likes by fate under the dictatorship are alive and well known in the public.

Xhemal Broja was born on March 24, 1918 in Shkodra, where he attended the Franciscan high school in his hometown and then studied law in Grenoble, France. There he simultaneously attended a course in literature and dramaturgy. During this period, he became active in the French Communist Party movement. When Albania was invaded in 1939, young Albanian anti-fascists studying in France protested together with French students in front of the Italian consulate.

There, Xhemal Broja drafted and delivered the speech of the occasion. For financial reasons, he interrupted his studies in Grenoble to continue them in Italy alongside his friend Selfixhe Broja (Ciu) and Qemal Stafa, as we see the three of them together in this photo from the time. Here too, his anti-fascist commitment continued until he decided to interrupt his studies and return to Shkodra, where the couple opened a bookstore that radiated culture and patriotism among young people.

After the demonstration of February 22, 1942, accused of being the main organizers, his wife was arrested, while the husband went underground and went to the Postriba area where a partisan nucleus was created, which later became the "Perlat Rexhepi" battalion. In August 1944 and until the liberation of the country, he led the illegal press technique. At the same time, he was a member of the Presidency of the National Liberation Council of the region.

He had shown a penchant for theater since his adolescence, especially with the arrival of Professor Skënder Luarasi at the high school. His first play is titled “The Spy” and was successfully performed in several cities in the country. The next play “28 November” was suspended, but as his wife testifies in her memoirs, Xhemali was an optimistic nature and was not easily discouraged.

After the war, he was called to Tirana to organize the People's Theater, where he worked for 20 years as a director and playwright, and at the same time contributed to the organization of other theaters, the Opera and Ballet Theater, the Puppet Theater, and those in the districts. The great help he provided to the Higher Institute "Aleksandër Moisiu" for the preparation of students in conditions of a total lack of textbooks cannot be ignored.

And this is what a former student of his, the renowned actor Timo Flloko, who remembers him as a lecturer in the History of World Theater, a renowned playwright at the time, author of "Majlinda" and other works, and as a universal erudite, speaks about below.

Broja managed to compile texts such as The Mastery of the Actor, History of Dramatic Art, Methodology of Theatrical Art, Theatrical Dictionary, History of Albanian Theater, History of World Theater, etc.

As a playwright, he wrote the plays Under Occupation, The Struggle, Bajram Curri, Majlinda, Deep Roots. He has translated works such as Men's School, The Deputy, The Titanic Waltz, The Gardener's Dog, a work translated in collaboration with his wife, some of which have remained in the drawers of institutions or in the family archive.

Sashenka Gjergji, Broja's daughter, says that everything has remained in her father's manuscript. She has taken the initiative several times to publish, especially the texts he has compiled on the history of theater and the skill of the actor, but the publishers demand money.

In this corner of Broja's archive are the files collected on the history of the People's Theater, the "Migjeni" Theater, the Opera and Ballet, the Kinostudio, as well as collections of proverbs of prominent people, popular anecdotes, and individual memories that he did not manage to finish.

In the memoirs of Selfixhe Broja, one of the first journalists to write under the pseudonym Colombia, it is clearly shown how it happened that they, husband and wife and later with their children, were relentlessly attacked by the regime. On March 23, 1946, both were expelled from the party as its "enemies" and it was not long before they were declared agents of the American mission. Constantly watched, they decided to self-isolate to avoid any trap that could not be inevitable.

In January 1947 they were interned in Kurvelesh. After the break with the Yugoslavs, their internment measure was lifted. They were first taken to Elbasan and then to Tirana where many others like them, rehabilitated, believed in the "turn". They were circulated in Kuçovë. They had not forgotten their old enemies. In 1966 they were interned again, together with their 15-year-old daughter, in the Lushnja Sector as farmers where they worked the mud of Myzeqe.

Selfixhe Broja remembers Xhemali telling her one day, as old age and a tumor had taken their toll on her: "I have a callus inside my soul, a worry that the grave will not swallow. And this not only for my and your disappointment, but for all my friends, for all those persecuted by the dictatorship, for the country and for the people, before whom we former communists must humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness, because we too have laid a stone in the foundations of this infernal system."

On the other hand, Selfixheja, as much as she is a witness to this forgiveness that the former communist is seeking, also testifies where with names and where with initials the informants and the hyenas of persecution. Everything is clear. Those people were and are among us, some of them belonged to relatives of academic circles. This woman testifies that on the eve of liberation, when Xhemal Broja was asked whether he would follow the military or civilian profile, he answered: "I will remain a simple citizen."

Timo Flloko: The Living Library of Knowledge

Xhemal Broja for us was an alienated form of each of the tragedies, a qualitative synthesis of them, a living oral library of knowledge, perhaps even a contemporary of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. No, of course, he was not such a realist, but without a doubt for all generations of studies, he was a translated model of culture, an indisputable personality. I followed all his lectures with special interest.

The lecture hour was a retrospective excursion into the time and world it led to. His style and knowledge flowed naturally into a vast bed of information, just as a man's bed flows from a large volume of streams... I had no knowledge of theater dramaturgy. The world literature course we had taken in high school included very few playwrights.

Around the middle of the year, I approach him and say: “Professor, I’m done with ancient Greece. I’ve read all the authors.” – “Great,” he says kindly. – Now conquer Rome.” I did well in the June exam and he was pleased with the answer. “In culture, there’s always something left out……………………………..so I’m giving you a nine. Are you satisfied?” – he says. “Yes, professor, very satisfied,” I tell him. “Ten is for life, Timotheo.”/ Memorie.al