“Books Banned in Communism” is the newest exhibition displayed at the House of Leaves Museum in Tirana. The exhibition portrays the struggle of being an author in the communist censorship system before the ’90s.

On March 27, 1984, a decision of the People’s Court, published in the newspaper “Bashkimi”, the newspaper of the Democratic Front at the time, ordered the removal of a number of books, then called as “harmful to society.”

The party rapidly established control over print, book publishing and distribution and it created or abolished newspapers and periodicals at will. The communist regime began erasing names of translators and editors, suspended or banned the publication of Works of authors declared as enemies. This infamous decision did not spear from censorship even some of the well-known authors of Albanian literature.

The exhibition narrates, through archival documents and ordinances, the story behind this decision and brings back to the public, pieces of Albania’s history under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha.

“Initially, the books harmful to society were removed from circulation, including authors such as Gjergj Fishta, Krsito Floqi and many other authors, to be followed by various orders of the Ministry of Education and Culture to remove works of authors that could be stored in the Library Reserve Funds with the initials R (Reserves), Sh. R (Very reserved), Ra (Reserved author),” says Ardit Bido, general director of the State Archive.

Many foreign authors such as Dante Alighieri, Erich Maria Remark, Marcel Prust, Leon Tolstoy, Albert Kamy, F.M. Dostoevsky, etc., were also banned, or did not come in their full version of the book.

The exhibition will be open to the public for the two following weeks.