The Acting President of the Republic of Kosovo, Albulena Haxhiu, participated today in the Special Session in honour of Academician Rexhep Qosja.
In her speech, Acting President Haxhiu said that today, at this commemorative session, the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo honours Academician Rexhep Qosja, as one of the people who transformed Albanian culture into a space of thought, polemic, awareness and historical responsibility.
“Rexhep Qosja lived and created at a time when Albanians were constantly asked to prove their language, history, belonging and political rights. He responded to this time with works, studies, polemics, public positions and an intellectual discipline that is rarely seen in our public life. He built his thinking on the values of the National Renaissance, on the European Enlightenment heritage, on humanism and on the figures that gave Albanians historical direction”, said Acting President Haxhiu.
She further added that as a writer, he proved that literature can be both art and conscience, further stating that in his artistic works he brought man face to face with fear, power, injustice and the dilemmas of our time.
“Academician Qosja took the study of Albanian literature out of the confines of a narrow discipline and connected it to the greatest question of his time: how to keep alive the consciousness of a divided, oppressed people forced to defend their language, history, and political rights. With his research, profound interpretations, and new readings of our most important authors, Qosja made Albanian literature part of the great debate on the identity, historical continuity, and political rights of Albanians,” affirmed Acting President Haxhiu.
As an intellectual, in the decisive years for the people of Kosovo, he was a clear voice against oppression, against injustice, and against efforts to deny our national identity, said Acting president Haxhiu
“His contribution also extends to the political processes of the last century, when Kosovo sought freedom and a republic. Rexhep Qosja put his intellectual authority at the service of this right, articulating Kosovo’s freedom as a historical right and as a cause that required international affirmation”, emphasized the Acting President.
According to her, in the cultural life of Kosovo, Professor Qosja takes the place of those rare figures who go beyond the institution and mark an entire era of thought.
“The Albanological Institute, the University of Pristina, literature, theater, film and public debate are based on his work, courage and presence. For Qosja, culture had a duty. The book had a duty. The intellectual had a duty. Therefore, his work went beyond the library and entered the political history of Kosovo”, said Acting President Haxhiu.
According to her, Qosja turned the argument into a means of defending Albanian identity and rights, before these rights took shape at political tables.
“As early as the seventies, in his work “Panteoni i rralluar”, he had written about speech and silence as ethical, political and intellectual issues. Later, in the polemics of the eighties, in the journalism of the nineties and in the interviews where he articulated Kosovo’s right to self-determination, he proved that for the Albanian creator, silence could not be a refuge in times of oppression. Speech, for Qosja, was an obligation to the truth and to the people. In 1991, in an interview for the Belgrade press, when Yugoslavia was disintegrating and Kosovo was kept under oppression, academic Qosja declared that the perseverance and determination of the Albanian people would continue in the face of suffering, until Kosovo achieved the right that was due to it: the right to political and territorial self-determination”, said Acting President.
She further said that Academician Rexhep Qosja did not seek honours for himself, but the Republic has a duty to honour those who, with their work, have honoured the state and honoured the nation.
“The memory of him will remain where he placed all his work: in Albanian culture, in critical thinking, in the Albanian language and in the political and spiritual history of Kosovo,” said Acting President Haxhiu.
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