MarZambrano used to say that along with the outer time and space flow, with a different rhythm, the inner time and space, which links the present of the past, or the memory with the present of the future, or the hope. And if for every body this time is personal and not transferable, such is also the one through which History passes by as well as the memory and the collective hope and imaginary of nations: neither everything that passes, actually passes, nor passes in the same way, but remains, past present in the collective imaginary that defines a culture, an “Us” and the will of being towards the future. Seldom do the inner times or the collective imaginaries meet each other: somehow precisely for this reason they are ours and not someone else’s. Seldom and thus exceptional; since if in what has defined an “I” and an “Us” we have once walked together, somehow we share a common “Us”. If there is a symbol to define the common “Us” of the Albanians, their will to be, that is- more than anyone else- , Gjergj Kastriot “Scanderbeg”, his fight and his deed for freedom, a past always present. A freedom protected with the swords as much as with the words, with diplomacy. Through the strategic alliance that he established with Alfonse the Magnanimous, king of Aragon. If Scanderbeg was for all Europe the symbol of a resisting Christianity against the Ottoman attack, for Alfonse of Aragon the alliance with him was much more than that: it was the decisive element to make possible for the Christians that the Mediterranean continued to be the “Mare Nostrum”, the one where – as Admiral Roger de Lluria said – even the fishes had to wear the emblem of the King of Aragon to pass through. Which is for each of us the meaning of the other’s myth? Which is the meaning of that relationship with Scanderbeg for the collective imaginary and the explanation of the History of the Crown of Aragon from Spain of today? Which is the meaning of the alliance with Alfonse for the collective imaginary and the explanation of the History of Albania of today? To know the other’s perspective is to know better one’s self. If rare are the occasions in which the collective imaginaries meet each other in their presences, even more extraordinary are those when they meet in their absences. Like those of which the parallel stories of Arberesh and Sephardim, tell us, histories of absences and presences; of Sephardims and Arbereshes but also of Spain without Sefarad and Albania without Arberia; of Spain in Sefarad and of Albania in Arberia. After all, the ones that left are as much Spanish or Albanian as the ones that stayed; and no one of us- of those that left and of those that remained- can be complete without meeting with the other. In order to meet with them, with the ones we used to live with once upon a time, with those who five centuries later have kept as their language Spanish or Albanian, the same language that their ancestors used to speak when they left; in order to learn lessons of the parallel History of these absences and to better know this encounter in History which was the strategic alliance between Scanderbeg and Alfonse the Magnanimous, the Embassy of Spain in Albania has organized this 20th of November the International Day “Arberia-Sefarad: In the Other’s Mirror” which will deal with both matters in round tables, after which an Exhibition on the Sephardic presence in the Balkan “Witnesses of the Jewish Century “will be inaugurated at the National Museum of History, to end with the opportunity to travel in time to Sefarad and Arberia, by means of the music, in the concert offered by the group of Sephardic music “Mashalᢠat the National Theatre of Opera and Ballet, including the interpretation of arberesh music performed by invited guests
Manuel Montobbio
Ambassador of Spain in Albania
