The Rose of Çamëria

Mirush Kabashi, one of Albania's great poets.

In 1994 the Albanian Parliament marked the 27th of June as the official commemoration day of the Çam expulsion, honoring a key and tragic moment in Albanian history.

During the course of World War II, long-simmering conflicts between the Çam Albanian and Greek populations came to the forefront in the borderland region of Epirus. By the end of the war, Napoleon Zervas’ National Republican Greek League (EDES) accused the entire Çam population of collaborating with the occupying Axis forces, despite notable Çam anti-fascist efforts, such as the Ali Demi Battalion.

In late June of 1944, Zervas’ forces led an ethnic cleansing campaign. The number of those massacred is placed between 300-600, while the entire population of over 20,000 were expelled to Albania, with more dying on the way. After unsuccessfully lobbying the Greek and Albanian governments as well as the international community to facilitate the return to their homes, the Çams were forcibly given Albanian citizenship by the communist regime in 1951. This facilitated the confiscation of their property by the Greek government. Unable to return to their ancestral homes, Çams went on to build their new lives in Albania.

“The Rose of Çamëria” has become one of the most evocative symbols of the community and its history in the ensuing decades. It is performed by Mirush Kabashi, one of Albania’s most acclaimed poets, who passed away last December at 75. He follows a long tradition of performers whose works feature patriotic and various other themes.

Below is the first full translation of the poem in English available online. We publish it here, on the 80th anniversary of the expulsion, in honor of those who lost their lives and homes. Our earnest hope remains that the memory of such tragedies will guide the way towards peace and coexistence in the Balkans.

Ah, the Rose of Çamëria

At the Bota Pass, our world was separated*

And often I grew ashamed before the white paper

Which I had to fill with the black letters of powerlessness.

I grew ashamed at the land without a mother and the mother without a land

Because one without the other cannot make a motherland.

One night in my dreams you whispered to me an old saying:

“We are three: you, me and the pain.

If you come, I will overcome the pain with you

If you don’t, the pain will overcome us both.”

I told you: here I am, we speak in one voice

But the dream fled and we weren’t One.

Ah, the Rose of Çamëria!

How I want to be pierced by your thorns

To feel your proximity in the depths of my soul

So that my body may bleed for the sake of your aroma.

Because the soul, upset as it is by longing for what it wants  

Resembles a spirit upset by the proximity of that which it wants not

And life without you means no sight can satisfy my eyes.

No, maybe I can’t really write but the pain made me a poet.

These words do not come to life from the pen but from the longing of separation.

How can the mouth say something which the soul does not contain?

How can I write and not be a poem myself?

How can I kiss you once more, o rose in Çamëria?

To be remembered as a blood-stained kiss through history!

The 27th of June.

More than 27 pangs for the human soul.

This month which marks the midpoint of the year

Makes me think of the day when the body will be separated from the soul.

I cannot leave you my body because it belongs to the earth.

I cannot leave you my soul because it belongs to the Heavens.

I can only entrust you with this poem, so that you may read it to all my people

For my wilted rose in Çamëria.

For my rose, for my rose

Which will bloom in Çamëria.

* The line in the original Albanian (“Te Qafë Bota, ku u nda bota jonë”) plays on the name of the Bota Pass, which runs along the Greek-Albanian border. ‘Bota’ also means world.