Love, Erotic Art and the Moral in the Albanian Socialist Realism

Abstract

During the centuries, the concept of eros has been modified and alongside this transformation was modified also the relationship it has with the art, but whereas in the world art, during each historical period, the examples of erotic art are multiple, in our native tradition, for the major part of it, this art remains in the limits of a taboo, both visually and spiritually. In Enver Hoxha’s Albania, the campaign for the “deportation” of old customs waged war to the format of patriarchal family and together with it, it waged war also to its conception. Similar to a massive propaganda campaign synchronized between all the media, the state chose to promote the youth’s love, as a promoter of the new man’s spirit, who at his basis would build the new family, the structure foundation of the socialist society. But in the socialist style love, certainly there was no place for the “supplementary” elements: eros and sensuality. As for the nature of the proletarian dictatorship itself, they remained foreign elements, because the state’s mission was the elevation of the new man who would put himself in the service of the ideological cause.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n3p613