"TANUSHA, SIMBOL I FEMRËS SHQIPTARE" nga Dr. Bexhet Asani

"TANUSHA, SYMBOL OF ALBANIAN
FEMALE" by Dr. Bexhet Asani
The already affirmed poet and writer, Nikollë Ulndreaj,
comes out to our readers with the poetic collection “Tanusha”,
which incorporates poetry inspired by myths, legends, fairy
tales, by the founts of our hard Northern Highland, as well
as from our present day’s bitter social reality. Precisely
from these mountains and steep pastures, from these brave
inhabitants, emerges a syplh, a laurel, a fairy whose white
spirit is like the snow of the Albanian Alps, this girl is Tanusha
of our prominent poet Nichollë Ulndreaj.
Nikollë Ulndreaj’s poetry, with its beauty and simplicity,
with the artistic and aesthetic strength it has, seems to emerge
not from the depths of the centuries, but from the depths of
the millennia. This, the poet’s main character, is nothing but a
Pelasgian, Illyrian, today a simple Albanian Tanusha with all
the virtues: good, wise, beautiful, majestic, divine.
Tanusha is an ancient name and symbol of the beauty of
Albanian women. The beauty of the female, of the Albanian
Tanusha has fascinated even the great English poet George
Gordon Byron. In a letter to his mother from Ioannina of Ali
Pasha Tepelena, which is recently discovered, among other
things, he writes:
“I’ve travelled to Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Greece, but,
I have never seen anywhere more beautiful women than in
Albania.”
The Poet Nikollë Ulndreaj with a rare artistic skill, thus,
through the art of poetry, speaks with Tanusha, as if she
were his friend, lover, wife, sister, mother, telling his troubles
to her, talking and laughing at her when he is happy and
cheerful, suffers and weeps with her, when he is homesick,
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Optika letrare - THE LITERARY OPTICS
sorrowful in his heart.
Tanusha, for the poet Nikollë, is a girl who loves with
all the passion of her heart. She is a loving and yearning
sister, she is a burned and scorched mother from the life’s
suffering who is willing to sacrifice, whenever needed, like
all our suffering mothers, she only radiates: love, warmth,
cleverness, wisdom. Tanusha, this Albanian girl, is a sculpted
figure in verse, in poetry, in the monumental work of poet
Nikollë Ulndreaj, who with his bright pen and mind raises
anthem to the rare beauty of Albanian woman, the divine
Tanusha, the earthly Tanusha. Tanusha sometimes turns out
to be a sylph, sometimes a laurel, sometimes s a fairy of our
rough mountains and sometimes a hermelin in the Meadows
of Marin, simple, beautiful, with black eyes, with her hair
falling freely, sensible and fragile. Tanusha is a courageous,
valiant, wise and mild woman who brings breeze in the soul
of the poet and the soul of the Albanian man in general.
The author, with his favorite, Tanusha, in their
imaginative journey, tread every inch of the land of their
homeland, our fatherland. They do not pass a fountain
without drinking blessed and clean water like the teardrop,
climbing the highest peaks of Bjeshkët e Nëmura of the
Great Albanian Alps. A particular phenomenon in Nikollë’s
poetry is that he uses the ancient Illyrian toponyms with
extraordinary skills, without burdening or hurting the verse
or the stanza. These names no enemy and ruler, could ever
change, no matter how cruel and bloodthirsty they were.
Toponyms such as: Qafa e bardhë, Zharri i Mirashit, Qafa e
Mrrethit, Maja e Shqerrave, Shpati i Kakisë, Lugjet e Verdha,
Guri Murg, Vrrini, Kroni i Qafës, Livadhi i Mirashit etc. have
great value for the Albanian toponomastics. When it comes
to love, he frankly loves Tanusha, for her he gives up even if
a fairy, a laurel, an apprentice, a mermaid “approaches”:
... But, what’s the matter with a mountain fairy, which
keeps hurting my wounds, mercilessly
Wonder, doesn’t she know that my beloved woman is

Tanusha!?
So, he is an ardent lover, who appreciates divine beauty,
but who is madly in love with the possible, the reachable, the
earthly Tanusha, with her particularities. The poet Nikollë
Ulndreaj finds happiness only in his native country, although
the system has brought to him suffering and misery, with
his as much artistic as philosophical verses, he is a Mitrush
Kuteli of our day: “Homeland even when he kills, is dear”
, so he does not prefer to wander the doors of the world as
the “Sawyer” of Esad Makuli, he will build his nest in the
homeland of his forefathers, where even:
The Kings will envy us, the stars in the clear sky,
You, Tell me, which love, has not been washed with tears?
The House at Thepi i Bjeshkës, we shall raise like a castle,
In the bones of our grandparents, some day or some time!?
In the poetry “I have began my journey to visit you in
Tanusha”, Lasgush Poradeci of the North region - Nicholas
Ulndreaj, has so strongly idolized her: “Even if I die on my
way, Tanusha will bring me back to life again!” thus, from
her beauty even the living person dies, while the dead rise
from the grave. In the poems “Crucify me like the Christ!”,
“Where should I keep my mind, Tanusha?”, “A Letter from
Tanusha,” “Tanusha writes to me again,” “I Talk to myself!”
etc., the author of the poetry volume “Tanusha” noticed that
recently the exile, this severe social- incurable wound, was
resurrected, returned to Albania, in the motherland and
many villages are extinguishing, while in the Albanian lands
of the former Yugoslavia there are also extinct cities! Another
social phenomenon is perhaps more painful than the plague
of exile, which keeps gnawing the poet Nikollë, is no doubt
the blood feud. The blood feud revived the recent years of
the so-called democracy, it was re-awakened like a ghost
coming from the darkness of the ages which takes the lives
of innocent people for a blade of straw! Can all this pain, all
this tragedy of our people, one describe it with only a single
verse, can it be described with only a single verse, of course
not, this can only be done by a mature poet, who is familiar
with the harsh and unwritten laws of the Malësia, a poet like
Nikollë Ulndreaj:
Far away from the daily lamentation of Ajkuna,
Far from the battles of Muji against the Black Bajloz-es,
Far away from the inevitable flares of lightning,
Far away from the rifle’s muzzle,
Where they take your life away for a straw blade...!
Nikollë Ulndreaj with a rare artistic mastery, has taken
the misery of Migjeni’s “Little Luli” from Malësia and has
descended it to sit it cross-legged at the Skanderbeg Square
in Tirana, Prishtina, Skopje. And this entire calamity comes
to the people from the tekfen politicians.
Injustice twists the moustaches, sitting crosslegged in front of
Skanderbeg,
The Square squandered, in trillions of rice grains,
Darkness, light, pain, sigh, wound, destitution, burning the
ground.
They kill by night, and lament during the day, your back is
peeled!
Beautifully said, right?
In the collection of poems “Tanusha” are included also
poems that the poet Nikollë Ulndreaj has created in the years
of his young age. The poems that the poet has created at his
young age ‘s age preserve freshness and beauty, as if they
were created today, they fascinate with their poetic force
of their text. The Poet Nikolle Ulndreaj has skillfully used
stylistic figures such as: comparison, symbol, metaphor, etc.
Bexhet Asani
Bloomingdale - SHBA, shtator 2015