In 29 BC, the Roman poet Virgil, best known today for his verse epic Aeneid, published another poem, called Georgia, or Agriculture, because it so happens that the author’s name in ancient Greek means farmer. The Aeneid is known to Albanians because Henrik Lacaj undertook the daunting task of translating it into Albanian, while the Georgia, Virgil’s second great work, has, to my knowledge, never been translated.
The Georgiana is of great importance in the history of mankind because, as far as is known, it is the first time that the spiritual conscience of the world, which is literature, sees agriculture and livestock, the farmer and the herdsman, as well as work with mud and dung, not with the usual contempt reserved for this part of society by the elites, but as an idyll, a dream, a peaceful world that represents freedom, independence from authority, dignity.
One of the stories included in the poem tells of a former pirate, now old, with his days of plunder and rape behind him, taking care of his crops, an expert in horticulture and beekeeping. He describes these simple goods as as magnificent as the riches of kings.
Virgil was also a court poet. His poem Aeneid was financed by the founder of one-man rule in Rome, Augustus. The Aeneid tells the tale that the Romans told themselves about the mythical origin of themselves and their power. A story that begins with the legendary hero Aeneas’ escape from burning Troy, his abandonment of his love for the sake of a predestined destiny for fame and power and the founding of Rome, and ends with the rule of Augustus.
Even his assumption that being a farmer or herdsman gives you the opportunity not to scratch your head and look questioningly at who the man is ruling and how the one in charge is doing the job of managing the commons is clearly a propaganda model. Augustus has given you the opportunity to be free with your sheep and goats, so don’t worry that it’s none of your business who rules and how they rule.
The structure of the Aeneid was used centuries later by Marin Barleti to bring the History of Skanderbeg to life, something that was noted by the Danish scholar Minna Skafte Jensen.
The human emotions that Virgil discovered over two thousand years ago and the human desire for abundance and freedom and finding the fulfillment of these desires in agriculture and livestock have been the target of propagandists throughout history.
The idyllization of agriculture by Virgil and many after him hardly survives the critical perspective of the use of human emotions for propaganda. For example, a photograph of a goat conveys feelings of youth, vitality, a happy life and the lack of need for complicated thoughts. What is not shown in the photo is that, probably, a few months after this photo was taken, the goat in question will have been slaughtered for food. But propagandists have had an increasingly powerful impact on people’s lives since the twentieth century, when Mussolini, above all, used the radio to carry his propaganda into the homes of every citizen, while social media and mobile phones now allow propaganda to reach not just the home but also the bed or the garbage dump. By comparison, the reading of Virgil by the largely illiterate population of the ancient world seems like a terribly clumsy propaganda exercise.
Being a farmer does not necessarily bring you freedom from human discomfort, because you can still fall into poverty, get sick, and need medicine and medicine. Crucially, being a farmer, despite the fact that your livelihood is tied to the land, does not exempt you from the need for every member of a political body, whether a farmer or an aircraft engineer, to look closely at who is governing and how they are governing, whether they are wasting the money needed to cover these inconveniences such as roads, water, sewage, health care, schools and social care, by putting it in their pockets or by building one villa after another.
Mussolini was the one who, after a swamp was drained (we must not forget that the swamp was drained with the money and work of Italians), he appeared on television news reports harvesting grain, thus providing bread for the people. And in the 1970s and 1980s, Albanian communist rulers tried to rejuvenate themselves by recruiting some farmers and herders from the countryside directly into the Politburo, a structure that at the time was the equivalent of today’s parliament.
Kur Lenka Çuko u bë anëtare e Byrosë Politike në vitin 1971, ajo ishte 33 vjeç. Edhe ajo u mor nga fshati, jetoi gjatë të gjithë kohës me sharje, fyerje dhe tallje për fillesat modeste të karrierës së saj, sqaroi në një intervistë se nuk kishte qenë mjelëse, siç përbuzej rëndom nga elita ish-proletare e kohës, por “bujkeshë”. Rekrutimi nga fshati vështirë se ndryshoi gjë në strukturën qeverisëse, as nuk ndaloi dhunimin, burgosjen e internimet dhe as nuk solli ndonjë përmirësim në nivelin e jetesës.
The newest member of the Albanian Parliament is expected to be Marjana Koçeku, who has been known on social media as a cattle breeder. She stated that she wants to represent the Dukagjin community and chose, in a very symbolic way, to use the Gheg language in her first statement.
One thing we should remind Ms. Koçeku and all the members of parliament from all parties, members of parliament who have already become members despite the fact that the elections have not yet been held, is that this job of representing a community, whether rural or urban, Gheg or Tosk, with goats or with Mercedes, is a little more complicated than that. Because members of parliament in the Republic of Albania are appointed and not elected.
However, each of these members of parliament, including Ms. Koçeku has the opportunity, starting today, since the papers have already been deposited with the CEC and cannot be revoked, to become worthy representatives, not only of the people of Dukagjin, but of all Albanians, by standing up for the protection of human rights, by not tolerating corruption, by respecting the rule of law and above all, by asking the mayors who appointed them as deputies why there are no medicines for oncology, why the roads are destroyed, why the country has been divided into pieces for the oligarchs.
As a deputy appointed in the Shkodra area, Ms. Koçeku can start well by going one day to the side of the cathedral in the city of Shkodra, where a church canteen called “Buka e Shna Ndout” offers the poor a small bowl of soup and a very small piece of bread. As far as I can tell, the soup in question should cost around 20 or 30 lekë, while the piece of bread, around 10 lekë.
Ms. Koçeku could become a representative of all Albanians if she goes to the one who appointed her to ask why, in 2025, in Albania, there are people who need a free meal that doesn’t even cost half a euro, and are even clearly hungry for that, in a city where not even 100 meters away there are plans to build a Tower of Babel. Until she does this or things like that, she is not a representative of Dukagjin in parliament, but is Edi Rama’s delegate in Dukagjin./ BIRN
