Smirnova 1974

Soviet Studies in History
ISSN: 0038-5867 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mrsh19
Albania's "Red Bishop" Fan Noli
N. D. Smirnova
To cite this article: N. D. Smirnova (1974) Albania's "Red Bishop" Fan Noli, Soviet Studies in
History, 13:3, 32-56
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/RSH1061-1983130332
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Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, 1973, No. 3
N. D. Smirnova
ALBANIA'S "RED BISHOP" FAN NOLI
In November 1927 a congress of friends of the Soviet Union

was held, timed to match the tenth anniversary of the triumph
of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Albanian democrats
- fighters against the t e r r o r i s t regime of Ahmed Zogu, were
represented at the congress by the chairman of the "Committee
of National Liberation," the head of the democratic government
that had been in power in 1924, Bishop Fan Noli. "The success
of the congress does not s u r p r i s e m e at all," he said, "for it is
entirely natural that all workers and all oppressed peoples of
the world, whose representatives a r e participating in the con-
g r e s s , regard the USSR as their fatherland." (L)
Fan Noli spoke in the name of Albania's patriots who had not
laid down their a r m s after the failure of the revolutionary
movement he had headed in 1924. Fan Noli reacted with ex-
t r e m e sensitivity to the military defeat and the collapse of
hopes for the triumph of democracy in Albania. What the
Albanian activist s a w in the Soviet Union - the vast social
changes c a r r i e d out in the first land of socialism - restored
his confidence in the justice of the cause for which he fought.
F a n Noli predicted that the paths to be followed for solving
Albania's social problems would lead through interpretation
and adoption of the experience of the Soviet Union. H i s encoun-
t e r with the new world evoked exalted feelings in him: "I a m
32
WINTER 1974-75 33
inspired by the fact that I personally saw the f i r s t workers' and

peasants' state, which has a tremendous future and which is the
p r e c u r s o r of s i m i l a r workers' and peasants' republics of the
."
future (2)
Enthusiasm at the achievements of the world's first socialist
state was already then a common thing on the p a r t of s i n c e r e
friends of the land of soviets. What was unusual in this case
was the fact that the individual expressing the moods of the
oppressed Albanian people was a person belonging to the highest
levels of the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church. The reaction-

a r y Western p r e s s dubbed him a "dangerous Bolshevik," the
"red bishop." However, his convictions never brought him close
to the communist world-view. He was, rather, a proponent of
revolutionary democratic views. And that circumstance defined
his place a s leader of the radical wing in the antifeudal and
anti-imperialist movement. (3)
One of the most interestingpolitical and cultural figures of
Albania in modern and recent times (he lived a long life, from
1882 to 1965), bishop and l a t e r metropolitan of the Albanian
Orthodox Church, Teofan (Fan for short) Stilian Noli was born
in the village of Ibrik-Tepe (Kiuteza in Albanian), not far from
Adrianopol. Orthodox Albanians, descendants of military col-
onists of the Byzantine Empire, lived in the village. The Al-
banian mercenaries were splendid professional soldiers, and
after the fall of Constantinople they went into the s e r v i c e of
the sultan, retaining their previous religious affiliation and
the right to the possession of fertile lands. The military c a r e e r
of the Noli clan ended with the death of his grandfather, who
died on Malakhov Hill near Sevastopol.
F a n Noli was the second child of a moderately prosperous
peasant family with many children. (4) One illness after
another and physical weakness m a d e h i m unsuited to the heavy
work of agriculture and for military service. It was this that
determined Noli's destiny: his parents put the little boy in a
p r i m a r y school, and after he finished, sent him off t o the Greek
high school in Adrianopol. In accordance with the conditions
and traditions of that time, he received a semisecular and
34 SOVIET STUDIES I N HISTORY
semireligious education, which in many respects left a n im-

print on his life. The father raised the son in a spirit of
reverence for Napoleon. Albanian folk traditions compelled
attention to the legendary times of Scanderbeg, that extraor-
dinary military and governmental figure of medieval times who
headed the struggle of the Albanians against Osmanli domi-
nance.
In his y e a r s at the high school, Fan Noli began to acquaint
himself with works of world classical literature. He was deeply
affected by the works of Shakespeare, of whom he became very

fond, attending performances by wandering theater troupes.
After his graduation from the high school, the question of
earning a living arose, and Fan Noli entered a theater group
and for two years worked as prompter and actor. H i s life as
a n actor was brief but fortunate: he played many leading roles
in the classical repertoire and traveled with the troupe through
Turkey, Greece, and Egypt, becoming familiar with the lives
of the common people.
His s t a y in Egypt became a turning point in his life. There
he came into contact with the activity of patriotic Albanian
organizations and was imbued with their ideas. (5) Fan Noli
used the rich l i b r a r y of the writer Spiro Dine and studied
Albania's problems in politics and culture and enlightenment.
He settled down in Fayum, where he taught Greek in school and
simultaneously served in the local church. It was during his
three y e a r s in Egypt that he perceived the contribution he could
make to the overall struggle for the national liberation of Al-
bania.
With the help of Tanas Tashko and Iani Vrukho, influential
members of the Albanian community in Egypt, Fan Noli de-
parted for the United States in 1906. Rich America greeted
him coldly. Illusions, if he had any, rapidly departed in the
clash with reality. "This proved to be not the New World but
the Dirty World,'' he wrote to his friends in Egypt. (6)
Fan Noli settled in Boston, the center of Albanianimmigrants.
Extraordinary linguistic abilities enabled him to overcome with
ease the language b a r r i e r s dividing the multinational immi-
WINTER 1974-75 35
grant community. His enormous capacity for work and gift of

eloquence, combined with a truly fanatical obsession with the
goal of achieving liberation of the land of his forefathers from
foreign yoke, moved him into the ranks of the leaders of the
patriotic Albanian movement. He operated i n two principal
directions : beginning the struggle for creation of a n autoceph-
alous Albanian Church and mobilizing funds to organize a pa-
triotic p r e s s . The move f o r separation from the Greek patri-
archy had a very specific political intent. The introduction of
s e r v i c e s in Albanian instead of Greek, and the replacement of

Greek clergy who were usually agents of foreign states (Turkey
and Greece) by Albanians, plus the break with Istanbul along
religious lines, all facilitated the further development of the
Albanians' self-awareness as a nation.
The Greek patriarchy in Istanbul attempted to place obstacles
in the way of the movement for church autonomy begun by Al-
banian parishioners in Boston. T h e r e followed a n appeal for
assistance to the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, a s a
result of which on March 8, 1908, at St. Nicholas Cathedral in
New York, Archbishop Platon Rozhdestvenskii consecrated F a n
Noli as a p r i e s t , with the right to conduct s e r v i c e s inAlbanian. (7)
-
Fan Noli was given a parish i n Boston. He translated reli-
gious books into Albanian and also contributed to the newspaper
Kombi [ T h e Nation] , published by Sotir Petsi, which differed
from the other Albanian emigrant publications in i t s democratic
and antifeudal tone. In 1909 Kombi ceased to appear, and i t s
place was taken by the paper Dielli [ T h e Sun] , whose first
manager was F a n Noli. (8) It was largely thanks to his personal
efforts that the Pan-Albanian Federation Vatra [ T h e Hearth]
was established there in Boston in 1912, which united the pa-
triotic Albanian organizations i n America. (9)
During the period of the rebellions for liberation in Albania
and the struggle for recognition of i t s independence, F a n Noli
conducted patriotic propaganda in the p r e s s . In 1911, at the
height of the anti-Turkish insurrection in Albania, he arrived
in Europe as representative of Vatra. (10) F o r the purposes
of coordinating the activities of organizations of Albanians i n
36 SOVIET STUDIES IN HISTORY
support of the liberation movement a t home, he visited Odessa,

Kishinev, Bucharest, Braila, Constanza, and Sofia, i.e., the
most important centers of the Albanian emigration. At that
time his activity was highly diverse. Along with purely cleri-
cal matters, he translated works of a kind one would hardly ex-
pect a priest to be doing, such as Moliere's Le Mariage For&,
"Vanina Vanini" by Stendhal, Shakespeare's Othello, and Poe's
"The Raven" and "Annabelle Lee." In 1912 F a n Noli graduated
from Harvard with a B.A. and proceeded to deeper study of the
life and activities of George Castriota Scanderbeg. Fan Noli,

who by that time had been taken by Nietzsche and Wagner, was
attracted by the heroic features of the famous Albanian w a r r i o r
of the fifteenth century. He gave deep thought to the reasons
for Scanderbeg's brilliant triumphs. The conclusions drawn as
the result of these thoughts - the need for cohesiveness, for
struggle by the entire people, for understanding the interests
of the m a s s e s - underlay his book The Story of Scanderbeg,
which was m o r e a work of literature, a novelized retelling
of themes taken from medieval chronicles than a piece of his-
tory writing. (11)
Nineteen twelve was a turning point in Albanian history. On
November 28, at a congress of representatives from various
p a r t s of Albania and from abroad held in Vlora, the country's
independence was proclaimed. Nearly 500 y e a r s of Turkish
dominance came to a n end. The young state faced the most
complicated internal and foreign policy problems, solution of
which was sought through persistent struggle. It faced the
need to gain recognition by the great powers of Albania's in-
dependence and to draw boundaries in accordance with ethnic
affiliation, which encountered resistance on the p a r t of neigh-
boring Balkan states. Fan Noli took a very active p a r t in
settling the Albanian question. Starting with the Albanian Con-
gress i n T r i e s t e in March 1913 and right up to the s u m m e r of
1914, he fought f o r the most radical solution of the principal
Albanian problems in t e r m s of those conditions. As we know,
the r e s u l t s of the diplomatic battles were not comforting to
Albania. (12) - The F i r s t World War further complicated the
WINTER 1974-75 37
situation in the Balkans. Albania was immersed for a long

time in a web of internal rebellions, and its fate was settled
arbitrarily by the victorious powers in remaking the postwar
map of Europe.
In 1919 Fan Noli, who by that time had become the president
of Vatra and had gained the rank of bishop, arrived in Paris,
where he took part in the debates on the destiny of the Albanian
state and its frontiers. Deals at Albania's expense were made
behind the scenes of the Peace Conference. At the end of July
1919 the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Tittoni and the

Greek Prime Minister Venizelos signed a secret compact, the
"Tittoni-Venizelos Agreement," which envisaged the division
of the territory of Albania. In December 1919 and January
1920 agreement was reached among England, France, and Italy
to grant the latter a mandate over virtually all of Albania, ex-
cept parts of the northern and southern districts, which went,
respectively, to Yugoslavia and Greece. The struggle for
restoration of the violated rights of the Albanian people and
against the efforts of the capitalist states to creep in and take
territory w a s not waged in the diplomatic arena alone. Clashes
no less acute took place in Albania itself, where there was a
rather numerous stratum of politicians from among the ranks
of the feudal lords and higher officialdom prepared to trade the
interests of their native land for preservation of their privi-
leges.
Albania won independence again in 1920. At that time Fan
Noli for the first time began to familiarize himself with the
country directly and in detail. (13) As representative of the
Albanians of America, he was elected to the first parliament
of the young state, and he entered political life with all the
energy of his committed character. The internal situation con-
tinued to be complex at that time, the early 1920s. The country,
formally independent, was being torn apart by the internecine
warfare of various small groups. Parties were numerous.
They came into being and fell apart, not leaving any significant
trace behind. Parties were differentiated only by name, for
they advanced diffuse and wide-ranging slogans calling for
Europeanization of Albanian society and the implementation of

a n a g r a r i a n reform. Fan Noli and Ahmed Zogu emerged as
leaders of one such party, called the "people's." The incom-
patibility of their views and aspirations was obvious. Fan Noli
held bourgeois democratic views on the development of Albanian
society. In his opinion, the carrying out of social r e f o r m s
should have been accompanied by a n upsurge i n the general
culture of the entire people. A passionate and convinced ad-
herent of the ideas of the men of the Albanian enlightenment
a t the end of the nineteenth century, he was the absolute oppo-

s i t e of Colonel Ahmed Zogu, a perfidious pragmatist for whom
but a single goal existed - power - and who marched toward
it over corpses. He made plans to introduce o r d e r and estab-
lish military discipline i n Ifhis" party, resulting in a rejoinder
from an opposition newspaper: "Is this not a dream of some-
thing like fascism, Mr. P r i m e Minister?" (14)
The "People's" P a r t y fell apart. When Z o G took the post of
p r i m e minister (December 3, 1922), Fan Noli became the
leader of one of the opposition parties - the Liberal Party.
His political views, which took shape under the influence of
ideas of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the West,
became more concrete in t e r m s of application to Albanian
reality. (15) He grew noticeably m o r e "leftist" and drew
close to the platform of the m a s s democratic society "Bashki-
mi" [ Unification], which presented a program of radical re-
forms. Fan Noli was attracted by the purely s e c u l a r religious
struggle and had little time left for religious matters. (16) He
was not disturbed by the fact that the reactionary p r e s s c a l l e d
him a colleague of Bolsheviks. In the early 1920s the words
"Bolshevism" and "Bolsheviks" had broad currency i n Albania.
The t e r m "Bolshevik" was applied to all who saw the solution
of the a g r a r i a n problem i n forcible expropriation of the feudal
lords and who were i n favor of granting the people democratic
liberties. By "the people" Fan Noli understood primarily the
peasantry, which he saw as the polar opposite of the feudal
landholders. Favoring overthrow of the dictatorship of the
feudalists, he proposed to replace it with a democratic regime,
WINTER 1974-75 39
the concrete contours of which were not clear to him, however.

The absence of clarity in Fan Noli's program appeared in the
course of the Revolution of 1924.
The insurrection of June 1924 in Albania, which is often
called i t s bourgeois democratic revolution, led to the formation
of a government headed by Fan Noli. He proposed a declaration
of democratic freedoms and a program for carrying out a num-
ber of reforms of a bourgeois type. They provided for "res-
toration of the realm of law," the uprooting of feudalism, the
establishment of democracy, the implementation of radical

reforms in the areas of administration, citizenship, and the
military, a change in the system of taxation to favor the people,
improvement of the position of the peasantry and its economic
liberation, facilitation of the import of foreign capital and
"protection and organization" of native capital, the development
of education on "modern national and practical lines," and es-
tablishment of friendly relations with all countries, particularly
the neighboring ones. (17)
The Albanian people'striumph w a s greeted with great sym-
pathy by the toilers of many European countries. The P r e -
sidium of the Communist Federation of the Balkans and the
Communist Party of Italy issued an appeal to the workers and
peasants of the Balkan states and of Italy and to the toiling
population of Albania. It emphasized the great importance of
the movement of the entire people in Albania and contained a
warning against the danger of intervention by the governments
of the Balkan countries and of Italy in Albanian affairs to aid
reaction at home. "Workers and peasants of Albania!" stated
the appeal, "make s u r e that your chains do not enchain you
once again and even more strongly. It is precisely now that
you must bend every effort to guarantee your social and polit-
ical gains. Otherwise you will be tricked, and your struggle
will become twice as difficult." (18)
The warnings proved to be wellounded. The government
did not support the revolutionary enthusiasm of the people.
The newspapers published articles and resolutions of meetings
and assemblies containing proposals for concrete measures
to c a r r y out the proposed changes. Fan Noli received numer-

ous petitions and requests. Peasants from the district of
Durres, for example, wrote: "We have heard that other demo-
cratic s t a t e s buy land and settle peasants on it, free them from
the yoke of slavery and light the torch of liberty, paralyze the
aristocracy and thereby a s s u r e calm and gain sympathy.'' (19)
The minister of agriculture proclaimed the government's in-
tention to nationalize irrigation canals and to endow the peas-
ants with land (ten a c r e s p e r family) from that in the govern-
ment's possession. But the matter ended with promises. In a

number of p a r t s of the country the government's declaration
was taken as a guide to action, and peasants began to make
attempts to divide the land themselves and refused to pay taxes.
Acts of this kind were cut s h o r t by administrative agencies and
the gendarmerie. The feudal lords, holding strong positions in
the government apparatus, blocked practical implementation of
the program. They also made use of the fact that Fan Noli did
not pay enough attention to the internal political situation,
seeing his priority task as gaining recognition of the govern-
ment in the international arena and obtaining financial help
from the League of Nations.
The governments of the capitalist countries of Europe issued
official declarations of nonintervention in Albanian affairs but
in reality did everything possible to throttle the democratic
movement. At the end of August 1924 Fan Noli, along with his
closest associate, Finance Minister Luigi Gurakuqi, left for
Geneva. They took part in the discussions of general policy at
the meetings of the Council and Assembly of the League. Their
attempts to make use of their stay in Switzerland to obtain
financial assistance were not crowned with success: r e p r e -
sentatives of the League of Nations made the granting of a
loan dependent on the fulfillment of clearly unacceptable de-
mands. (20)
D u r i n g F a n Noli's nearly two-month absence, the situation
i n Albania changed for the worse. Reaction was successful in
gathering i t s forces, and open demonstrations against the
radical wing of the government began, demanding that Noli
WINTER 1974-75 41
resign and "legal" elections to parliament be conducted. When

it became clear that the government had no intention of capit-
ulating, an armed putsch was undertaken. Later Fan Noli ad-
mitted: "I aroused the hatred of the landed aristocracy, and,
being unable to drive it out, I thereby lost my support among
the peasant masses. My colleagues in the government and a
large portion of the officers were either enemies of or, at
best, indifferent to the reforms, although initially they ex-
.
pressed themselves in their favor.. M r . Ayres [ the British
consul in Albania] was successful in convincing those around

me that agrarian reforms a r e a dangerous Bolshevik inno-
vation." (21)
The fateof the democratic government in Albania was pre-
determined by the intense subversive activity of the forces of
domestic and foreign reaction. It did not gain support from a
majority of the states of capitalist Europe. Only the land of
soviets conducted a policy of true unselfishness and goodwill
toward Albania. The Soviet government expressed its readi-
ness to establish diplomatic relations with Albania. On Sep-
tember 4, 1924, the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs
G. V. Chicherin, responding to a previous proposal by the
Albanian Foreign Affairs Minister Suleiman Delvina, gave h i s
agreement to the establishment of normal relations between
the two countries. "In addressing our very best wishes to the
new Albanian government,'' wrote Chicherin, "I express the
firm conviction that the friendship between our peoples, de-
veloping and growing stronger, will bring abundant fruits for
the welfare of both." (22)
The agreement of theAlbanian government to establishment
of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union produced indig-
nation in the ruling circles of the capitalist states. Fan Noli
retreated in the face of the blackmail of the governments of
England, Italy, and Yugoslavia, which issued an ultimatum
demanding abandonment of t i e decision to exchange diplomatic
representatives with the USSR. The Soviet commissioner, A.
A. Krakovetskii, who had arrived in Durres on December 16,
was soon compelled to leave Albania. In a conversation with
him a representative of the Albanian government compared the

situation of Albania with that of a man "who has had a knife put
to his throat and on whom any demands whatever can be
made .It (23)
The imperialist powers tried to put Albania in a position of
total isolation. The capitalist p r e s s conducted a n unbridled
campaign of slander against Noli and his supporters. Every-
thing was done to persuade European public opinion that res-
toration of the former regime was inevitable. As the Italian
minister reporter to Rome, the members of the diplomatic

corps in Albania arrived at a common opinion as to the de-
sirability of bringing about the most rapid possible r e t u r n of
Ahmed Zogu. "Although Mr. Ayres," the minister wrote at the
beginning of November 1924, "understood that Ahmed Zogu also
is a n individual in whom little confidence can be placed, he
holds that under the conditions that have arisen, Ahmed Zogu
is the only person capable to some degree of subjecting the
Albanians and instilling fear in them." (24)
A conspiracy against the democratic government of Albania
was hatched in s e c r e t negotiations by the bourgeois politicians.
On December 11, 1924, Ahmed Zogu's forces began an of-
fensive from Yugoslavia with the support of units of the regular
Yugoslav a r m y and Wrangel's forces. F a n Noli's last desper-
ate appeal to the League of Nations for help was not given a
hearing. Nor was it possible to organize effective resistance
to the counterrevolution within the country, and Ahmed Zogu
entered Tirana. On December 27 a n Italian s t e a m e r , whose
passengers included Fan Noli and six other members of the
cabinet, entered the Italian port of Brindisi. (25) In Albania
they had been sentenced i n absentia to death, and in Italy they
were placed under police observation and deprived of the right
of free movement. F a n Noli spent about a month i n Italy and
then left f o r Vienna.
The bourgeois-democratic revolution i n Albania suffered
defeat. But Fan Noli did not lay down his arms. He believed
i n the triumph of democracy and worked hard and actively
toward that goal. On March 25, 1925, a conference was con-
WINTER 1974-75 43
vened in Vienna in which opponents of Zogu's regime took part.

The patriotic organization established there, called the National
Revolutionary Committee (abbreviated as Konar from Komiteti
Nacional-Revolucionar), was headed by Fan Noli. Konar's
program envisaged freeing the country from the tyranny of
Ahmed Zogu, establishment of a genuinely republican regime,
carrying out an agrarian reform, and s o forth. (26) The de-
mands advanced reflected the interests of the most diverse
currents of the anti-Zogu opposition, participated in by repre-
sentatives of the liberal-democratic intelligentsia, nationalists,

revolutionary-minded youth who later came into the Communist
Party, and certain other groups. Differences appeared as early
as the founding of the organization, and the goals that the par-
ticipants s e t themselves were mutually exclusive. Thus, for
example, the Bashkimi Kombetar group (National Unification)
was part of Konar. Their leaders did not care for Ahmed Zogu
personally, but they had no intention of overthrowing the foun-
dations of his regime. Moreover, the program of this group
contained an appeal "to fight against any Bolshevik o r similar
idea aimed at undermining the social structure of Albania." (27)
Also affiliated with Konar for a period was the so-called Z a r i
Group (its center was in Zari, Dalmatia), headed by Mustafa
Merliqa Kruja, a paid agent of the Italian secret service. (28)
Fan Noli himself headed the current that oriented itself toward
the Soviet Union and collaboration with the Balkan Communist
Federation.
In his first years of exile Fan Noli analyzed the events that
had occurred. F o r all the tragic consequences the defeat of the
revolution brought to the democratic antifeudal movement as a
whole and to the personal destinies of many, the heroic outburst
of the masses of the people did not disappear without trace. The
June Revolution made a valuable contribution to the treasury of
militant experience of the Albanian toilers. For Fan Noli all he
had experienced gave him the impulse to write poetry. He
clothed his ideas in vivid romantic o r grotesque satirical im-
ages, making wide use of themes from mythology, Albanian
folk sayings, and Biblical parables, Their basic theme was the
1924 Revolution: i t s heroes and a political and moral inter-

pretation of i t s lessons. In a five-year period from 1926 to
1930 he created v e r s e works that placed him among the most
prominent Albanian poets of recent times. Among them is the
famous "Song of Salep the Sultan," written on the occasion of
Zogu's being pronounced "king of all the Albanians" (it is also
known by another title, "The Monarchist Song"). F a n Noli
presented a brilliant s a t i r i c a l sketch of the fresh-baked mon-
a r c h and the lackeys around him. This was a n open blow a t
his political opponent and spiritual opposite. He called by name

those with whom he fought allegorically in his well-known group
of poems on Biblical themes.
In studying and commenting on this cycle of poems, various
scholars have tried to define Fan Noli's attitude toward rev-
olutionary violence and the problem of rule by the people. The
poems in it fall into the category of civic lyrical poetry. In
one of his a r t i c l e s of l i t e r a r y criticism, A. V. Lunacharskii
wrote: "From the social point of view the task of lyrical poetry
is to remain personal to the end, to speak of oneself and one's
emotions as one's very own, but a t the s a m e time to make
those experiences socially significant." Fan Noli was precisely
that kind of personal poet, socially active and s i n c e r e i n h i s
writings. Fan Noli s a i d that his cycle of poems was auto-
biographical i n nature. The allegory is s o transparent that it
never occurred to a r e a d e r to s e e k a religious meaning i n
them.
In the clash between the postulates of Christ and the prag-
matism of P e t e r the Apostle, and in Pontius Pilate's "washing
his hands," F a n Noli depicts himself and those of his f o r m e r
colleagues who had left him. (29) The theme of the violation,
by formerly sympathetic individuals, of the general ideals of
the struggle for independence, democracy, and p r o g r e s s in
Albania rings out persistently in Noli's work. It is c l e a r
and r e q u i r e s no debate. It is other factors that usually evoke
discussion: how Noli formulates his attitude toward the prob-
lem of violent overthrow of those in power and to what degree
his world-view approximated the socialist (or whether it did).
WINTER 1974-75 45
Fan Noli justifies his mildness and tolerance for his enemies
by the fact that he could not conduct himself as did Zogu, who
elevated violence to a principle. It was on this basis that the
firm notion took shape that Noli rejected violence entirely.
Often the documentation of this is reinforced by reference to
his well-known statement that "from the present threat to
freedom we must defend ourselves by the forces of a r m s and
fearlessness, but against the internal threat by the force of the
-
spirit: civic courage, which is higher than the force of arms." (30)
However, the idea that he was a proponent of the theory

of nonresistance to evil by force is profoundly mistaken. In
his verses he says that he took the leadership of the insurrec-
tion in order to drive out the "peddlers, robbers, and turn-
coats" and to bring to people faith in freedom, to help the poor,
to strip the laurel crown from wealth and tyranny, and not in
order to rule over the people. He rises in opposition not to
violence in general but to violence against the people. It was
in these years that he wrote the poem "On the Banks of Rivers,"
which contained an outright appeal for insurrection aimed at
Albanian "workers and peasants from Shkoder to Vlora." Over-
throw of the tyranny of Zogu, he wrote, would put an end to the
wanderings of those who had been driven into exile.
A s the spring replaces the winter,

So shall we return to the fresh fields.
To our families, our hearths,
-
To the banks of the peaceful Viosa. (31)
In 1971 a new and hitherto unknown poem by Fan Noli was

published. (32) It was discovered by the Albanian literary
scholar K. Khiku in the Noli papers preserved in the Central
State Archives of the People's Republic of Albania. It is a
draft of a poem to which the author had given the tentative title
"Blasphemy Before Crucifixion." Bihiku regards this poem as
evidence of a change in Noli's view of the world during those
years, a reexamination of his attitude toward religion, and an
abandonment of it. Taken in isolation it really could be under-
stood as such. But it must be viewed within the context of the

others and with due consideration of what religion was in Noli's
eyes.
The poem consists of ten quatrains, each of which is a state-
ment the author put i n the mouth of r e a l historical figures and
symbolic personages, Through all their statements the thought
of Noli himself can be heard: religion cannot solve sociopolit-
i c a l problems. Moreover, religious dogmas may be used to
justify any injustice.
Fan Noli demonstrates the senselessness of theological dis-

putes and emphasizes that the only h a r m l e s s application he can
find for the Christian c r o s s is i n the collection of amulets at
the African Museum in Paris. As Noli conceived it, the Chris-
tian c r o s s is a symbol of war and violence against the poor.
In one of his quatrains he says:
And as a symbol of tyranny, as a n implement of oppression,

The c r o s s is borne as a banner in a s e a of blood and sweat.
The accusation is cast at Christ that, having become sated

with the blood of unbelievers and pagans, he tried to persecute
Christian heretics, using the tortures of the Inquisition to sup-
p r e s s freedom of thought and word. Here, as i n most of his
poetry and p r o s e writings of this period (including a preface
to his translation of Ibsen's The Enemy of the People), the
factor of negation and hostility to existing reality as a norm of
the life of society is expressed very forcefully. (33) - However,
his positive program is, as always, vague, Fan Noli, seeking
to find an answer to one of the major questions concerning him
-
at that time whether the 1924 insurrection and the victims
lost in i t s course had meaning - falls into fatalism. "Probably
this was the will of fate," he writes.
Later, as we shall see, F a n Noli answered this question.
But at that time, the end of 1927 and early 1928, he stopped
halfway. The s a m e may be s a i d of religion: Noli did not break
with it, F o r him religion always had a n applied meaning i n
political and intellectual life. He took from Christianity a
WINTER 1974-75 47
selection of moral and ethical norms that helped him in the

struggle for the national liberation of the Albanian people
from the beginning of the twentieth century until the 1930s.
The utilitarianism of his attitude toward religious questions
often reduced scholars to disbelief, and most of them regarded
him as an atheist. (34) Noli himself gave part of the answer
to the question of hisattitude toward religion. In his autobi-
ography he tells of his uncle who fell prisoner to the Russians
in Bulgaria along with other soldiers of the Turkish Army.
Raised to strictly Christian rules, his uncle asked to attend

services during one of the church holidays, which astounded
the guards. To the question as to why he was fighting on the
side of the "unfaithful," he explained didactically: "Religion is
religion, and a trade is a trade." Fan Noli was never asked
that question in the course of his lifetime, and he, always at
the edge of a conflict with official orthodoxy, continued to be
a professional clergyman, although he was no more an atheist
than, say, Leo Tolstoy o r Albert Schweitzer, who had broken
with the church. But religion did narrow his potential for
understanding the dialectics of social development. A con-
temporary student of Fan Noli's writings observed that he
"remained to the day of his death a classical humanist who
approached human ethics with a metaphysical criterion." (35)
To this valid judgment one may add that he approached political
phenomena with approximately the same standard.
Nineteen twenty-four came in the middle of Fan Noli's life.
He was then 42, and he had that many more years to live. H i s
first six years in emigration were saturated with active po-
litical activity. Fan Noli headed the radical wing of Konar,
and when it was reformed into a new organization, the Com-
mittee for National Liberation, he became its chairman. The
adjective "red" had been firmly attached to him. Agents of
the government in Tirana and the Italian Fascist secret ser-
vice kept close track of his activity. At the end of the 1920s
the effectiveness of the committee's work declined, for it was
unable to establish contacts with the movement within the
country. The revolutionaries who associated themselves with
the communist movement departed for the Soviet Union and

France.
The Committee for National Liberation existed about three
years. When, in the s e a r c h for work, a majority of i t s active
members scattered through the countries of Europe and Amer-
ica, Fan Noli also abandoned the political struggle forever.
On November 7, 1932, the Italian diplomatic mission in Vienna
reported that "the Albanian communist agitator Noli" had re-
ceived permission to enter the United States, where he again
took up episcopal duties. (36) But he continued to inspire fear

in his enemies. In Bostonthe Albanian consul-general kept
watch on him, informing both his own government and that of
Italy. Noli has been living i n Boston for about a year already,
the Italian ambassador to Washington, ROSSO,wrote in a report
of June 1933. He "is under the influence of communism and is
conducting active propaganda against Zogu, Italy, and the F a s -
cist regime," wrote Rosso. "The bishop enjoys high authority
in the local colony of 7,000 Albanians, controlling seven of the
nine orthodox churches." (37)
Life in America involveddifficulties. Fan Noli, who never
was a rich man, found himself in a particularly difficult situ-
ation i n the f i r s t years. "We do not know how we will make it
through this winter," he wrote in November 1933 to Mustafa
Kruja, sketching for him the difficult life of immigrants to
"America, bursting with dollars.'' (38) He sent to this man,
whom he addressed as "brother," h i s l i t e r a r y works and let-
ters, filled with depression. At that time Fan Noli was not
aware that Mustafa was turning these l e t t e r s over to official
authorities who, on the basis of analysis of their contents,
drew with satisfaction the conclusion that the bishop did not
have contact with the country, was poorly informed on its in-
ternal situation, and f r o m the political standpoint was not as
dangerous as before. (39)
Thus, while continuing to p e r f o r m the duties, not burdensome
for him, of a bishop, he involved himself m o r e and m o r e in
l i t e r a r y activity. H e completed the translation of Don Quixote
into Albanian. Probably, Noli regarded himself as a "knight of
WINTER 1974-75 49
doleful countenance," and this enabled him to do a translation

authentic both psychologically and artistically. The range of
his creative interests grew even broader. He began to study
Albanian folklore and published a collection of works of reli-
gious music. In o r d e r to provide a firm foundation for his
initially dilettante interest in music, he entered a conservatory
in New England. Upon completing it in 1938 in the composing class,
he wrote the rhapsody "Scanderbeg." Nineteen forty-seven saw
the appearance of his study Beethoven and the French Revolu-
tion.-
- (40) George Bernard Shaw held this work inhigh esteem,
saying that it showed the hand of a first-class critic and biogra-
- However, the significance of the book was more than
pher. (41)
musicological. In it, a s well a s in the study of Scanderbeg ap-
pearing at the s a m e time, Fan Noli emerged as a historian
reinterpreting the problem of the role of the individual in his-
tory and presented his own interpretation of the essence of
power belonging to the people. It is paradoxical that in his
reasoning on the epoch of Scanderbeg, which he studied over
his entire lifetime, there is more that is debatable and even
erroneous than in his judgments on the bourgeois French Rev-
olution. He equated Scanderbeg's struggle for centralized
power against the feudal separatists to the antifeudal European
revolutions. F o r him people and nation remained vague notions,
partly identical and lacking clear-cut c l a s s characteristics.
Thus he did not emerge from imprisonment by idealism, al-
though at that time he acquired a Ph.D. to go along with his
many other titles. (42)
The occupation ofAlbania by fascist Italy in 1939, which s e t
aflame the national liberation struggle of the Albanian people
against the foreign conquerors, once again aroused F a n Noli's
civic feelings. He engaged in the collection of funds to help the
embattled Albanian people and in the p r e s s and over the radio
issued flaming appeals to his fellow countrymen.
When, beginning in the s u m m e r of 1943, attempts began to
be made in the West to establish a n Albanian government in
exile to counter the power of the people, propositions along
this line were made to F a n Noli a s well. But he rejected them.
F r o m the heights of his experience i n political struggle, he

delivered a radio speech to the Albanian people, the text of
which was published in the newspaper of the Communist P a r t y
of Albania, Z e r i i popullit: "If you desire the salvation of Al-
bania, give yourself to that cause body and soul; do not hesitate
before any sacrifice. No one but you can build a f r e e Albania." (43)
-
His attitude to the national liberation movement remained
unchanged even when it became clear that it was led by the
Communist Party. It was to a considerable degree on the in-
stance of F a n Noli that emigrant organizations (the old, prewar

emigration) abandoned their plans to establish a "government
in exile" when the news came of the congress in P e r m e t , which
laid the foundations for the new government of people's democ-
racy. The leadership of Vatra adopted a decision to support
the provisional government by all possible means. Fan Noli
was invited to r e t u r n to Albania but gave his advanced age as
grounds for not doiiig so, although in his greetings on the oc-
casion of the proclamation of the republic he expressed the
hope that the people's government would bring about the rebirth
of Albania.
In the closing stage of World War 11, when the foundations of
a peace settlement were laid and the UN was established, the
Provisional Democratic Government of Albania declared that
i t s country had the right to participate in international organi-
zations. In a note of January 4 , 1945, addressed to all the
founder s t a t e s of the UN, it spoke of the contribution of the
Albanian people to the overall antifascist struggle and said
that this unchallengeable fact had been repeatedly admitted i n
official declarations of the allies i n the coalition against
Hitler. (44) The representatives of Albanian colonies abroad
appealedto the heads of the three great powers to recognize
the Provisional Democratic Government immediately and to
invite its representatives to the UN Conference in San Fran-
cisco. In support of these demands Fan Noli wrote to Roosevelt
on behalf of Vatra and the Albanian Orthodox Church.
The struggle, headed by the Soviet Union, for recognition of
people's democratic Albania as a member of the UN did not
WINTER 1974-75 51
yield positive results at that time. The resistance of the rep-

resentatives of the Western powers in the Preparatory Com-
mittee of the UN postponed solution of the question for ten
years. But the fact that Fan Noli, who had formally retired
from active participation in political life, had, at a critical
moment in Albanian history, taken a stand i n support of the
new society and in defense of the rights of the people showed
the stability of his democratic convictions. Ha did not accept
everything that took place in Albania, but he approved without
qualification the overthrow of the tyranny of the feudal lords

and the anti-imperialist policy of the government of people's
democracy, Thereby Fan Noli demonstrated his loyalty to
the cause of the Revolution of 1924. It wa s no accident that he
wrote, toward the end of his life, in 1960: "Was the 1924 Rev-
olution in vain? Not at all. It demonstrated that the Albanian
people did not want to tolerate feudal landowners any longer.
It confirmed that the landlords would not have been able to
return i f not for intervention from outside. It proved that an
end had been made of the feudal lords. For the fact is that
they never were able to recover from that blow." (45)
Study of the life and activity of Fan Noli, in whosedeeds and
works were reflected the strong and weak sides of the Albanian
democratic movement over a long period, provides much that
is instructive to those who a r e interested in the history of
Albania and the development of the life of society. He was
very famous, but few knew him. One may apply to him the
words of an elegy he wrote on the occasion of the death of his
colleague Luigi Gurakuqi:
He, who gave all to his country -

The light of his mind and the wrath of his heart,
Was an exile in life,
And remained one in death.
In Albania itself the contribution of Fan Noli to the develop-

ment of the national culture and the antifeudal liberation move-
ment was recognized only after the triumph of the people's
power. Today he has already become a textbook classic and is

included in the galaxy of ideologists and cultural figures of
the period of national rebirth and independence. The works of
Shakespeare, Ibsen, Moliere, Cervantes, Khayyam, Baudelaire,
Verlaine, and Tiutchev a r e known in Albania in his translations.
In contemporary historical literature he is given his due as
head of the f i r s t democratic government in the history of Al-
bania. The Soviet public holds in high esteem the activity of
this distinguished Albanian democrat and enlightener, who saw
in the Soviet Union a sincere friend of the Albanian people.
Notes
1) Pravda, November 11, 1927.

2) Pravda, November 4, 1927.
3) One finds in recent Albanian literature the assertion that
the activity of Fan Noli had a n anticapitalist emphasis. F o r
example, Shuteriqi holds that although Noli fought for bourgeois
democracy in 1920-1924, he had already begun to lose faith in
it, In support of this viewpoint Shuteriqi cites the criticism of
the Albanian parliament and the League of Nations found in
Noli's speeches (see Dh. S. Shuteriqi, Histori e l e t e r s i s e
shqipe, Tirana, 1955, pp. 238-39). That was hardly the case.
Fan Noli's critical comments, sometimes quite sharp, directed
at bourgeois democracy were intermittent. However, he un-
doubtedly had exceptional political intuition, enabling him to
draw r a t h e r radical generalizations. Fan Noli spoke out against
the feudal lords who had sold the country to foreign imperialism
and were maintaining the poverty and backwardness of the peo-
ple, primarily the peasantry, who comprised 90 percent of the
population. Feudalism (and not bourgeois democracy, which did
not exist in Albania) prevented the country's development along
progressive lines. And Fan Noli spoke out against that r e a l
enemy. See also A. Puto, "Sur les relations extbrieures du
gouvernement dbmocratique de 1924 e n Albanie," Studia
albanica, 1964, No. 2.
4) There were 13 children in the family, 7 of whom died as
WINTER 1974-75 53
infants. See Fiftieth Anniversary of the Albanian Orthodox

Church in America. 1908-1958, Boston, 1960, p. 381.
5) For greater detail on the activity of these organizations,
s e e I. G. Senkevich, Osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie albanskogo
naroda v 1905-1912 gg., Moscow, 1959, and also Historia e
letersise shqipe, Vol. 11, Tirana, 1959; Historia e Shqiperis'i.,
Vol. 11, Tirana, 1965.
6) F. S. Noli, Vepra te plota, Vol. 11, Prishtin'i., 1968, p. 28.
7) Fiftieth Anniversary, p. 5.
8) Historia e letersise shqipe, Vol. 11, pp. 28-29.

9) Vatra continues to exist as the Pan-Albanian Federation,
claiming the role of central organization of the numerous Al-
banian colonies still scattered throughout the world. It speaks
on behalf of 100,000 Albanians permanently resident in the
United States. See the report on the Vatra Congress in ShGjzat,
Rome, VII-IX, 1971.
10) For further detail on the national liberation movement
in Albania s e e I. G. Senkevich, op. cit., and also I. S. Galkin,
Diplomatiia evropeiskikh derzhav v sviazi s osvoboditel'nym
dvizheniem narodov evropeiskoi Turtsii, 1905- 1912 gg., Mos-
cow, 1960.
11) F. S. Noli, Histori e SkGnderbeut, Boston, 1921. In
another book, Geogre Castrioti Scanderbeg, published in New
York in 1947, he was a genuine historian, providing his inter-
pretation of the period, which gave r i s e to heated disputes.
12) On December 17, 1912, at the London Ambassadors'
Conference, it was decided to create an autonomous Albania
under the supreme power of the sultan, supervised by the s i x
great powers. This was a retreat from the principle of inde-
pendence, See Kratkaia istoriia Albanii, Moscow, 1965, pp.
175-78; A. Puto, "Disa probleme juridike t; pavaresise
shqiptare," Studime historike, 1965, No. 2.
13) After the Trieste congress in 1913 Noli was in Albania
en route and visited Durres and Vlora. Fiftieth Anniversary,
p. 115.
14) This was stated by Fan Noli's associate in the political
struggle, Luigi Gurakuqi, Vepra te zgjedhura, Tirana, 1961.
15) The Italian historian Pastorelli holds that Fan Noli wa s

shaped a s a political figure under the influence of American
conditions. He allegedly assimilated the ideas of bourgeois
American democracy, which placed him in a distinctive position
relative to other Albanian political figures. P. Pastorelli,
Italia e Albania 1924- 1927. Origini diplomatiche del Trattato
di Tirana del 22 novembre 1927, Florence, 1967, p. 35. One
can hardly agree with this. The incompatibility of the s i z e s
and levels of development of the United States and Albania were
so obvious that Noli did not even attempt to use American ex-
perience. Most often it was the Great French Bourgeois Rev-
olution that provided him food for thought.
16) In 1923 Fan Noli was awarded the rank of Metropolitan
of the Albanian Autocephalous Church, but in Albanian history
he remained a bishop.
17) Dokumenta e materiale historike nga lufta e popullit
shqiptar per liri e demokraci, 1917-1941, Tirana, 1959, pp.
150-51. The Italian minister in Albania called the ideas on
which the program was founded "ultraprogressive." He as-
serted that radical r e f o r m s in ''a country a t a primitive level
of socioeconomic development can only cause new upheavals
and internal irritations," Archivio Storico MAE, Roma (cited
below a s ASME), Ufficio Albania, 1924, pacco No. 718.
18) Pravda, June 25, 1941.
19) Kratkaia istoriia Albanii, p. 205.
20) L. Gurakuqi, op. cit., pp. 55-56; Morning Post, Septem-
b e r 11, 1924.
21) J. Swire, Albania. The Rise of a Kingdom, London, 1929,
p. 144.
22) Mezhdunarodnaia politika noveishego vremeni v dogovo-
rakh, notakh i deklaratsiiakh, P a r t 111, Issue I, Moscow, 1928,
p. 313.
23) Cited from S. V. Nikonova, Antisovetskaia vneshniaia
politika angliiskikh konservatorov. 1924-1927, Moscow, 1963,
p. 131.
24) Dokumenta e materiale, p. 185.
25) ASME, Ufficio Albania, 1924, pacco No. 718. Aboard the
WINTER 1974-75 55
ship there were over 200 Albanian political refugees, including

Ali Kelmendi, who later became one of the organizers of the
communist movement in Albania.
26) Dokumenta e materiale, p. 228.
27) Historia e Shqiperise, Vol. 11, P. 576.
28) The Italian Fascist government supported those Albanian
oppositionists who agreed to work for it. It bet on Mustafa
Kruja a s a possible successor to Ahmed Zogu. During the
years of the Italian Fascist occupation, Kruja became the head
of the puppet government.

29) One of these was Faik Konitsa, who came from a rich
and influential clan of beys in southern Albania. He took part
in the Albanian cultural enlightenment and national liberation
movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. In Brus-
s e l s and then in London he issued the journal Albania (1887-
1909), and in the United States subsidized the newspaper Dielli.
From 1909 on he worked with Noli in Vatra. Together they
took part in various international conferences at which the
Albanian question was discussed. After the defeat of the Rev-
olution in 1924 he switched to Zogu and soon thereafter was
named minister to the United States.
30) F. S. Noli, Vepra teplota, Vol. 11, p. 28.
31) The Voisa is a river in Albania.
32) K. Bihiku, "Nje poezi i panjohur e Nolit," Studime
filologjike, 1971, No. 1.
33) He wrote that capitalist society has to be destroyed.
"In what manner?" he asked, and himself gave the answer:
"On the one hand, by struggle along the entire front, not only
at some single point of the bourgeois capitalist system but
against the entire system, against all the institutions that
comprise it, whether governmental, religious, economic, o r
social; and on the other hand, through education, by raising a
young generation of noble and free proletarians, the bulwark
of a new society that will a r i s e on the ruins of the old.?' F. S.
Noli, Vepra tg plota, Vol. 11, p. 83.
34) We know that on the eve of taking the cloth as a priest
he, in describing his ordeal in America, observed: "The Lord
God, i n whom I do not believe, would have a tough time here"

(F. S. Noli, Vepra tg plota, Vol. VII, p. 14). A correspondent
of The Manchester Guardian, who met Fan Noli i n 1924, wrote
with amazement: "Never i n my life have I met a person,
s e c u l a r o r clerical, i n whom there was s o little of the reli-
gious .I1
35) R. Qosja, "Fan Noli (1882-1965),'f Gjurmime albanolog-
7-jike 1969, No. 1, p. 211.
36) ASME, Ufficio Albania, 1932, pacco No. 11. In all prob-
ability Fan Noli abandoned active political work because the

international situation that then took shape i n the Balkans
seemed to him extremely unfavorable for Albania. He held
that "there is no point in talking of any e a r l y revolutionary
prospects in Albania," inasmuch as the success of a revolu-
tionary movement would inevitably cause intervention by ex-
ternal reactionary forces. He envisioned the efforts of the
imperialists in conflict with the international unity of the
toilers of the Balkan countries. He saw their future then in
unification on the model of the peoples of the Soviet Union.
Pravda, November 4, 1927.
37) ASME, Ufficio Albania, 1933, pacco No. 22.
38) Ibid., pacco No. 21,
39) Ibidem.
40) F. S. Noli, Beethoven and the French Revolution, New
York, 1947.
42) F a n Noli got his Ph.D. in 1945 a t Boston University in
Near E a s t e r n and Russian history.
43) Z e r i i popullit, 1943, No. 20.
44) Bachkimi, January 4, 1945.

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Soviet Studies in History

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Albania's "Red Bishop" Fan Noli

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Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, 1973, No. 3

ALBANIA'S "RED BISHOP" FAN NOLI

In November 1927 a congress of friends of the Soviet Union

inspired by the fact that I personally saw the f i r s t workers' and

levels of the hierarchy of the Orthodox Church. The reaction-

semireligious education, which in many respects left a n im-

affected by the works of Shakespeare, of whom he became very

grant community. His enormous capacity for work and gift of

s e r v i c e s in Albanian instead of Greek, and the replacement of

support of the liberation movement a t home, he visited Odessa,

life and activities of George Castriota Scanderbeg. Fan Noli,

situation in the Balkans. Albania was immersed for a long

1919 the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Tittoni and the

Europeanization of Albanian society and the implementation of

a t the end of the nineteenth century, he was the absolute oppo-

the concrete contours of which were not clear to him, however.

establishment of democracy, the implementation of radical

to c a r r y out the proposed changes. Fan Noli received numer-

ment's possession. But the matter ended with promises. In a

resign and "legal" elections to parliament be conducted. When

consul in Albania] was successful in convincing those around

him a representative of the Albanian government compared the

minister reporter to Rome, the members of the diplomatic

vened in Vienna in which opponents of Zogu's regime took part.

sentatives of the liberal-democratic intelligentsia, nationalists,

1924 Revolution: i t s heroes and a political and moral inter-

his political opponent and spiritual opposite. He called by name

However, the idea that he was a proponent of the theory

A s the spring replaces the winter,

In 1971 a new and hitherto unknown poem by Fan Noli was

stood as such. But it must be viewed within the context of the

Fan Noli demonstrates the senselessness of theological dis-

And as a symbol of tyranny, as a n implement of oppression,

The accusation is cast at Christ that, having become sated

selection of moral and ethical norms that helped him in the

Raised to strictly Christian rules, his uncle asked to attend

the communist movement departed for the Soviet Union and

took up episcopal duties. (36) But he continued to inspire fear

doleful countenance," and this enabled him to do a translation

F r o m the heights of his experience i n political struggle, he

stance of F a n Noli that emigrant organizations (the old, prewar

yield positive results at that time. The resistance of the rep-

qualification the overthrow of the tyranny of the feudal lords

He, who gave all to his country -

In Albania itself the contribution of Fan Noli to the develop-

power. Today he has already become a textbook classic and is

in the Soviet Union a sincere friend of the Albanian people.

1) Pravda, November 11, 1927.

infants. See Fiftieth Anniversary of the Albanian Orthodox

8) Historia e letersise shqipe, Vol. 11, pp. 28-29.

15) The Italian historian Pastorelli holds that Fan Noli wa s

ship there were over 200 Albanian political refugees, including

of the puppet government.

God, i n whom I do not believe, would have a tough time here"