Pedagogist and researcher Enriketa Papa has reacted sharply after the Albanian Parliament's decision to designate Enver Hoxha as a "national personality" for the month of October 2025.
She emphasizes that this assessment is based on the 2008 Albanian Encyclopedic Dictionary, where the section on Enver Hoxha was compiled by historian Xhelal Gjeçovi.
According to the Pope, the Academy of Sciences itself was wrong to include a special mention of the dictator in that publication, with tones that relativize the crimes of the communist regime.
She highlights that the dictionary emphasizes Hoxha's political life and decorations, while lacking an analysis of the Stalinist system he established.
"I am speechless," the Pope concludes, describing the act as an institutional scandal and an insult to the victims of the dictatorship.
Enriqueta Papa's full post:
Reading the pages of the Albanian Encyclopedic Dictionary, published in 2008, it turns out that the section on Enver Hoxha was compiled by historian Xhelal Gjeçovi. It is precisely this compilation that the Albanian Parliament referred to in order to designate the dictator as a "national personality" for the month of October 2025.
But even more scandalous is the fact that in 2008 the Albanian Academy of Sciences deemed it necessary to publish a special entry dedicated to Enver Hoxha in this encyclopedic dictionary. There are quite a few lines on Enver Hoxha's biography, and very few lines dedicated in descriptive form to Enver as the founder of a Stalinist system in Albania, relativizing the dictatorship and its historical responsibility, while attention is mainly focused on his political biography and the decorations he received during the regime he himself created.
Both the Albanian Parliament and the Academy of Sciences have considered it necessary not to neglect the figure of the dictator without fixing him in the encyclopedic dictionary and the encyclopedic calendar of national personalities.
I am speechless!
