Tefta (1910-1947) and her Contemporaries

This is not a research book, rather a documentary with reliable sources. There is no glossary, bibliography, or index; or to put it another way, it is a blend of narrations, recollections, correspondence, concert reviews and original documents. Most of the material in the book is based on translations from Albanian to English. Over the years, in conversations with friends of my parents, Tefta and Kristo, in my mind I created all sorts of images which were linked with the photos, although they were and have remained the same, stuck in the fabric of that moment of fixation. The majority of the reviews in this book are about my mother, however, although to a lesser extent, the critical reviews on my father also provide information on his contribution to the field of lyrical singing. Intellectual thinking of the time is reflected in these writings and demonstrates a wide range of features: level of education, the degree of absorption of democratic ideas, social and religious tolerance, culture of the country where journalists had studied, moral code and their integrity, connected with the objectivity of subjectivity of judgement, local affiliation and belonging, as well as other attributes which explain the cultural view of this intellectual stratum.