Rilindja Archive
Ervina Halili
Rilindja Archive by Ervina Halili is a project that digitally preserves material from the operational period of the Rilindja newspaper. The project also includes the documentary In Rilindja, which presents the personal stories of former employees of the institution.
This archive is not an official record of the Rilindja Social Enterprise, whose full archival chain has not survived to this day. Instead, it consists of materials meticulously collected from remnants discarded as insignificant, yet originally created by Rilindja's journalists, writers, editors, and photographers. The project reclaims and commemorates this lost legacy, offering a window into the cultural and historical significance of this once-prominent institution.
The Rilindja Archive serves as an important repository, although it is not the official archive of the Rilindja Social Enterprise. The original materials, along with various functional branches of the enterprise, have unfortunately not been preserved over time. Instead, this archive has been meticulously compiled from what remains, items rescued from the debris of what was once deemed irrelevant and lost by Rilindja.
However, this archive extends beyond Rilindja and the Kosovo writers active from 1945 to 1999. Recognizing Rilindja as a comprehensive publishing entity that encompassed a vast network of periodicals, photographic documentation, articles, translations, and illustrations, this archive aims to present a wider narrative. It not only chronicles Rilindja and its literary figures but also preserves handwritten manuscripts, personal photographs, and correspondence - creating a crucial museum-like reflection of Kosovo’s cultural history during the period from 1945 to 1999.
"Rilindja is the only institution that created a community of writers. That community of writers preserved the Albanian national identity by attempting to create literature and build a school of the Albanian language. They tried to keep the identity alive so that in the future, others could rebel to preserve their cultural identity." – Ervina Halili, Kosovo 2.0 (Read the full interview)
