Trauma and Healing in Zef Pllumi’s Live to Tell Trilogy

Abstract

Humanity has periodically faced tragic events, with studies seeking to explain each case. History has shown that wars, pandemics, and totalitarian regimes can brutally take the lives of innocent people. They also leave lasting trauma for survivors, making the healing process lengthy. A totalitarian regime is an overcontrolling government that interferes unnecessarily in citizens’ lives. It deforms, alienates, and destroys individuals. The Live to Tell trilogy written by Franciscan priest Zef Pllumi, who was imprisoned for twenty-five years, attests to these shocking facts and the consequences of prolonged persecution on a person’s life, and in this way represents society as a whole. Zef Pllumi was a survivor of the Albanian ‘Gulag’ who courageously reconstructed the history of persecution, specifically that of religious missionaries during the dictatorship that took hold in Albania from the end of the Second World War until 1990, in a confessional narrative. The trilogy is factual and analytical evidence, encompassing historical, documentary, reflective, analytical, and descriptive discourses. Categorised as documentary literature, this trilogy simultaneously presents facts and fiction to the reader. Above all, it affirms Zef Pllumi’s human mission and desire to survive under extreme conditions, fuelled by faith in God and love of life. This historical and memoirist trilogy offers an alternative perspective on Albanian history during the communist regime. “Live to Tell”, written in the Geg dialect of northern Albania, serves as a liberating confession of the true story of religious persecution. It aims to heal personal and collective trauma by revealing truths that were never acknowledged by the state at the time. The healing process requires the strength to remember and not forget the past.