He collaborated with John Houston, Olivia de Havillend, Ava Gardner, Robert Show, Fernando Rey, Dirk Bogard, Charles Aznavour, Irena Papas, Claudia Cardinale, Candice Bergen... He acted in Albanian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Romany, Turkish, Spanish, English, French, and Italian. Since 1987, when he demonstratively left the stage of the Yugoslav Drama Theater during the staging of the play "Madame Colontein" by Agnette Pleyal [the Serbian version of the Serbocroat language uses phonetic spelling for names, so that the spelling of foreign names is based on the translator's educated guess], in which he played Lenin and Stalin, he publicly said good bye to artistic activities in the former Yugoslavia. With time he made the decision to stop shooting movies abroad as well. Recently, Samizdat Free B92 published a book of Bekim Fehmiu's memoirs "Brilliant and Terrifying", which describes his life between his birth in 1936 in Sarajevo, until 1955, the year he joined the Pristina theater. This is the first interview by Bekim Fehmiu after fourteen years.
DANAS: Hamlet said: "Silence remains". What is the reason for your fourteen-years-long silence?
FEHMIU: I gave the last interview on April 14, 1987 to Mira Radosevic, for Politika, after leaving the staging of the play "Madame Colontein". The direct reason for my departure from the stage was the so-called lack of organization in the play, while the true reason is the spreading of propaganda and anti-Albanian hatred literally everywhere in the former Yugoslavia. I said then that I felt like Hamlet when he says "this time has left a grave", like Miroslav Krleza's "on the verge of madness", like in the poem by Dusan Vasiljev "Man Sings After the War", when he says: "...oh give me just a handful of air and a bit of white dew of the morning, you can have the rest..." Those years, anti-Albanian campaign flooded the newspapers, TV programs...
Fake photographs were published, people quoted Rakic's poem Simonida in which he says "an Albanian dug your eyes out", and Shkelzen Maliqi in NIN explained that it is true that the eyes of queen Simonida's portrait have been scraped off, but not out of hatred. They were scraped because of a popular belief, a superstition if you want, that scraped off dust from eyes or genitalia of frescoes in the church helps the blind or infertile women. Not only Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo believed that, but also other residents and members of other religions. The last straw was when I met at home pale Branka [Peric, Bekim Fehmiu's wife] and Uliks [his son] in shock. His high school professor of literature praised a poem by ethnic Albanian poet Esad Mekuli, but she condemned his wife, Dr. Mekuli, who, according to her "pulled living children out of wombs of Serb and Montenegrin women in Kosovo [and presumably killed them]".
I explained to Uliks that that was a brazen lie. Because, if that were true, she would have been in jail and she would not be allowed to practice medicine anymore!
Thirty five poisoned young souls, thirty five families with who knows how many members poisoned by hate. For some silence is a sign of approval, giving in or surrender. For me silence was a painful mode of protest.
It seems the old saying that history is a teacher of life has been totally turned on its head here?
For me history is really a teacher of life. The way Hitler started with Jews, I was from the start aware that it started with Albanians but that it would not end with them. I knew that war was coming. The worst fate finally struck the Serb nation. Again, we had the situation in which a Serb shoots at another Serb. I think that nothing worse can happen to a nation.
You were famous in the former Yugoslavia. Did you have a premonition of what would happen, having in mind that you spent your youth in Prizren, and life in Kosovo has never been easy and simple?
No, I was not interested in that at the time. My world was the world of art. Neither I nor, I think, anyone else understands how this could happen at the time when nanoseconds with six million informations rule, and immediately after that we got a chip with fourteen million informations, so that the whole world can fit in the palm of one's hand. With our intellectual capacity at the time we nearly became, rightfully, a part of the developed world. At the time I traveled a lot through the countries of the then Eastern Block, from Albania to the USSR. We were like paradise in comparison with all those countries. That is the age when border guards at our borders did not shoot like in those states, but we could cross those borders and travel everywhere in the world. We were welcome everywhere.
You entered the acting world in style. Your graduation work was Goethe's Orestus from "Iphigenia in Tauris". At that time your future artistic life was strongly influenced by Milos Djuricic, a famous professor and translator. To what extent did he influence your work?
Teachers played an important role in my life. Uncle Misa Djuric, as we called him, is among them. He was an amazing intellectual and a big man "who did not talk in vain but taught ethics." When he heard that I was an ethnic Albanian, in front of the whole class he delivered a lecture about Albanian history and their characteristics; he quoted Cvijic who in 1902 wrote that "Albanians are the best looking people in the Balkans". Basically, he made me fly! He concluded that lecture with these words: "Fool, study and become an actor; do not end up like your fellow Albanians a physical worker who offers his services in Knjaz Mihajlova Street". As if he already knew my goal.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about guilt, and usually we always blame someone else for our problems. Do you have an answer for that question?
You've just mentioned Orestes. You probably know the myth about Orestes and mental maps based on lies and those based on the truth, as well as where the former and latter lead. The myth about Orestes brings us to the recognition and admission of our own guilt, the truth, responsibility and recovery. We are all guilty. Both Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo are the only ones to blame for everything that happened to them. They are responsible. A man does not have the right to blame for things that happen to him either his father, or his brother, or his neighbor, or the gods, but only himself. One of our tragedies is that, while living together, we did not learn from good sides of our neighbors. We only picked up the worst from them. Serbs did not accept good characteristics of Albanians, just as the Albanians did not accept praiseworthy characteristics of Serbs. I spent my youth in Prizren and at that time, is you cursed someone's mother [a common insult in the Balkans], he would immediately shoot. A mother and god were sacred. I did not even know that such curse words existed.
When I arrived in Belgrade and heard them, at first I was extremely embarrassed whenever someone would swear in my presence. A few years ago, I walked through Pristina and heard on the promenade how young, teenage ethnic Albanian girls were swearing like bandits.
Does life in this region force us to be political?
No, it does not. I read political news in Politika for the first time in 1967, naturally only after reading about culture, and only started reading about politics regularly after 1968, when I was interesting to the western world as an actor coming from a "Communist" country. I did not even know who Ali Shukrija was. I did not know who Leka was until they explained to me that that was Aleksandar Rankovic's nickname. But today, although nobody here wants that or chooses that, we are forced to be political. You know that people like to hang out with famous actors. Thus, as early as 1979 in Italy I met the real James Bond who adored the former Yugoslavia. He told me that in London in 1978 a film was shot that claimed that WWIII would start exactly in Kosovo because that is a land with poor people living on potentially rich soil. Gandhi said, "poverty is the worst violence against a man".
That man also told me that in Sweden, the very same year, a conference about the strategies about former communist countries had been held. At that conference [Zbigniew] Brzezinski [American political scientist and National Security Advisor under president Carter] stated that in Yugoslavia the west should support liberals, dissidents and especially nationalists, because nationalism is stronger than ideology. That man offered passports for my whole family and told me that our future was not going to be nice. I laughed incredulously and declined his offer.
Do you have the impression that the new authorities will be able to resolve problems related to Kosovo?
First it is necessary to change mental maps. I would like to see that happen and to be able to believe in that. However, then I recall the poll from 1994 in which 70 percent of Serb population stated that they do not want to live with Albanians, and 59 that they did not want to live with Croats. Whenever I recall that, I always get discouraged. In 1912 Dimitrije Tucovic stated that the Albanians are biggest friends of Serbs. And today, here we are, Serbs and Albanians, again together, surviving a shared nightmare, more surreal than the worst surrealist dream. I admit publicly that I had never felt more ashamed than when I heard that an ethnic Albanian had killed and old man and a woman in 1999, for the first time in the history of Albanians, as far as I know. All of us have crossed borders that must not be crossed, regardless of the tragedy that that Albanian may had experienced. Why are we then surprised by this divine punishment we are living through? Why have since 1912, until today, bayonets, cannons and tanks been sent to Kosovo, the "holy Serb land"? That is really divine punishment.
You gave your besa [swore] that you will tell your children the truth about your life in Kosovo?
That is true, but not only in Kosovo. They today also know everything from the second part of the manuscript. I gave myself a besa that I would tell my children everything, so that they are well informed. But then, my friends Musa Ramadani, late Bequir Musliju, Abdulah Zejneli in Pristina, Filip David, Dusan Makavejev, Jovan Cirilov, Petrit Imami and my wife Branka Petric, who was my first reader, as well as Ms. Leposava Zunic, the capable editor of my book, who herself lived for a while in Prizren and provided a lot of human support, convinced me that I should publish the manuscript. I told my children the truth and gave them freedom to choose what and how they will live, just the way I did. I respect and will continue to respect every choice my children make, the way my mother, Dija, respected our choices.
Homen est nomen, Romans used to say. Your name, Bekim Fehmiu, actually means in Albanian an excellent blessing. Do you think that that turned out to be true? It is said that each one of us brings good news from god at birth. What was your good news?
I wanted to ennoble people with my job. For me acting was at times missionary work and a blessing. Art was my good news that I brought with myself. If I weren't an actor, I would have been a dentist or a painter. I like painting. I believe that my mother Dija was blessed by the fact that she gave birth to eight children and that eight of them put her to rest, and behind herself she left seven grandchildren and now has three great grandchildren. That is my response to frequent stories about a demographic explosion in Kosovo.
You were born in Sarajevo in 1936. Do you think you had luck in your life? Will you try acting again, some time soon?
An Albanian proverb says: "Do little and God will help you a lot (Puno pak se Zoti ti nadikmon shum)". It seems that, besides self-sacrifice and incessant work, I also had luck in my life, both individual and with my family. Although the life of people living in this region, and especially in Kosovo, is everything but easy. For years I have been refusing to act and I think I will continue to do so. Because of this whole hell, I've lost every sense of calling, and as I do not feel any sense in acting, I do not want to act anymore.
How come the main character in the movie "Deserter", portrayed by you, was born in Belgrade, in Serbia?
After a month of shooting of the movie "Deserter", the script writer and director Barry Kennedy came to see me and explained a big problem and their concern that the American public simply would not accept a movie with the actor Bekim Fehmiu who was playing Patrick John, that was the name of my character. They requested my help. I suggested a change in the biography read by general, John Houston, so that Patrick John became Victor Kaleb, born in Belgrade, who emigrated to the USA in 1842 and whose parents died from cholera in 1844, while he joined the cavalry. By choosing Belgrade for the birthplace of my character, I wanted to thank my dear professor, a humanists, the [Belgrade Acting] Academy that gave me a stipend and all the great actors from the Yugoslav Drama Theater. I am very proud of all of them.
It was an honor and privilege to meet him and to work with him. He was a rare, authentic character, a big adventurer, a brilliant artist and had a big heart. He traveled all over the world. In order to put together the role of captain Kaleb, I had to apply the famous Stanislavski's rule "what would I do if I were in similar circumstances?"... John Houston was a man of huge life experience, as a boxer, actor, Mexican cavalry officer in his youth; he studied painting in Paris and London, wrote screenplays, directed movies... He held a four-meter long whip in his bathroom and a monkey on his shoulder. He was on the front line in Monte Casino (Italy) in WWII, where he shot a documentary. Such a man did not have to use that magic "what would I do" because, simply, he was a general.
At the first showing of the movie, when we watched together the whole movie, after the end he gave me a hug and said: "Son, you're good!" That was one of the happiest moments in my whole life.