L’albanie de Joseph Roth et celle d’Andrzej Stasiuk

Only a limited number of authors have written about Albania, a country that remained closed to foreigners, mainly because of Enver Hodja’s communist dictatorship. Joseph Roth , a Jewish-Austrian writer and journalist, devoted six articles to Albania in 1927. Polish author Andrzej Stasiuk devoted several texts to this country, including a long chapter of Jadąc do Babadag (On the Road to Babadag), published in 2004. Even though Andrzej Stasiuk deeply admires J. Roth, the articles by the Austrian writer cannot possibly have influenced him as they have not been translated into Polish. What is studied here is the discrepancy between the two visions of Albania, false similarities, and finally Stasiuk’s originality which is part of a wider reflection on the diversity and unity of the former Eastern Europe. Roth’s vision focuses on politics and diplomacy, and is tinged with pessimism; as for Stasiuk, he is bent on interverting viewpoints and reversing prejudices, his inspiration, however, is more metaphysical and his style tends to be apocalyptical.