Gjosho Vasia
(October 28, 1931 – November 21, 2013)
Actor, director, master of performing humorous skits, parody, incomparable presenter, joker, artistic leader and yet undervalued with any price, with denied merits! After 90 he was given the title “Great Master” and “Graduation of the City of Shkodra”
“Hey, I’m Gjosho Vasija, do you know me?” With his guitar, the extraordinary imitator of several voices within the same couplet, Gjosho Vasina!
For many, many years he was among the most favorite comedians on the stage and on the Albanian television screen, for those original skills that made him unlike no other comic or humorist. Persecuted from the first years of his youth, Gjosho Vasia had that always burning in his bosom, sharp humor and subtle satire that could at any time ignite the hearts of the public!
Gjosho Vasia. was born in the city of Shkodra on October 28, 1931, in a family with high patriotism and citizenship. Father Jaku and mother Angje had three children, among them two sons and a daughter. “Vasiej” Street, where the artist was born and raised, had taken the name of his family, whose house was in honor of the first built in the alley near the Cathedral of Shkodra.
The entire “Serreq” neighborhood, of which “Vasiej” street was also a part, was the center of civic families, which passed on unique values to the Shkodra culture. After finishing primary and secondary education at the Jesuit school in Shkoder, in September 1949, seeing the needs of the time for teachers, he was employed as a teacher in the deep areas of Mirdita. After three months of work, during the days he was waiting for the inspector from the education section, on November 23, 1949, he was arrested and sent to exile in the infamous Tepelena camp. There, Gjosho tried to give color to the daily life of the residents with his innate charm and humor. Although in the midst of suffering and surrounded by barbed wire, he managed to find his “other half”, his true love, his lifelong friend Berina. Berina, a noble girl, came from a Tirana family with the Kacele tradition.
Gjosho Vasia, after 5 years of imprisonment, is released from exile and returns to Shkoder. He hopelessly starts looking for a job, since all doors were closed to him due to his status as an “internuar”. In order not to be “remembered” about his actul status, he is forced to declare that he had been a soldier and manages to start work at the State Assets Enterprise as an assistant painter, where he painted the walls of Shkodra’s alleys. During this time, Gjosho taught himself the instrument of the guitar and began to be part of some cultural events in the city. It appears for the first time in an improvised amateur scene in the city center, of course unknown, with the couplet “Plak me Marak” by the famous author Pjeter Gjini.
Amazed by his voice, Gjosho began to be invited to the evenings of entertainment that were organized by the youth in various enterprises. His success and fame in the city caused him to lose his job as a painter, after he was recognized and sued as “enemy element”.
After a difficult period, in 1957, he was offered to work at the “Perlat Rexhepi” farm in the box repair department, but on the condition that he also lead the farm’s amateur group. That year, Gjosho devoted himself to work with passion to create and direct the company’s artistic group and appeared successfully at the variety show festival, where he managed to win the first prize, which he also won in 1958 for the second year in a row. .
In the fall of 1958, the great artist Gjosho Vasia was drafted into the army and sent to a labor ward in the village of Bubullimë in Lushnja. In the ward, he creates an artistic group by activating civilians from the surrounding areas, among them the young singer Vace Zela. In this period, in addition to leading the group, he has to write the lyrics, act and accompany the songs of the repertoire with the guitar.
Photo gallery of the artist Gjosho Vasia
After the 1960s, he was very active on the stage and managed to become a well-known and quite popular comedian. He becomes a master of performing humorous skits, parody, an incomparable presenter, but he also begins to be known as a gambler, giving weddings and family parties an indescribable pleasure. As he himself claims: …I was lucky enough to hear the popular Shkodran verse (Beyten) as a child by the great entertainer Zef Hile Gega. The four-syllable verse, AB-AB or rima, was used a lot in Shkoder by “Oso e Falltore”, “Hila e File”, “Kasem Xhurri”, “Tuk Vasija” and my friend Pjeter Gjini….
Gjosho’s duels with other humorous talents such as Pjeter Gjini, Mergim Muhja, Muharrem Nurja, Gjok Vata, Njazi Burgia, Mark Kaftalli and his cousins Simon and Kolec Pepa. The great artist Gjosho Vasia, since 1962, was employed as a worker at the Shkodër “Tabacco Factory”, where he was asked to create the artistic group, which became very well known for its humor and the wonderful acting of the actors. Actors Gjosho Vasia, Muharrem Nurja and Gëzim Kruja, who were the foundation of the group, as well as singers Fatmira Puka, Gjokë Vata, Tonin Tërshana, were known throughout the republic.
In 1967, Gjosho created the very well-known “Vau Deja Hydropower Group” with which he went on tour throughout the republic. to have a career of 25 years, not only as an actor, parodist and coupletist, but also as a writer, humorist with his short materials of comic genres, mainly parodies and monologues.
He collaborates with the brilliant actor Zef Deda, becoming the most charming pair of Albanian comedy scenes. A year later, in 1968, Gjosho and his group of the hydropower plant were honored with the Flag of the Festival of Variety Shows of Enterprises and received the Gold Medal at the meeting of professional variety shows in Tirana.
During this time, Gjosho Vasia managed to reveal all his multifaceted talent. He was an author, director, poet, composer, parodist, presenter, imitator. He plays the guitar, but also imitates with his mouth various musical instruments as well as the voices of various characters. In a dense artistic activity, the humorist Gjosho Vasia stands out for his irony and masterly realization of “problematic” figures for the society of the time. He brings to the stage, with a brilliant interpretation, a gallery of roles such as: the miser, the lazy, the thief, the bureaucrat, the arrogant, the front worker, the mediocre peasant…
He is also very active together with the comedian Zef Deda in TVSH, in the various programs, from the children’s program to the big New Year’s programs organized by radio and television. In the years 1970-74, when art and culture had a slight “breeze” of modernization and democratization, Gjosho was accepted as a professional actor in the Shkodra Estrada. This dream did not last long, as the campaign of “intensification of the war classes” begins with the next plenums. He understands that he must leave this institution that was under the strict control of the Party and resigns.
Actor Gjosho Vasia, with his incomparable personality and talent, felt good during the performances on the professional stage, but it should be mentioned that he also experienced difficult moments under the threat of some “party colleagues” who attacked him for “shadows in his biography”.
After the status of “professional” in the theater, he starts working at the “Wire Factory” in Shkoder with the daily status of “worker”. In fact, in the organic he appeared as a worker, but he creates and direct the artistic group from where he professionally challenges many great artists of the scene. He manages to take his respected place in the constellation of the most mentioned Albanian comedians, as well as to gain their respect and friendship.
Actors who knew him closely such as P. Preka, S. Sallaku, Z. Deda, F. Hasa, A. Prodani…etc. have expressed superlatives about Gjosho Vasina as a person and an actor. While in his neighborhood, Gjosho is remembered for the Italian songs he sang, especially when he gathered his friends to drink brandy. The neighbors were amazed at Gjosho’s skills to do all the crafts. In the reconstruction of his house, thanks to a physique from the athlete, he became a porter, mason, carpenter, painter and mechanic.
Gjosho is also known as the composer of some songs of light music for children, which he often sang among his friends. He is the author of the well-known song “Noja dhe Kombinoshet”, which, after being rejected at the children’s festival in Shkoder, won the first prize at the national festival of pioneers in Tirana.
But Gjosho was also a good sportsman. He competes several times in athletics competitions in the “High Jump” discipline, having excellent results and taking first places. In the national youth athletics championship in 1949, he was declared second in the high jump, and in the first National Spartakiad in 1959 in Tirana, he was declared the high jump champion. Thanks to the persistence of B. Dizdar and F. Bilal, he was also active with the Vllaznia team, where he trained three times a week at the stadium and was known as the local High Jump champion.
In 1990, when the movements for democracy began, Gjosho Vasia found himself in some not very comfortable circumstances. Threatened, he decides the most sublime thing, to escape from his homeland. After selling everything that belonged to the 300-year-old heritage of the Vasia family, he buys two plane tickets and flies to Canada. But he did not feel well there and decided to live in the city of Trieste, where he lived for 20 years in political asylum until he passes away on November 21, 2013.
In November 2008, Gjosho Vasia was awarded by the municipal council in Shkoder with the title CITY’S APPRECIATION and on 16.3.2010 was awarded by the President of the Republic Bamir Topi with the order GRAND MASTER with a motivation that is the result of his life:
…To the rare talent and creator of the comedy scene, who, thanks to his personality and character powerful, not only did he nobly resist the savage persecution of the communist dictatorship, but with his humor he gave joy, light and hope to ordinary people and fellow sufferers throughout the country. … Gjosho Vasia is remembered for his vocal talents, musical sensitivity, in his 40-year career he stood out as a fine, elegant actor, with a subtle humor without exaggerations and vulgarizations, on the contrary, full of humor, irony and inner joy”.
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It was first published in November 2013, and revised in the following years!
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Albanian Cinematography in activity since 2013
Reference: “Shqiptarja.com / P. Logoreci and information collected from various online Albanian portals.
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