"I never asked myself about the meaning of freedom until the day I hugged Stalin".

Lea Ypi was 11 in December 1990 when she came across a protest on her way home from school, ran to safety to a bust of Stalin in the park, hugged him and then discovered his head was missing. So opens a story of growing up in a strange period when everything she ever learned is changing by the day, of trying to understand the conflicted responses of her teacher, her parents and grandmother, of learning about the real history of her family and the country where she was born. This includes the discovery that her family is indeed related to Xhafer Ypi, an Albanian politician between the wars, after independence from the Ottoman empire and before Communism, who

This memoir is beautifully written with warmth and wit. Ypi now lives in London and wrote this in English - she has also produced an Albanian language version but apparently it is rather different as writing about her memories in her native tongue, the language that conversations really happened in, was much more emotional and challenging, so readers in English are reading the story with a certain distance of perspective.

Unlike many memoirs of Communism published in the West, this is not a story of escaping the evils of communism, perhaps it is more about trying to make some sense of the experiences of the author, her family and friends. The collapse of Communism and the restoration of political and economic liberalism and capitalism in Albania and across Europe, following the death of Enver Hoxha in 1985, bring new challenges. Lea Ypi's parents are active in the new politics, and her father becomes an MP, but some people who have come to Albania to offer political and financial advice on transition turn out to be crooks selling pyramid schemes in which Albanians lose their savings. A state of emergency, a declaration of military rule and a civil war will follow. Ypi's mum goes to Italy with her brother. Tragedy strikes for several school friends.

Lea Ypi left Albania in 1997 to study in Italy, and is now Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics - her subjects include Marxism and socialism, still perhaps trying to explore the possibilities of what could have been.

Thank you to Netgalley for granting me a review egalley of the book, though I actually borrowed and read a hardback copy from the library. There are no illustrations in the book - perhaps as the author left Albania in a small boat like her mother before her, she doesn't actually have any photographs that could have been used. An abridged version was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and it was hearing this that made me want to read the whole book. ( )

An insightful and highly original memoir. A moving and witty story about growing up in Albania in the final days of the last Stalinist outpost of the 20th century.

Lea Ypi grew up in one of the most isolated countries in Southern Europe. A place where communist ideals had officially replaced religion. Albania, the last Stalinist outpost in Europe, was almost impossible to visit, almost impossible to leave. It was a place of queuing and scarcity, of political executions and secret police. To Lea, it was home. People were equal, neighbours helped each other, and children were expected to build a better world. There was community and hope.

Then, in December 1990, a year after the fall of the Berlin Wall, everything changed. The statues of Stalin and Hoxha were toppled. Almost overnight, people could vote freely, wear what they liked and worship as they wished. There was no longer anything to fear from prying ears. But factories shut, jobs disappeared and thousands fled to Italy on crowded ships, only to be sent back. Predatory pyramid schemes eventually bankrupted the country, leading to violent conflict. As one generation's aspirations became another's disillusionment, and as her own family's secrets were revealed, Lea found herself questioning what freedom really meant.

It’s a fascinating read, funny, tragic and insightful. I really enjoyed the glimpse into life in Albania and the fall of communism through the eyes of Lea. What moved me was the huge adjustment from one way of life to another and how people coped and changed their views on religion and politics. It’s not a heavy memoir and yet I leaned so much and enjoyed everything about the book. I knew nothing about Albania so delighted when a fellow goodreads reviewer recommended this one.

I listened to [b:Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History|58085227|Free A Child and a Country at the End of History|Lea Ypi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1636348840l/58085227._SY75_.jpg|89168998] on audible and while the narrator was good I am really sorry I didn’t purchase a hard copy of this one as I have a feeling there were photographs and maps that I may have missed out on. ( )

[b:Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History|58085227|Free A Child and a Country at the End of History|Lea Ypi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1636348840l/58085227._SY75_.jpg|89168998] is a fascinating and compelling memoir of growing up in 1980s and 90s Albania before, during, and after the fall of the communist regime. Ypi (which autocorrect insists should be 'you') narrates as her younger self, to very striking effect. As she grows older she starts to understand life around her better, just as it begins to change dramatically. Her perspective and that of her family give a witty insight into daily life under a Stalinist dictatorship, as well as the chaos that followed it. I found Ypi to be an uncommonly thoughtful and observant writer:

When my father spoke of the revolution in general, he got as excited as my grandmother did when she spoke about the French Revolution in particular. In my family, everyone had a favourite revolution, just as everyone had a favourite summer fruit. My mother's favourite fruit was watermelon and her favourite revolution was the English one. Mine were figs and Russian. My father emphasised that he was sympathetic to all revolutions but his favourite was the one that had yet to take place. As to his favourite fruit, it was quince - but it could choke you when it wasn't fully ripe, so he was often reluctant to indulge.

I particularly appreciated her comments on the new vocabulary that replaced communist terminology:

'Civil society' was the new term recently added to the political vocabulary, more or less as a substitute for 'Party'. It was known that civil society had brought the Velvet Revolution to Eastern Europe. It had accelerated the decline of socialism. In our case, the term became popular when the revolution was already complete, perhaps to give meaning to a sequence of events that at first seemed unlikely, then required a label to become meaningful. It joined the other new keywords, such as 'liberalisation', which replaced 'democratic centralism'; 'privatisation', which replaced 'collectivisation'; 'transparency', which replaced 'self-criticism'; 'transition', which stayed the same but now indicated the transition from socialism to liberalism instead of the transition from socialism to communism; and 'fighting corruption', which replaced 'anti-imperialist struggle'.

Another particularly astute and powerful section describes her father's job after the fall of communism, running a port where he's expected to fire many of the workers in the name of efficiency:

My father assumed, like many in his generation, that freedom was lost when other people tell us how to think, what to do, where to go. He soon realised that coercion need not always take such a direct form. Socialism had denied him the possibility to be who he wanted, to make mistakes and learn from them, and to explore the world on his own terms. Capitalism was denying it to others, the people who depended on his decision, who worked in the port. Class struggle was not over. He could understand as much. He did not want the world to remain a place where solidarity is destroyed, where only the fittest survive, and where the price of achievement for some is the destruction of hope in others.

The narrative is at its most powerful and stripped back in chapter 21, in which Ypi recounts the 1997 civil war via extracts from her teenage diary. The whole book is insightful, by turns amusing and moving. I knew nothing much about Albania before reading it, despite being in high school by the time its civil war broke out. Ypi interrogates the concept of freedom via the experiences of transformational political change that she and her family went through. She refuses to draw any simple conclusions and instead invites the reader to consider difficult questions of political ideology and practise. I found [b:Free: A Child and a Country at the End of History|58085227|Free A Child and a Country at the End of History|Lea Ypi|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1636348840l/58085227._SY75_.jpg|89168998] extremely readable, thought-provoking, and distinctive. I highly recommend it. ( )

I love this book and think it is an extraordinary work of insight & expression. Basically, it is the story of a person born in 1979 in Albania, what it was like as she grew into girlhood during the isolated, intentionally distant from the world nation run by Enver Hoxha from the end of WW II to 1990 when it came unglued. It then goes through some of what life was like in the post-communist period up till she was 18. During the communist period there were numerous contradictions, and their parents were not communists who had to mouth slogans and never tell anyone - including her - what they really believed. Some of their immediate relatives had been imprisoned for long periods. In the 1990's there was freedom & improvement in the lives of most people ... until things fell apart in 1996 and became a violent revolution in 1997. The author, a professor of philosophy, was always someone who read & thought; and her articulation of those 18 years was so well-written & compelling that I felt joy much of the time that I was reading it. I admire the author and respect what she has done in writing this book. ( )

As a school child in the 1980’s, Lea Ypi learned the Communist slogans and a love for Uncle Hoxna (Enver Hoxha). But she noted there were puzzling aspects to her existence. Adults in her family talked of people ‘going to University’, but never coming back. And the ubiquitous portrait of Hoxna did not appear in her family’s home – when questioned, they always made excuses, such as saying they were waiting for the perfect frame before hanging it.

Student unrest grew and riots followed leading to a revolution in 1989 and the first multi-party elections in 1991.

Both of Lea’s parents tried to further Albania’s march toward Westernisation and the acceptance into the European Union and NATO. However, liberalization led to massive layoffs and unemployment. Western financial and peacekeeping forces seemed to add to the chaos. Many citizens lost fortunes in financial ponzi schemes which were often supported by the government.

I had shockingly little knowledge of Albania’s history when I started this book. I found this memoir of communism and the post communism era in Albania really interesting and often humorous.

Eventually the author moved to Italy where she studied philosophy. She is currently a professor of political theory at the London School of Economics. ( )