Dalina Buzi: Parashqevia, the Albanian star who erased her place, the only one who loved her and wouldn't let her collect aid
Dalina Buzi, tregon përmes një eksperience personale dhe profesionale nga viti 2003 kur e gjendur në Amerikë për të ndjekur presidentin e atëhershëm, ishte ndërkaq në kërkim të një interviste me yllin shqiptar Parashqevi Simaku, dialogun e ftohtë me të, në anglisht vetëm dhe jo në shqip.
Është një opinion dhe analizë që na tregon më shumë për rrethanat e yllit shqiptar, dritëhijet dhe paradokset e jetës së saj që për shkak të një videoje të dhënë në TV amerikan, u hapën aq shumë diskutime në Shqipëri 24 orët e fundit. Pro-të dhe kundra-t në thelb tregojnë fuqinë që ajo si figurë ka në Shqipëri, një Shqipëri që e do sot e kësaj dite çmendurisht.
2024-12-14 13:00:25
TiranaPost
By Dalina Buzi/ Since the topic of the situation of Parashqevi Simaku was raised, I am truly sorry, but Parashqevi once chose to completely secede from Albania. In 2O03, I went to the USA as a journalist for Top Channel, to follow the then president, Alfred
Moisiu at a UN session in New York and I used the time to interview Albanian singers who lived there (Anita Bitrin, Aurela Gace, Merita Halili, Gezim Nika and Parashqevi Simaku). Parashqevi had a live performance in a small bar. She was accompanied by her ex-husband. A few years ago she had released an album under the name Vivian Simaku with something of the new age-ethno type which I had bought with pleasure. (Forgive me if I don't remember if it was an album, or if she was part of an album with different artists)
I approach Parashqevise to speak and she speaks English back to me.
She refused to speak Albanian even though she was polite and sweet in her communication. She was talking to her husband and telling me that she was going to sing for the moment. I told her that I had come from Albania, etc., but she was late.
I called her again because normally she would be doing news in Albania and she literally told me "My manager doesn't want me to talk. The manager was her husband. When I get back to Albania I tell the bosses at Top who even added it as text in the documentary even though I was against it."
However, Parashqevia could be called delusional by many, but she, perhaps alone in a large country and under the hypnosis of her husband (I think they had both hypnotized each other), projected herself only for the American market and wanted to enter and present herself there as an American. Two years after she left, she returned to Albania with Robert and spoke Albanian with an American dialect. 2 years!!! (The Arberes speak Albanian better)
Her desire to assimilate completely was almost extremist. Being an idol and sex symbol in Albania and clashing with an insensitivity of American showbiz towards foreign artists, perhaps excessive trust in her husband without any management background and much less qualified and not as successful as her wife, were perhaps the first blows for her. Someone even told me that when she came to Albania, she claimed that her wedding would be broadcast on CNN.
Of course, in the 90s, Albanian artists didn't have that much information about America. Parashqevia, who was initially welcomed by the American community like GOD, and even poured a lot of $$ into helping her career, had all the rights in the world TO DREAM AND FOLLOW THE DREAM.
But 29 years old, with a dialect and a bio not attractive to the American market and perhaps AT THE WRONG TIME, she could not become a POP Star, a place reserved for Americans, Canadians and English. The point is that Parashqevia in my opinion flew higher than it should and refused to touch the ground and moreover, refused to feel the mother earth.
She took advantage of her connection to Albania a little in the ethno album, in the late 90s (I bought that album in the USA), but maybe she was still looking for that STAR she had in her homeland.
It's unfortunate to say, but taking into account my personal experience, Parashqevia with three names (Vivian and now Simaku) is a victim of its downfall from the long flight above the clouds and perhaps from excessive trust in the people who sought to shape it into something that was difficult to do after 29 years in an isolated communist country.
She erased Albania because she thought it would hinder her, but she searched for the American sky like an Albanian star.
This is my observation, but obviously I know nothing about her other personal stories and challenges in her family and with mental health.
However, her deliberate disappearance for her plans in America, turned the artist into an icon in Albania. She "died" for us in a big way, as Vace Zela died, who walked away from the microphone long before she left this life. So this video that came out now was shocking, because we had already disappeared from life among living artists with concerts and Instagram and had placed her in a mausoleum with the great dead.
Parashqevi is alive, under a different name, and it's collecting donations.
Our idol, our pop star, the first sex symbol in Albania, Malena of the 80s, appeared weak, defenseless, abandoned.
This was the meeting that Parashqevia would never wish for itself in 100 years.
It would have been better if we hadn't seen that video, but we did, and it probably wasn't done on purpose.
Vivi deliberately left Albania for so many years, but today, if she is able to understand, she can understand that Albania is what she loved the most and that she would never let her wander the streets like an "old woman who enjoys a blanket."
