Farudin Hoxha, the Orphan Child Who Built Himself — and Albania’s Energy Sector

FARUDIN HOXHA, THE ORPHAN CHILD WHO BUILT HIMSELF AND ALBANIA’S ENERGY SECTOR…

(In Memoriam, on the 9th anniversary of the passing of Academician Prof. Dr. Farudin Hoxha)

By ILIR ÇUMANI

For a long time I have wanted to write about the distinguished Academician Farudin Hoxha, a valued and utterly uncommon friend, whom I had the fortune to know closely since my early youth, several decades ago. Perhaps it is precisely the long time that has passed that has increased my need to return to his memory: not only to speak about the man he was, but also to understand, through memory, the mark he left behind.

What brought us together and bound us from the start was a seemingly simple reason, but powerful in the lives of two people: we were united by a similar life, a shared fate — the fate of the orphan.

Perhaps it was precisely this early experience that made us understand each other without many words. It was a pain that needed no explanation, because each recognized it in the other. Some pains, after all, need no telling; the presence of the other is enough to recognize them.

And so, between us there was never need for those barriers, distances or protocols that can naturally arise between an ordinary man and an extraordinary personality, especially when the latter had won an important place in public life and in the country’s scientific and social circles.

In truth, between us there was no room for hierarchy, nor for formalities. Our friendship had a simplicity of its own, a direct and free communication, supported by mutual respect and by a closeness that needed no explanation. It was that rare closeness born when two people have been touched by the same pain and, for this reason, know how to recognize in each other even what is left unsaid. Each understood, in silence, the weight it had left on the other’s life.

Perhaps it was precisely this shared fate that made us draw so naturally close and, over the years, that early closeness turned into a lasting, sincere and cherished friendship; one of those bonds that time does not fade, but makes deeper.

Maybe this is how I could begin these lines in memory of a friend and of a truly special man such as Academician Farudin Hoxha was, who, exactly like today, nine years ago, on September 11, 2017, passed away.

But to write about Farudin Hoxha today does not mean only to bow with respect before the memory of a distinguished personality of Albanian science and engineering. It means returning to an important part of the history of Albania’s technical development; to that difficult and extraordinary journey of building the hydropower works that changed not only the country’s economic landscape, but its very technical and professional dimension.

In many chapters of this history are found the traces of Farudin Hoxha’s mind, work, knowledge and responsibility.

Therefore, the memory of him is not only the memory of a friend. It is also a journey back in time, through the life of a man who tied his fate to one of the greatest undertakings of last century’s Albania: harnessing the country’s water wealth and building a hydropower system that would bear for decades the mark of the work of an entire generation of Albanian engineers.

And in this history, the name of Farudin Hoxha holds a place of its own.

But to truly understand the man who would later become Academician Farudin Hoxha, perhaps we must go back much earlier, beyond titles, duties, state responsibilities, institutes, ministries and academies. We must go back to the child. To a childhood that, in a painful sense of the word, was a childhood without childhood.

Born in Gjirokastër on January 20, 1936, he faced from an early age one of the hardest trials that can befall a child: he was left without his mother’s presence, while beside him were two other brothers, equally small and unprotected. It was the time when Albania was going through the most difficult years of the war and postwar period, a time of poverty, insecurity and great social upheavals.

At an age when a child should learn the world through play, care and the security of family, he had to learn much earlier another “language”: the language of responsibility, endurance and self-reliance.

Before Farudin Hoxha learned how a dam is built, life had placed before him another kind of construction, even harder: that of himself.

And perhaps here lies one of the most human keys to understanding later the seriousness, discipline, persistence and sense of responsibility that would accompany him throughout his life.

It cannot be said with certainty how each early experience shapes a character. But it is hard not to think that a childhood deprived of many of life’s natural supports may have taught him early not to expect the world to solve things for him.

He had to become strong himself and, equally, useful; capable of bearing the burden of the day. This early lesson, in one way or another, seems to have followed him all his life.

From that little child of Gjirokastër would emerge a man who would not build his life on privilege, but on knowledge and work.

There would come a time when he would understand that the best way to answer the hardships he had known was not to complain about them, but to become capable. To learn much and to work hard, hard… To be, then, useful.

And this word — useful — perhaps best sums up his human and civic profile, more than many titles.

He was not content to build his own career. He put all his knowledge at the service of a country that needed capable people to build.

His educational path was part of this effort. After completing his studies at the Polytechnic of Tirana, he continued his higher formation in hydropower construction, studying in Budapest and Sofia, before graduating in 1961 from the University of Tirana.

It was a time when Albania had great need of specialists and when technical development could not rely only on the desire for modernization. People were needed who knew science, mathematics, geology, hydrology, materials, soil mechanics and all the complexity of a work that forgives no mistakes.

Farudin Hoxha entered this world not as a man seeking only a profession, but as a member of a generation of technicians who would face an extraordinary task: to physically change the country where they lived.

In 1961 he began work at the State Design Institute in Tirana, in the Directorate of Hydropower Plants, and later at the Institute for Studies and Design of Hydropower Plants, on substations and high-voltage lines.

There, for more than three decades, until mid-1993, he would develop his study, scientific and design activity.

It was a period when the Albanian engineer was not simply a specialist of an office, but, in a much broader sense, one of the authors of the country’s material transformation. A hydropower plant is not simply a building with turbines, and a dam is not simply a giant mass of concrete, just as an artificial lake is not simply a change of landscape.

Behind them stands a complicated relationship between man and nature. Water has its own force, land its own behavior, rock its own characteristics, while one man’s mistake can have consequences far greater than his own work.

That is why hydropower engineering requires not only multifaceted knowledge, but also a deep sense of responsibility — professional, human and, under the conditions of the time, national as well.

One must foresee what is not seen, calculate what has not yet happened, understand the behavior of a structure against the major forces of water and land and, above all, know that behind every formula, every project and every technical decision stand human lives and national wealth.

In this field Farudin Hoxha would become one of the most important figures of Albanian engineering.

His formation did not stop at the diploma. In 1971 he completed in France a postgraduate specialization in soil mechanics and the construction of high dams with local materials, an important field for Albanian conditions and for building major water works.

It was another proof that he understood knowledge not as a finished title, but as a process of deepening growth and continuous enrichment.

For a great engineer, the diploma may be the beginning. What defines his value is how he uses knowledge, how he expands it and how he materializes it into work. And works were not lacking.

Farudin Hoxha was designer and head of the study groups for the dams of all the works of the Drin River hydropower exploitation scheme, as well as for the works of Vau i Dejës, Koman, Fierzë, Banjë, Bistrica II and Bogovë.

These names today are no longer simply toponyms on maps and technical documents. They are major works that constitute an important part of Albania’s physical and economic map. They remain, at the same time, proof of Farudin Hoxha’s extraordinary contribution to the development of the country’s hydropower infrastructure.

They are dams, tunnels, lakes, power stations, turbines and lines that have changed the way energy is produced and distributed in the country.

This is also part of a broader history: the Albanian effort to create an energy base on which industry, the economy and daily life could rely.

When you look at such a work today, you may see only concrete, steel and water. But behind them you must also imagine the wide design tables, the maps, the calculations, the technical discussions, the concerns about safety, the field trips, the geological studies, the soil analyses, the measurements and the decisions made after many hours of work.

This is the invisible, but equally important, part of an engineering work. Precisely there lies the greatness of people like Farudin Hoxha: their work becomes successful to such an extent that the public forgets that behind it there was once a human mind that designed it.

Hydropower changes not only the energy system, but also the anthropology of a country. It changes the rhythm of the economy, creates new opportunities for industry, influences cities and villages, services, communication and the very perception a society has of its ability to build.

For a country like the Albania of the second half of the 20th century, where shortages were great and resources limited, building hydropower works was part of an ambitious and much broader modernization project.

Farudin Hoxha was one of the people who lived this process from within. He belonged to a generation of technical intellectuals who were formed not only to write or speak about development, but to materialize it.

They measured their work also by what remained on the ground. A bridge, a dam, a power station, a power line, a factory or a water supply system were concrete ways of giving form to an idea.

In this sense, the engineer of that time was a special figure of Albanian modernization: an intellectual with pencil, paper, calculations and measuring instruments, but at the same time a man who had to face directly the whims of mountain, river, land and reality on the ground.

Farudin Hoxha’s value lay not only in his ability to design. It was also proven in the responsibilities entrusted to him.

In November 1982 he was appointed Minister of Construction, a duty and responsibility not small, which he held until May 1988.

Then, until February 21, 1991, he served as Minister at the Council of Ministers for economic cooperation with foreign countries. The passage from the design table to the highest levels of state leadership shows that he was seen not only as a specialist of a narrow field, but as a man who could take on far broader responsibilities.

It is important to see this part of his life also within the historical time in which it happened. Farudin Hoxha was part of a particular political and economic system and acted within the limitations, opportunities and contradictions of that system.

But a man’s professional history cannot be reduced only to the position he held in a political structure. It must also be seen through what he brought with him into that structure: deep knowledge, profession, broad technical culture and the ability to make decisions on matters requiring competence.

In his case, the profession did not disappear behind the duty; on the contrary, it accompanied him. This becomes even clearer after the great changes of the early ’90s. Farudin Hoxha did not withdraw from public and scientific life. He continued to serve in important structures of the state and of the profession.

From 1991 to 1995 he was chairman of the Albanian National Committee on Large Dams. From November 1999 to November 2000 he headed the Albanian Power Corporation, KESH, in a period when the energy sector faced great challenges.

He was a member of the Territory Regulation Council of the Republic of Albania from 1997 to 2008, a member of the Council for Scientific Policy and Technological Development from 1997 to 2004, as well as part of the Governmental Commission for the water economy with neighboring countries in the periods 1973–1982 and 2001–2005. For several years he also served as a member of the Tirana Municipal Council.

This continuity is significant. A man who had begun his professional path in the early years of Albanian hydropower development continued to be present even in the periods when the country changed system, economy and way of governance.

This shows that his main value was not a temporary function, but a professional capital built over decades.

Albanian science also recognized this value. Farudin Hoxha was elected corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of Albania in 1986 and full member in 1989. He then served as Scientific Secretary of the Academy in 1997–1999 and as Vice-Chairman from 1999 to 2008.

So he was not only a man of the built work, but also a man of transmitted knowledge, of scientific institutions and of the effort to keep Albanian science linked to the country’s needs.

Twice he was awarded the Republic Prize, First Class, for achievements in the study and design of hydropower construction works.

But, despite titles, prizes and functions, perhaps more than any official document, the field where he worked speaks for him, because his field is not an abstraction. It is clearly visible: where the Drin gathers its waters, where the dam bears the weight of the lake, where the turbine turns the force of water into energy and where a part of Albanian development history continues to function every day.

In this sense, Farudin Hoxha should also be seen as a representative figure of the technical Albania of the 20th century. He embodied that type of intellectual who rose from a society with great shortages and who saw knowledge not as a personal ornament, but as a tool to change reality.

He was not the intellectual who stood far from the field, but the one who descended into the field and saw the mountain not only as landscape, but also as geological structure; the river not only as natural beauty, but as a force to be understood; the land not only as terrain, but as material to cooperate with.

Perhaps here lies also a silent link between the child he once was and the engineer he later became.

The child who had learned early to stand on his own feet turned into a man who knew how to bear great responsibilities. The child who had known lack became a professional who sought to create opportunities. The child who had not had the luxury of an easy childhood became a man of discipline, work and public utility.

There is no need to romanticize pain to understand this journey. Nor does this writing, in his commemoration, aim to do so. Pain is not virtue in itself. But the way a man manages to face it and turn life into a project useful to others is one of the highest forms of character.

And Farudin Hoxha was, above all, a man of strong and steady character; formed not only by universities, specializations and duties, but by a life that very early had taught him that nothing important is built without endurance.

Perhaps this is why in his professional portrait two words can be joined that, seemingly, belong to different worlds: scientist and builder.

The scientist seeks to understand; the builder seeks to turn that understanding into reality. Farudin Hoxha did both.

It is no coincidence that his colleagues, people of the field and many of those who knew his work closely identified him with an epithet that goes beyond an academic or administrative title: “Father of Albanian hydropower.”

This name should not be understood simply as a metaphor of honor. It sums up a long contribution in a field that became one of the pillars of the country’s energy development.

For decades, his name was linked to the study, design and direction of some of Albania’s most important hydropower works.

But perhaps today, when nine years have passed since his passing, the true meaning of this epithet becomes even clearer.

“Father of Albanian hydropower” is not only the one who designed a dam or headed an institution. He is the man who helped create a professional culture, a study tradition and an engineering experience that transcends the boundaries of a generation.

And in the end remains what time cannot easily erase: the work.

Water continues to flow. Dams continue to stand. Turbines continue to turn the force of water into energy. Artificial lakes continue to be part of the Albanian landscape. The institutions where he worked have their history.

The Academy where he served preserves the memory of its generations and, behind all this, stands also the mark of a man who began life with a great lack and ended it leaving behind a great public wealth.

This is perhaps the most beautiful irony of his fate: the child who knew lack became a man of construction; he who very early was forced to learn to rely on himself then helped an entire country rely on a new energy base.

Life took much from him at the start, but he returned to society manyfold in his knowledge, work and deeds.

Therefore, the memory of Academician Farudin Hoxha is not only a memory of a man who no longer lives physically, but a way of thinking and serving: the belief that knowledge must have a public use, that profession is also responsibility, that science gains meaning when it serves society and that a man’s greatest works are those that continue to serve others even when he himself is no more.

In Albania’s history there are people known for the words they have spoken, others for the posts they have held and others for the power they have exercised.

Farudin Hoxha belongs to another category: those known for what they have built. And this is a special form of immortality. The word may be forgotten, the post may end, power may change, but a work that serves society continues to speak in silence.

Today, on the ninth anniversary of his passing, his memory comes naturally from the waters of the Drin, from the dams and hydropower plants, from scientific institutions, from the memory of colleagues and from the generations of engineers who knew him as a master of the profession.

But, above all, it comes from that long human road that began in Gjirokastër, with a child forced to grow up ahead of time, and ended with an academician who devoted his life to building an important part of modern Albania.

Perhaps this is the sentence that most rightly sums up his life:

Before building works on Albania’s rivers, Farudin Hoxha built himself on life’s hardships.

Then, that strength he had quietly gained as a child, he turned into knowledge; knowledge into profession; profession into works; and works into a legacy that continues to live.

For this reason, his name is not only part of the memory of the Academy of Sciences or of the history of Albanian engineering.

That name is part of the very landscape of the country. As long as water flows, turbines turn and dams stand over Albanian rivers, his work will continue to be there too, quietly present, as are the greatest works of great people.

Tirana, September 11, 2026