ITAKA ‐ NJË SIMBOL I MADH BALLKANIK
ITAKA ‐ A GREAT BALKAN SYMBOL

BLESSED IS HE WHO RETURNS HOME LIKE ULYSSES

Summary/Abstract: Ithaca, an island in Greece, on the Balkan Peninsula, is known as the birthplace of Homer's hero, Odysseus. Thanks to the work of Homer and especially the poem Odyssey, it became a universal symbol. Itaka as a theme has a wide range in modern literature of the Balkans and Europe. We find it in the novel Ulysses by Joyce, in the poetry of Cavafy, Ricos, Brodsky, Hughes and Sorescu, but also in contemporary dramaturgy. The theme of Ithaca is also present in today's Albanian poetry, where it is treated in different ways by poets such as Camaj, Londo, Zhiti, Arapi, Islam, etc. In the verses of Albanian poets, Itaka synthesizes the vision of homeland, homeland, woman and especially of the unquenchable love of man for the place where he took the first steps in life. Various creators and scholars have called Odysseus the "ep of merchandise", and Ithaca a literary symbol influencing the formation of Western human identity. Ulysses and Ithaca are an inseparable binomial. "Penelope is the knot that connects them." Everyone has their own Ithaca, "says the poet. As such, this figure becomes the paradigm of human existence and the symbol of the constant bleeding of the house, the threshold of the door, the bed, and the woman.

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