Actually 49, if we count the years from the first edition until today. When the “Festival of Songs” went on air for the first time in 1962, hardly anyone in the ILA venue would have guessed that this would be the Albanian national final for Eurovision, one day in the future. This week, we are witnesses of the 50th edition of Festivali i Këngës, coming from the Palace of Congresses, and tonight it’s the turn of a special anniversary show.

Tonight, RTSH will remember the history of the festival with a gala show, on which a lot of former winning songs will be performed. It will probably be more classy and worthy than the anniversary show for 50 years of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, the history of Festivali i Këngës wasn’t always splendid.

In the early years, most songs still sounded quite western and contemporary for the times. But soon, censorship and dictatorship affected music and lyrics. The darkest chapter of the festival was written in 1972. The title “The 11th Festival” reads as a scary book, and indeed, it is the title of a book (“Festivali i Njëmbëdhjetë” by Skifter Këllici) covering the scary happenings after the 11th Festivali i Këngës, 1972. It’s an issue of speculations what happened to the organizers of this edition. But however it’s well known, that the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, who was governing the country over decades, considered the organizers as enemies of the country. They were prosecuted, and you will find different versions online about what was their punishment. After 1972, harsh censorship ruled over Festivali i Këngës. Songs were not allowed to sound too western, lyrics had to be according to the government’s ideals. Only from 1985 on, after the death of the dictator, the freedom of arts returned slowly to the festival.

Somewhat more delighting to our minds are the various scandals and bizarre moments in the history of Festivali i Këngës. In 1964, the jury thought the quality of songs was too poor, so they didn’t award a 1st place. In 1987, Nexhmije Hoxha, the dictator’s widow, didn’t like the song that the jury wanted to declare as a winner, so she picked another winner in the last minutes. 1995 saw the longest applause in the history of the festival: The audience kept clapping for 7 minutes after the song “E Doni Dashurinë” was performed by Luan Zhegu & Ledina Celo. Other than that, the festival has seen a dress accident which resulted in the revelation of a breast, an artist’s mother’s rant at the jury members after her daughter didn’t win, and an endless amount of corruption accusations.

But after all, it’s not the festival of scandals, but in first place the Festival of Songs, and you will hear many of them tonight. We found a video with some of the former winning songs, so here’s a chance to get used to some of them already now: (article continues below)

It all began with the victory of Vace Zela, the Lys Assia of FiK, who won the contest 11 times between 1962 and 1980. A lot of entries followed in the last 50 years, and it was up to a special committee to decide which of the former winning songs will be performed tonight. Two songs of the chat’s Top 10 in the Albanian Night 2010 are former winning songs, but only one will be performed tonight (Elsa Lila’s “Pyes Lotin”, 1996). The one that’s not going to be performed is Albërie Hadërgjonaj’s “Mirësia dhe e vërteta” (1998), so this editor thought it would be a good idea to end this article with exactly this song.