During the Eritrean liberation struggle against Ethiopia from 1961 to 1991 culture played a prominent role as a medium of self-definition, entertainment and education. Both liberation movements, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) and its challenger, the finally dominant Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), featured cultural troupes which mounted variety shows comprising songs, music and ancestral dances as well as the occasional dramatic sketch for propaganda purposes and recreation. Fulllength plays were also produced, but rather sporadically, often lengthy enactments of Eritrean history or allegorical plays which referred to Ethiopia's annexation of Eritrea. While the ELF can be credited with the establishment of the earliest cultural troupe in the late 1960s, it was the EPLF that encouraged cultural activities on a much broader base and facilitated artistic specialisation. In this article, I will take a closer look at the development of written drama and its performance in the EPLF after the strategic retreat of 1978. The focus will be on the theatre of Alemseged Tesfai who can be considered not only as the premier playwright of the liberation struggle, but also as one of its main cultural theorists.

Historical Backdrop: Revolutionary Culture on all (Front) Lines

While in 1977 both fronts had controlled most of the Eritrean countryside and a number of towns, the following year began a period of trials and tribulations. From 1978 to mid-1979 the Eritrean resistance suffered a succession of offensives by the Ethiopian Derg regime and had to abandon most of the liberated territories.