Death can be a powerful reminder. When Nexhmije Hoxha quietly passed away on February 26, at almost 100 years of age, many Albanians had forgotten she was still alive. It’s a risk you always take if you hang around too long. In the days that followed, the dictator’s wife was once again a ubiquitous presence, from private conversations to newspapers and talk shows.

Nexhmije Hoxha is certainly one of the most controversial figures in modern Albanian history — as was the regime of which she was part. History is not always kind to women. And by outliving both her husband, Enver, and the postwar dictatorship in Albania, Nexhmije was bound to bring down on her own head the rage and disappointment of an entire nation.

It’s not always easy for a country to accept its failures — the passing of its illusions, and the end of its bid to reach a future that never came. The late Nexhmije stood in for all this. She was, too often, portrayed with a language full of Macbethian undertones: thirsty for power and ready to liquidate political opponents. In the public narrative of the early 1990s she became the Ghoulish Lady, as Fahri Bariu called her in his biography.