From Objectification to Aesthetic Refusal: Ibrahim Rugova’s Contribution to the Ontology of Literature

This paper examines Ibrahim Rugova’s philosophical and theoretical contributions to literary studies, focusing on three central categories that define his aesthetics: objectification, the strategy of meaning, and aesthetic refusal. Through the reworking of phenomenological and ontological concepts, Rugova reformulates objectification as the process by which the inner world of personality becomes externalized in the literary work, thereby affirming the autonomy of art as a mode of being. His notion of the strategy of meaning, developed in dialogue with semiotics and structuralism, explains how literature generates both denotative meanings internal to the work and connotative meanings arising from interpretation. Finally, the concept of aesthetic refusal highlights the tension between literature and politics, showing how literature resists ideological and institutional pressures by affirming its autonomy. The study seeks to analyze and synthesize these concepts by examining Rugova’s theoretical–philosophical works, such as <i>Kah teoria Strategjia e kuptimit</i>, and <i>Refuzimi estetik</i>. <i>letrare</i>, through an interdisciplinary methodology that combines philosophical analysis, literary theory, and cultural critique. Taken together, the categories under discussion form a coherent ontology of the literary work that situates Rugova within multiple intellectual traditions that influenced him—including phenomenology, hermeneutics, information theory, structuralism, and dialectical philosophy—while simultaneously underscoring his originality in adapting these ideas to the Albanian intellectual context. The paper concludes that Rugova’s theoretical legacy, often overshadowed by his political role, offers a significant contribution to modern literary theory by defending the autonomy of literature and reaffirming its function as a distinctive mode of truth and human realization.