Midhat Frashëri

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Mit’hat Frashëri
Mit'hat Frashëri
Founder of Balli Kombëtar
Personal details
Born (1880-03-25)March 25, 1880
Ioannina, Greece, then Ottoman Empire
Died 3 October 1949(1949-10-03) (aged 69)
Long Island, New York, USA
Nationality Albania Albanian
Political party Balli Kombëtar
Relations Abdyl Frashëri(Father)
Naim Frashëri(Uncle)
Sami Frashëri(Uncle)
Mehdi Frashëri(Cousin)
Ali Sami Yen(Cousin)
Occupation Poet, Politician
Religion Islam

Mit’hat Frashëri (also known by his nom de plume as Lumo Skëndo; March 25, 1880, Janina, Janina Vilayet, Ottoman Empire – October 3, 1949, New York, Long Island) was an Albanian diplomat, writer and politician. The son of Abdyl Frashëri, one of the most important activists of the Albanian National Awakening in 1908 he participated in the Congress of Monastir[1] and in 1942 became the president of Balli Kombëtar (National Front). He is considered by many to be the father of Albanian Nationalism.[2]

M.Frasheri

Biography

Early life

Mid’hat bey Frashëri was the son of prominent Albanian politician and statesman from 19th century Abdyl Frashëri(who initiated the movement of a wide authonomy from Othoman Empire) and nephew of the poets and nationalists Naim Frashëri and Sami Frashëri. Born in Janina (present day Ioannina) in 1883 and was raised in Istanbul.[3] In Istanbul, his family organised the Albanian nationalist movement. Giving up his studies of pharmacology, he worked for the Ottoman administration in the vilayet of Salonika from a period from 1905 to 1910.[3] Using the pen name Lumo Skendo, he began publishing the weekly newspaper “Lirija” in Salonika, which lasted until 1910.[3] He participated in the Congress of Monastir in 1908, and in January of the next year, he began editing a monthly magazine entitled “Diturija”, a magazine based on the cultural, literary and scholarly interest of Albania.[3]

Congress of Monastir

Main article: Congress of Manastir
Young Mit’hat Frashëri.

Mit’hat Frashëri was one of the fifty delegates that who helped form the modern Albanian alphabet. Mit'hat Frashëri became vice-chairman of the commission. Mit'hat Frashëri was also elected chairman of the congress and Parashqevi Qiriazi chairwoman of the commission of the alphabet, which was responsible for the organization of the various alphabet proposals.

Albanian Declaration of Independence

Main article: Albanian Declaration of Independence

Mid’hat bey’s political views took on a nationalist character during the Balkan Wars and in the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire when Albania was on the verge of being carved up by its Balkan neighbours. Mit’hat Frashëri was one of the eighty-three leaders meeting in Vlorë in November 1912. He was one of the signers of the declaration of independence and became the Minister of Public Services in the Provisional Government of Albania. He later became the Albanian consul general in Belgrade and postmaster general.[3] At the beginning of World War I, Met'hat was interned in Romania for a time, but after he was released, he returned to publishing. Mid’hat resided in Lausanne for a time with his cousin Mehdi Frashëri, where he was author of a number of newspaper articles and essays.[3] On 25 November 1920, he was appointed chairman of the Albanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, where he remained until 1922.[3] In Paris, he continued his journalistic activities in the French press to publicize Albania’s position in the postwar restructuring of Europe. He subsequently held other ministerial posts and was Albanian ambassador to Greece and to the United States from 1922 to 1926.[3]

Quiet period

Balli Kombëtar leaders Ali Këlcyra, Mit'hat Frashëri, Thoma Orollogaj (from left to right) in Berat.

Under the Zog regime in 1925, Mid’hat left public life and opened a bookstore in Tirana. He himself possessed an exceptionally large private library of some 20,000 volumes, the largest collection in the country at the time. With the rise of Germany and World War II looking inevitable, Mit'hat began forming the National Front (Balli Kombëtar) to use in the war to create Ethnic Albania.

Balli Kombëtar presidency

Main article: Balli Kombëtar

He was the leader of the Balli Kombëtar nationalist movement during the Second World War. Balli Kombëtar was a political organization that mainly fought for an Ethnic Albania.

After World War II and death

In 1945, the communists won the war in Albania. Mit'hat escaped the communists by fleeing to southern Italy. The early years of the cold war found Mid’hat Frashëri in the West trying to patch together a coalition of anti-communist opposition forces in Britain and the United States.[3] In August 1949, he was elected as head of a Free Albania Committee. He died of a heart attack at the Lexington Hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York.[3]

His cousin, Mehdi Frashëri, served as Albanian Prime Minister under a German-backed Albanian Government an her is the minister that refused to execute the Jewish people that lived in Albania.A a result of his bravery and the traditions of Albanians, after WWII the number of Jewish in Albania was higher than before WWII.

Legacy

Frashëri's entire library of some 20,000 volumes, the largest in Albania at that time, was confiscated by the new regime. The library included significant albanological works inherited from Franz Nopcsa von Felsö-Szilvás.[4]

Quotes

When Albania declared independence from the Ottoman Empire:

"Until now the Albanians have lived very little for themselves; their activity, their blood, their talents have profited their neighbors. They have consecrated their best for the good of others. Now they must live and work for themselves, for their Albania[5]"

In regards to Enver Hoxha's Albanian Communists:

"Quislings who collaborated with Tito[6]"
"These 'Quislings' are no longer Albanian. They have forgotten how to be Albanian[6]"

References

  1. ↑ Osmani, Tomor (1999). "Historia e alfabetit" [History of the Alphabet]. Udha e shkronjave shqipe [The Pathway of the Albanian Letters] (in Albanian). pp. 461–496. 
  2. ↑ Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Bernd Jürgen Fischer, Albanian identities: myth and history, C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2002, p. 91.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 Robert Elsie. "Mid’hat bey Frashëri:The Epirus Question - the Martyrdom of a People". Retrieved 18 June 2011. 
  4. ↑ The issue of Epirus in political writings of Mid'hat bey Frashëri - Halili, Rigels - Nationalities Affairs – Issue 31/2007. .
  5. ↑ The Albanians: an ethnic history from prehistoric times to the present by Jacques, Edwin E. (1995). The Albanians: An Ethnic History from Prehistoric Times to the Present. McFarland. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Frances Trix, The Sufi journey of Baba Rexheb, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009, p. 93.
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