Midhat Frashëri

Mit’hat Frashëri (also known by his nom de plume as Lumo Skëndo; March 25, 1880, Janina, Janina Vilayet, Ottoman Empire – October 3, 1949, Long Island, New York) 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^[2] and in 1942 became the president of Balli Kombëtar (National Front) and finally fought as an ally of German forces and also his cousin became the prime minister of the puppet government of Albania. He is considered by many to be the father of Albanian Nationalism.^[3]

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 autonomy from Othoman Empire) and nephew of the poets and nationalists Naim Frashëri and Sami Frashëri. Born in Janina (present day Ioannina) in 1880 and was raised in Istanbul.^[4] 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.^[4] Using the pen name Lumo Skendo, he began publishing the weekly newspaper “Lirija” in Salonika, which lasted until 1910.^[4] 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.^[4]

Congress of Monastir

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

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.^[4] 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.^[4] On 25 November 1920, he was appointed chairman of the Albanian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, where he remained until 1922.^[4] 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.^[4]

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, and also worked as a pharmacist. 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

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 and fought antifascists groups in alliance with the German occupation forces. During 1944 he joined the German Forces as an ally and fought the anti-nazi guerrilla groups.^[5] His cousin became the prime minister of 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.^[4] In August 1949, he was elected as head of a "Free Albania" National Committee. He died of a heart attack at the Lexington Hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York^[4] and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery in New York.

His cousin, Mehdi Frashëri, served as Albanian Prime Minister under a German-backed Albanian Government.

Legacy

Midhat Frashëri was a man of short stature with a speech impediment. He was a beloved leader and also a bibliophile.^[6] His library, one of the finest in the Balkans, became the basis for the Albanian National Library. 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.^[7]

He was described by an Italian journalist as a man who dressed very properly with very clean white cuffs and very white hair.^[6]

Although Frashëri was one of the signers of the Albanian Declaration of Independence in 1912, the Communists, after taking over in 1945, deleted his name from the official documents.^[6]

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^[8]"

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

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