Abdyl Frashëri

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Abdyl Frashëri
Hero of the People

Abdyl Dume bey Frashëri (Turkish: Fraşerli Abdül Bey, or Abdullah Hüsni; 1 June 1839 – 23 October 1892) was an Ottoman Albanian civil servant, politician during the First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire, and one of the first Albanian political ideologues of the Albanian National Awakening.[2] During his lifetime Frashëri endeavoured to instill among Albanians patriotism and a strong identity while promoting a reform program based on Albanian language education and literature.[3]

He was one of the initiators and a prominent leader of the

Hero of Albania
.

Early life

Abdyl Frashëri was born in 1839 in the village of

Imrahor Ilyas Bey, a distinguished 15th century Ottoman Albanian commander from the Korçë area.[5]

Museum house of the Frashëri Brothers in Frashër, Përmet, Albania

Being the eldest brother of

Gegëria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Thessaly and Macedonia
with the last two often on the verge of uprisings by Greek rebels. During these expeditions, Abdyl was part of his father's military contingent and served as a captain of the Albanian forces.

His father died in 1859 and so Abdyl became the head of the household, as his five brothers and two sisters were all younger than him. After two years, his mother died. So Frashëri became head of the household and moved the family to

Mit’hat Frashëri
and their daughter lived. She was named after Frashëri's mother, Emine.

Political activity

Work for the Autonomy of Albania (1860s-late 1870s)

Abdul Frashëri distinguished himself as a prominent Albanian statesman and political personality in the early 1860s. He was the member for Yanina in the first Ottoman Parliament.

Cham Albanian leader Abedin Dino as its co-founder. There he drafted the Declaration of Autonomous Albania within the Ottoman Empire,[9] a project that eventually won over the majority of the representatives from across Albania at the Albanian Congress in Prizren
in 1878.

His hopes however for an autonomous Albanian state were threatened by

Stephanos Skouloudis rejected the coalition, because he was against an autonomous Albania within its ethnic boundaries, and the talks failed.[10] Frashëri intensified his political alliance with the Ottoman authorities and by 1877, along with many other prominent Albanian compatriots, founded the Central Committee for Defending Albanian Rights based in Istanbul.[11][4]

Head of Central Committee for Defence and Rights of the Albanian People

At the end of 1877 he founded and was elected chairman of the

Albanian vilayet
would be realised, it would recognise Albania's borders and would give Albanians an upper hand in preparations for the self-defence of their homeland.

Provisional Government of Albania

Main article: League of Prizren

The Treaty of

Berlin Congress triggered profound anxiety among the Albanian population and it spurred their leaders to organise a national defence of the lands they inhabited.[4] Thus, in the spring of 1878, influential Albanians met in Constantinople, headed by Frashëri and other leading figures of the Albanian national movement. They organised a committee to direct the Muslim Albanians' resistance. In May the group called for a general meeting of representatives from all the Albanian-populated lands. On 10 June 1878, about eighty delegates, mostly Muslim religious leaders, clan chiefs and other influential people from the four Albanian-populated Ottoman vilayets, met in the Kosovo city of Prizren.[4] The delegates set up a standing organisation, the League of Prizren, under the direction of a central committee that had the power to impose taxes and raise an army.[4] The League of Prizren worked to gain autonomy for the Albanians and to thwart implementation of the Treaty of San Stefano and that of Berlin Congress, but not to create an independent Albania.[4] The delegates agreed on a minimalist position of preserving Albanian inhabited lands within the empire and upholding local privileges within the Ottoman system.[13] Frashëri and a few others wanted to organise Albanians into national movement and push for a united and autonomous Albania with national and cultural rights.[13] After some discussion other delegates present rejected those proposals.[13]

From the beginning the Ottoman authorities supported the League of Prizren, and had special relations with its head members of the League, especially with Frashëri who held the post of foreign minister of the League, and spokesman to the Sublime Porte. As one of the main authors of the political platform of the Central Committee of Istanbul, which Frashëri publicly stated through articles published in several organs of the Ottoman and European press during the spring of year 1878, he participated actively in establishing the League of Prizren. After the founding of the League, which adopted this platform, Abdyl Frashëri distinguished himself as a leader of the League.[4] Its main activities developed especially in areas of the Janina and Kosovo vilayets. He participated in almost all the major assemblies organized by the General Council of the League of Albanian or its interregional committees. In the League of Prizren's founding assembly he was elected chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Frashëri, like other League delegates, returned home to create local committees and prepare military forces for resistance[14] and gained support from Albanians in Istanbul and from Southern Albania (Toskëria).[15]

Monument to Abdul Frashëri in Tiranë (left); Monument to Frashëri brothers in Tiranë with Abdul first on the left (right)

He travelled throughout the Vilayet of Yanina going from Yanina to Preveza and Berat to unite and mobilise Albanians. However some places rejected his attempts.

Çameria being ceded to Greece.[19]

Representing the League of Prizren during May 1879 Frashëri and Mehmet Ali Bey Vrioni sent telegrams to the European capitals of Vienna, Paris and Berlin petitioning the Great Powers against Greek and Serb claims to Albanian inhabited land and calling for socio-political and education reforms in the empire.[20] A petition was also sent by Frashëri and Vrioni to the Italian prime minister.[21] Frashëri explored his contacts with Italian officials hoping to gain their support on the Albanian question.[22] He understood that Italy wished to keep out other powers from Albania, in particular the southern areas, as it viewed the region strategically important and wanted to increase its influence in the Adriatic Sea.[22]

In the spring of 1879 Frashëri headed the Prizren League delegation which intended to visit the capitals of the major European Powers to protect the integrity of the Albanian lands and the rights of the Albanians.[23] When Frashëri and Vrioni arrived in Rome in April,[21] the Italian government attempted to persuade Frashëri into cooperating with the Greeks which he rejected saying "the Greeks do not want to recognize our rights; they want subjects and not equals".[24] Ottoman media presented the Rome visit as an attempt by Frashëri and Vrioni to push for Albanian autonomy.[21] Frashëri was also the main promoter in favour of forming an interim Albanian government. He also led the National Assembly of Gjirokastër that took the decision to create an autonomous Albanian state.[25] He was part of the movement proposing that the Albanians should be armed.[26] Frashëri defended the program of Gjirokastër in the Second Assembly of Debar, where as always led the radical wing of the movement. Although the autonomy program was not accepted by all representatives,[25] Frashëri moved to Kosovo and there he started to put into action the decisions taken at Gjirokastër.

In early 1881 the autonomous interim government was formed in Prizren, headed by Prime Minister

Mutasarrıf) and the administrator's supporters.[30]

Suppression of the League of Prizren, arrest and imprisonment

After the Provisional Government of the League was eventually suppressed by the Ottoman Empire, and numerous battles were fought between the League Army and Ottoman Forces during the summer of 1881, Frashëri along with many other members and notables of the Prizren League, were captured and arrested by the commander in chief Marshall Dervish Pasha.[31] Frashëri was sentenced to death[32] by an Ottoman Special Trial. The sentence however was reduced by Abdul Hamid II to prison with hard labour and he was incarcerated in a castle jail in Prizren[31][32] for 3 years (1882–1885). After his release from the Prizren castle prison he was moved to Istanbul. He was finally released for health reasons in 1886, on the condition that he give up any political or patriotic activity.

At this time Frashëri corresponded with European leaders such as Italian prime minister Francesco Crispi on the Albanian geopolitical question.[33] Frashëri's views were that the partition of Albania by foreign powers would result in fierce Albanian resistance.[33] His solution was European intervention resulting in an autonomous or small kingdom of Albania defined along ethnographic and geographic frontiers within a Balkan confederation or under a great power that adhered to European laws and political organisation.[33] Although ill and isolated, he never gave up his patriotic ideas until his death on 23 October 1892 in Istanbul.[31] The Turkish government arranged for his remains to be transferred to Albania[1] and in 1978 the remains were brought to Tirana on the 100th anniversary of the League of Prizren.

External links

References

  1. ^ a b Gawrych 2006, p. 200.
  2. ISBN 963-7326-52-9
    , the first political ideologue of the Albanian Revival...
  3. ^ Gawrych 2006, p. 204.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Skendi 1967, pp. 36–38.
  5. ^ a b c d Gawrych 2006, p. 13.
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-1-84511-031-4
    .
  7. ^ a b c d Gawrych 2006, pp. 40–42.
  8. ^ Skendi 1967, p. 119.
  9. ^ a b c Gawrych 2006, p. 40.
  10. ^ a b Skendi 1967, p. 55.
  11. ^ "Komiteti i Stambollit dhe platforma e tij politike".
  12. ^ a b Gawrych 2006, p. 44.
  13. ^ a b c Gawrych 2006, p. 46.
  14. ^ a b Skendi 1967, pp. 41–43.
  15. ^ Gawrych 2006, p. 50.
  16. ^ Gawrych 2006, pp. 52, 60, 71.
  17. ^ a b c Gawrych 2006, p. 52.
  18. ^ Gawrych 2006, p. 51.
  19. ^ Skendi 1967, pp. 70–73.
  20. ^ Gawrych 2006, pp. 56–57, 60.
  21. ^ a b c Gawrych 2006, p. 57.
  22. ^ a b Gawrych 2006, pp. 52–53.
  23. ^ Gawrych 2006, p. 60.
  24. ^ Skendi 1967, pp. 85–86.
  25. ^ a b Skendi 1967, pp. 88–92.
  26. ^ Skendi 1967, pp. 79–80.
  27. ^ Skendi 1967, pp. 101–102.
  28. ^ Gawrych 2006, pp. 66–67.
  29. ^ a b Gawrych 2006, p. 67.
  30. ^ a b Skendi 1967, p. 98.
  31. ^ a b c Skendi 1967, p. 105.
  32. ^
    ISBN 9781845112875
    .
  33. ^
    ISBN 9781400847761
    .
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