Mid'hat Frasheri

Mid'hat Frashëri was an Albanian diplomat, writer and politician. He was the son of Abdyl Frashëri, one of the most important activists of the Albanian National Awakening, and the nephew of the poets and nationalists Naim Frashëri and Sami Frashëri. He was born in Ioannina, then part of the Ottoman Empire, in 1880 and was raised in Istanbul, where his family worked in the Ottoman administration and organised the Albanian nationalist movement. He published a yearly almanac called Kalendari Kombiar (National Calendar) and a weekly newspaper called Lirija (Freedom) under the pen name Lumo Skendo. He advocated for national unity, development of Albanian education, schools and literature, and opposed foreign power intervention in Albanian affairs. He also called for government reforms and an alliance with Macedonians to achieve those aims, but he was against armed resistance. He participated in the Congress of Monastir in 1908, where he contributed to the standardisation of the Albanian alphabet. After the declaration of Albanian independence in 1912, he served as a minister, a diplomat and a representative of the Albanian state in various international conferences. He was also involved in the formation of the Albanian Literary Commission in 1916. During the Second World War, he became the president of Balli Kombëtar (National Front), an Albanian fascist and collaborationist movement that resisted the Italian and German occupation, as well as the communist-led National Liberation Movement. He also founded the Committee for Free Albania in 1943, which aimed to secure the recognition and support of the Western Allies for the Albanian cause. He died of a heart attack in New York in 1949, where he was buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery. He is regarded as one of the fathers of modern Albanian nationalism.