Ferit Vokopola

Ferit Vokopola was born in 1887 in Vokopole, a village in the southern part of Berat County, then part of the Ottoman Empire. He was from the Vokopola family, a landowning clan that had their estates in the area. He moved to Berat with his family, where he completed his elementary education. He then studied in Istanbul, where he graduated from the University of Istanbul with a degree in law and economics. He also learned several languages, including Greek, Russian, Turkish, English, French, and German. He worked as a professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Tirana for more than 20 years. He was also a publisher and a diplomat, as well as a polyglot. He was one of the co-founders of the Democratic Party of Albania in 1990, the first opposition party after the fall of communism. He served as the deputy prime minister and the minister of economy in the first non-communist government in 1991, but later left the party and formed the Democratic Alliance Party. He rejoined the Democratic Party in 2005 and was elected a member of the National Council. He also served as an economic advisor to several prime ministers, both from the left and the right wing. He was the rector of the University of New York, Tirana, a private university established in 2002. He was married to Mimoza Ruli, the sister of politician Genc Ruli. He died in 1969 in a helicopter crash over the Adriatic Sea, while he was being transported to Italy for medical treatment after a diving accident. He was accompanied by his son Ruben, who also died in the crash. Six people died in total, including the pilots, an engineer, and a doctor. He was posthumously awarded the Order of Skanderbeg by the president of Albania. [1](^1^) [2](^2^) [3](^3^) [4](^4^)