Abaz Çelkupa

Abaz Dilaver Çelkupa or Abaz Efendi Çelkupa (1850-1926) was an Albanian politician and one of the delegates and signatories of the Albanian Declaration of Independence in 1912. He was among the key activists of the Albanian National Awakening.

Born in the city of Durrës, and educated in the city's kuttab, Çelkupa spent a number of years working within the Ottoman administration of the city and also served as the treasurer at the port's customs. However, Çelkupa would eventually play an active role in the Albanian independence movements, working alongside important figures such as Dom Nikollë Kaçorri and Ismail Qemali. Alongside other Albanian patriots from and working in Durrës, including Kaçorri, Neki Libohova, Sotir Veveçka, and Jahja Ballhysa, Çelkupa participated in and even helped in founding political societies concerned with pushing the usage of the Albanian language across schools in Ottoman Albania, as well as other efforts opposing the oppressive Young Turk administration and seeking to further Albanian interests. Examples of those societies being Vllaznia (founded in 1907) and Bashkimi (founded in 1909), in which Abaz held a senior key position. Abaz Çelkupa also maintained relations and communications with the Albanian diaspora, particularly with the politicized diaspora in Bucharest, Romania, which had been publishing the Drita magazine series, one of the first magazines in Albanian. Çelkupa aided in organizing and supporting the various anti-Ottoman uprisings (e.g. the revolts of 1910 and 1912) that took place across central and northern Albania, such as those in Kruja and Mati. In August 1912, Abaz and a few other patriots met with Zef Harapi, accompanied by a few Albanian beys and 100 highlanders from Malësia, near Shënavlash to discuss the liberation of Durrës. In the same year he accompanied Ismail Qemali and the other activists to Vlora as a representative for Durrës, where the Albanian state was finally declared independent, signing his name on the declaration as Abas Dilaver. The following year, he alongside Kristaq Rama, Dom Nikollë Kaçorri, Seid Kërtusha, and Ismail Myderrizi, were sent as delegates from Durrës to Kruja in order to negotiate with Essad Pasha Toptani, however the delegates left as they could not compromise or accept Toptani's ambitions which were in direct opposition to those of the Provisional Government of Albania. Toptani himself had established the pro-Ottoman and unrecognized Republic of Central Albania as a response to the provisional government founded by Qemali and the other Albanian activists.

As a result of his opposition to Toptani and the defeat of Prince Wilhelm of Wied by the pro-Ottoman Albanian rebels under Haxhi Qamili, Çelkupa and his family were forced to flee Durrës where their house and riches were plundered. They temporarily settled in Ulcinj, Montenegro, and eventually relocated to Shkodër where Abaz was able to reach out to other patriots such as Luigj Gurakuqi. From Shkodër he settled in Kruja.

On top of his native Albanian, Çelkupa was fluent in Italian and French, and also likely had an understanding of both Ottoman Turkish and Arabic as a result of his history working in the Ottoman administration and education in the Islamic schooling system.