Ahmet Zogu

Ahmet Zogu (portrait photo, date unknown)

Ahmet Zogu , in German-language literature mostly Achmed (also Ahmed in English ; * October 8, 1895 as Ahmet Muhtar Bej Zogolli in Burgajet, Mat ; † April 9, 1961 in Suresnes , France ), was President of Albania from 1925 to 1928 and from 1928 to 1939 as Zogu I. King of the Albanians .

Career

origin

Ahmet Zogu was born in his parents' fortress Burgajet in the Mat region in the hilly Albanian hinterland in a strongly traditional, Muslim society. His father Xhemal Pascha Zogu was a local feudal lord ( Bajraktar ) from the House of Zogu , who had provided the hereditary governors of Mat for the Ottoman sultans since the late 15th century . His mother Sadije Toptani , Zogu's second wife, came from the family of the landowner Essad Pascha Toptani , whom the journalist Joseph Swire described as a "ruthless political adventurer" and who was murdered in 1920 by Avni Rustemi . Ahmed was not the firstborn, but was always the preferred son in the house - the firstborn was his half-brother Xhelal Bey Zogu . As a young boy he was sent to Istanbul for training, where he attended Galatasaray High School. When his father died in 1911, he returned to Albania to succeed him.

Steep political career

During the First World War , Zogu tried to expand his sphere of influence over Mat by taking advantage of the chaotic conditions. Thanks to the fact that he and armed followers from Mat showed up at the right time in the as yet unoccupied Durrës , he was able to exert political influence. In February 1916, for example, he had a leading position in the provisional national assembly, to which some Albanians united (see Principality of Albania ). This Albanian independence movement was not in the interests of the new occupiers of northern and central Albania, Austria-Hungary . On the other hand, they wanted Zogu as their ally and declared him a colonel in their Austro-Hungarian army . He commanded small units with little success and was subsequently sent to Vienna and held there until the end of the war.

At the Lushnja Congress in January 1920, when the Albanians began to govern their country independently again, Zogu was also there. In the government elected in Lushnja under Sulejman Bej Delvina , the young Zogu received the post of interior minister . In this position he quickly gained influence. In quick succession there were legal and illegal changes of government, with Zogu also expanding his circle of power by force of arms. Zogu and his loyal followers from Mat were repeatedly able to repel rebellions, such as one by Bajram Curri in 1922 . On December 26, 1922, Zogu became the seventh Prime Minister of Albania since the Lushnya Congress.

Although Zogu was able to hold this position for a relatively long time, it was not undisputed. On February 23, 1923, he was shot in parliament, but not critically injured. The new prime minister was the father of his fiancée, the landowner Shefqet Vërlaci . A united uprising of the opposition in the spring of 1924 was successful: Zogu fled the country to the neighboring kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and Fan Noli became the new prime minister. In December 1924, however, Zogu was back in Tirana . With Yugoslav support, he had assembled a large army. In return he promised them a small piece of Albanian land, the monastery Sveti Naum (Alb. Shën Naum ) on Lake Ohrid . Most of the opposition left the country.

president

President Ahmet Zogu on a contemporary Albanian 100 gold franc banknote from 1926

On January 21, 1925 Zogu was Albania from Parliament to the Republic after American model explain. On January 31, 1925, he was elected President . Zogu did not allow a parliamentary opposition. He ensured compliance of the legislative assembly through his extensive client relationships and the threat and use of violence. However, Zogu's opponents tried several times to get rid of him by assassination attempts, and hundreds of Albanians had sworn him blood feuds whose family members had allegedly or actually been murdered by Zogu and his followers.

The power that the new constitution gave Zogu was very extensive. Despite everything, it was not easy for him to solve the great problems of the very backward country. Above all, the state lacked the necessary finances to carry out the necessary reforms and to maintain the state apparatus and the military. Zogu had to buy the loyalty of regional tribal leaders and beys again and again . He based his rule on alliances with local feudal lords. Therefore, he shied away from introducing a tax system that would have given the large estates a fair share in the financing of the state. But because real estate taxes would have been the only way for the state to generate significant income, the Albanian government under Zogu had almost no income of its own and the financial requirements had to be covered by loans abroad, which led to political dependence. Zogu at least succeeded in slowly awakening the “feeling of an Albanian nation” in the Albanians, for whom previously only their own clan had usually been of importance.

In order not to get into the dependency of a single, not always friendly-minded state, Zogu turned away from Yugoslavia and looked for the one of Viktor Emanuel III. or Benito Mussolini- led Kingdom of Italy support. In 1926 and 1927, the Italians bought great influence on the other side of the Adriatic in the First and Second Tirana Pacts .

King of the Albanians

Ahmet Zogu with wife Geraldine and family, year unknown

On September 1, 1928, Zogu was crowned King of the Albanians and declared the country a constitutional monarchy . In order to justify his claim to power, he declared himself a descendant of the national hero Skanderbeg .

Royal monogram

Zogu's regime brought Albania a certain stability and a small economic boom bought with Italian investment capital. With Italian support, the army and the authorities were built up, roads and bridges were built and the first swamps were drained. Little Albania came more and more into financial dependence and under the control of Italy. Its dictator Benito Mussolini aimed to expand his influence in the Balkans (see irredentism ). Zogu's attempts to gradually break away from Italy and find other partners met with little support in Western Europe.

Domestically, Zogu relied on repression from the beginning of his rule. There was no free press. During his reign as king, the newly established prisons filled with political opponents . The dungeon of the Zogu regime, which was operated at the castle in Gjirokastra by the Italian and German occupiers and later by the communist regime, is now a museum. The victims of the first Albanian dictatorship are also remembered there.

On February 20, 1931, two Albanians living in exile carried out a revolver attack on Zogu on the ramp in front of the Vienna State Opera ; he was uninjured, but his adjutant was shot in the head.

On April 27, 1938, Zogu married the impoverished Hungarian- American Countess Geraldine Apponyi . Before that, he had an affair for years with Franziska Janko, a daughter of a Viennese gardener posing as a baroness and later Baroness Franziska von Buttlar.

On April 5, 1939, Queen Geraldine gave birth to a son, Leka I. On April 7 , Italian troops invaded Albania after Zogu had previously rejected Italian demands that were unreasonable for a sovereign state. Albania was occupied by Italian troops , an Italian protectorate and in personal union by King Victor Emanuel III. ruled. Zogu and his family fled to Greece .

Exile and death

Former grave of King Zogu I in the Cimetière parisien in Thiais near Paris

The family spent the following years in Great Britain and Egypt . Zogu made it clear that he was still the rightful head of state of Albania. After the Second World War , the communists came to power under Enver Hoxha . On January 2, 1946, Zogu resigned from office, but continued to claim the throne.

After stays in Great Britain and Egypt, he died of gastric cancer in France in 1961 and was buried at the Cimetière parisien in Thiais near Paris .

Attempts to instigate revolutions in Albania were unsuccessful. After the political change of 1991 there were efforts to re-establish the monarchy under the leadership of his son Leka, which the Albanian people spoke out against in a 1997 referendum .

On November 16, 2012, Ahmet Zogu's remains were brought from Paris to Tirana . The new burial took place on November 17th in the presence of high political officials and many descendants of the Zogu family. The new coffin is now buried in the new mausoleum of the Zogus near the former royal palace in Tirana. The burial ceremony was attended by the head of state Bujar Nishani , the prime minister Sali Berisha , the parliamentary president Jozefina Topalli , the mayor of Tirana, Lulzim Basha , the deputy prime minister of Hungary , Zsolt Semjén , the Kosovar president, Atifete Jahjaga , and many others.

literature

• Peter Bartl: Zogu, Ahmed . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 4. Munich 1981, pp. 497-501
• Bernd Jürgen Fischer: King Zog and the struggle for stability in Albania . University of Michigan, East European Monographs, 1984, ISBN 0-88033-051-1 .
• Owen Pearson: Albania in the twentieth century , Volume 1: Albania and King Zog. Independence, republic and monarchy 1908-1939. Center for Albanian Studies et al., London et al. 2004, ISBN 1-84511-013-7 .
• Michael Schmidt-Neke : Development and expansion of the royal dictatorship in Albania (1912–1939). Formation of government, mode of rule and power elite in a young Balkan state. Oldenbourg, Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-54321-0 ( Southeast European Works 84).
• Jason H. Tomes: King Zog of Albania. Europe's self-made Muslim king. = King Zog of Albania. Europe's self-made Muslim monarch. New York University Press, New York NY 2004, ISBN 0-8147-8283-3 .
• Miranda Vickers: The Albanians. A modern history . Tauris, London et al. 1995, ISBN 1-85043-749-1 .

Web links

Commons : Ahmet Zogu  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Robert Elsie: Albanian Voices - King Zog (with Zog's audio recording as MP3 file)
• "The King of the Albanians" (article in the newsletter Albania)
• Newspaper article about Ahmet Zogu in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Michael Schmidt-Neke: Development and expansion of the royal dictatorship in Albania (1912-1939) , page 141. Munich 1987. ISBN 3-486-54321-0 .
2. ^ The assassination attempt on King Zogu at the Vienna State Opera. The revolver battle on February 20th. In:  Neue Freie Presse , Abendblatt, No. 24082/1931, September 30, 1931, p. 3, above. (Online at ANNO ). .
3. ^ The Balkans in the Operngasse (The Hour) . In: Texts and Documents of Albanian History. February 24, 1931, archived from the original on October 13, 2012 ; Retrieved on November 7, 2015 (English, excerpts from an article in the newspaper “Die Stunden” from February 22 and 24, 1931, translated by Robert Elsie ). 
4. ^ According to a report in "Revue" No. 40 of October 3, 1953.
5. ↑ Died: Ahmed Zogu , in: DER SPIEGEL 17/1961, p.99 . Retrieved August 6, 2015.
6. ↑ The only king of Albania buried in Tirana - Albania - derStandard.at
7. ↑ Homazhet për ish-Mbretin Zog. Top Channel , November 17, 2012, accessed November 17, 2012 (Albanian). 

predecessor	Office	successor
Xhafer Ypi	Prime Minister of Albania 1922–1924	Shefqet Vërlaci
Fan Noli	President of Albania 1925–1928	-
-	King of Albania 1928–1939	Victor Emmanuel III
Xhemal Pasha	Head of the House of Zogu 1928–1961	Leka I.