Dervish Hima

Dervish Hima

Dervish Hima actually Ibrahim Mehmet Naxhi (* 1873 in Struga , Ottoman Empire , † April 13, 1928 in Tirana , Albania ) was an Albanian politician, publicist, journalist, diplomat and co-signer of the declaration of independence of Albania in Vlora on November 28, 1912. He was an important representative of the Albanian national movement Rilindja .

Life

Dervish Hima completed his school education in Bitola (Monastir) and in Thessaloniki . He studied for two years at the Istanbul Military Medicine College . There he had contacts to the Young Turks Movement , which prompted him to think about the situation in his Albanian homeland.

In the years from 1895 to the First World War , Dervish Hima went to various countries in order to disseminate his position on the Albanian question in writings and articles . He criticized the incumbent Sultan Abdülhamid II and was committed to the liberation of the Albanian areas from Ottoman rule. The Ottoman authorities then observed Dervish Hima and he was arrested several times. Among other things, he was arrested by Ottoman police authorities in Shkodra in 1908 for a speech on Albanian autonomy.

Dervish Hima among Albanian resistance fighters in 1913.

He supported the rapprochement between the Macedonian and Albanian resistance fighters against the Serbian conquerors during the Ohrid Debar uprising in 1913.

In the fall of 1917, Dervish Hima was appointed school inspector for the Tirana District.

During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 , Dervish Hima criticized the great powers for their “appetite for conquest” in his writings.

In 1920 he became the first director of the Albanian Press Office.

Dervish Hima died in Tirana on April 13, 1928 .

Activity as editor

In Bucharest , Dervish Hima published the newspaper Pavarësia e Shqipërisë (Albanian Independence) for a short time in 1898 , which appeared in Albanian , French and Romanian . In October 1899 he went to Rome and edited, together with Mehmet Bey Frashëri, the magazine Zëri i Shqipërisë (Voice of Albania) , which appeared in Albanian and French. In 1903 Dervish Hima published the magazine L'Albanie (Albania) , which initially appeared every two weeks in Geneva and from 1905 to 1906 monthly in Brussels . In 1909 he published the magazine Shqipëtari-Arnavud (The Albanian) in Istanbul together with Hilë Mosi . This magazine was supported by Austria-Hungary until it was banned in 1910.

literature

• Robert Elsie: Historical Dictionary of Albania. Second edition. Toronto and Plymouth 2010: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6188-6 .