Sulejman Delvina

Sulejman Delvina (1920-1925)

Sulejman Bej Delvina (born October 5, 1884 in Delvina , † August 1, 1933 in Vlora ) was an Albanian politician. Shortly after regaining his country's political independence, he led Albania's first generally recognized post-war government as Prime Minister in 1920 . In 1924 he was a minister in Fan Noli's cabinet .

Life

Training and career as an Ottoman civil servant

Sulejman Bej Delvina came from a wealthy Muslim family. He attended the Turkish-language elementary school in his birthplace and then continued his education at the Zosimea high school in Ioannina . After graduating from high school, he studied in Istanbul and entered the Ottoman civil service after graduating in 1898 . First he was a civil servant in the Ministry of the Interior, then a secretary in the Prime Minister's office, which was responsible for drafting ordinances. At the same time he taught at the Galatasaray State Lyceum . He rose to head of section in the Ministry of the Interior, where he was responsible for the administrative authorities of the Vilayets .

Sulejman Delvina was involved in various patriotic and cultural associations of the Albanians living in the Ottoman capital . When the movement of the Young Turks , who had come to power in 1908, took on more and more aggressive nationalist traits, Delvina turned against them and confessed to being an Albanian patriot. In July 1911, for example, he supported a rally by Albanian students who demanded the introduction of Albanian as the language of instruction and administration in their homeland . In November 1911 he represented these demands in a petition to the Sultan.

Even after Albania's independence was proclaimed in Vlora in November 1912 , Sulejman Delvina remained in Constantinople, where he continued to work in the Ottoman civil service until the end of the First World War . Because of this, he was not involved in the party struggles of the Albanian Beys, which prevented the establishment of a functioning state in Albania until the outbreak of World War I and ultimately favored the occupation of the neutral country by the warring powers in 1914, with part of the Albanian elite mutating discredited through collaboration with one or the other war party.

Paris Peace Conference and Lushnja Congress

When Albania was about to regain its independence in 1919, the Albanian community of Istanbul sent Sulejman Delvina, who was neutral as far as internal Albanian disputes were concerned, to the Paris Peace Conference to speak for his people there. There was no official Albanian delegation; instead, Albanians sent by various groups tried to win the Entente diplomats for the Albanian cause between the sessions of the conference. From April 1919 on, Delvina stayed in Paris for about six months without being able to achieve anything decisive. The Entente Powers gave no guarantee for the Albanian state , despite US advocacy. Only the negative result for the Albanians was certain: Kosovo would be part of the newly formed Yugoslavia .

In January 1920 Sulejman Delvina reported to the Albanian leaders who had gathered at the Lushnja Congress on the negotiations in Paris. It was agreed to re-establish the Albanian state within the borders established in 1913 without international recognition, and Delvina was elected Prime Minister of the first Albanian post-war government by the deputies.

Prime Minister of Albania

During his ten-month term in office, Sulejman Delvina laid the foundations for the Albanian state in many areas. In terms of foreign policy, he prepared the way for international recognition of his country through skilful negotiations. As a recognized administrative expert, Delvina was not only given the office of Prime Minister in Lushnja , but he was also appointed Deputy Minister of the Interior, Justice and Finance. In these functions, he began to build a nationwide police force, establish courts and raise funds for the government.

In February 1920 Delvina and his government moved to the city of Tirana , which the Congress of Lushnja had declared the new capital. After the French troops withdrew from Shkodra , this important northern Albanian city submitted to the all-Albanian government on March 13th. The latter then took on the task of defending Shkodra against Yugoslav units that had penetrated Albanian territory after the French had withdrawn. In order to defend the borders and restore order, the government began to set up a gendarmerie battalion in each prefecture. Only a few police units remained from World War II in the larger cities of Shkodra, Durrës , Elbasan and Korça .

Since an orderly tax system was still lacking, the government issued a domestic loan of over two million francs at the beginning of March 1920 in order to finance the most urgent state tasks. No one abroad was willing to give Albania a loan. When the French-occupied Korça was reunited with Albania a little later, the government was able to take over the treasury there, which was filled with two million francs. Apart from the meager customs revenue, these were the only resources Sulejman Delvina had at his disposal during his tenure.

In May the government began reforming the judiciary. After independence in 1912, the Qemali government allowed the old Turkish courts to continue to exist and that was also the case under Prince Wilhelm . Delvina now appointed justice of the peace as the lowest instance , following the Western European model . The next instances were district and prefecture courts (alb. Gjykata e Fillimit or Gjykata e Përtërimit ). A court of appeal (alb. Gjykata e Diktimit ) was also set up as the highest court. Under Delvina's direction, extensive instructions were also drawn up for civil servants as to which technical terms they had to use in official correspondence. This paper marked the beginning of efforts to further develop Albanian as an administrative language.

On May 28, 1920 Sulejman Delvina met with representatives of the Greek government in the border town of Kapshtica . Both sides signed a protocol in which they recognized the border drawn in 1913. At the end of May, Italy also recognized the government in Tirana as the legitimate one of Albania. Until then, Rome had not accepted the new situation created by the Lushnja Congress, in particular the dismissal of the puppet government installed by the Italians in Durrës at the end of 1918. Because Sulejman Delvina did not want to question this foreign policy success, he was unable to openly support the irregulars fighting in the Vlora region. (The important port city was still occupied by Italian troops.) However, the government supplied the combatants with weapons and food. Delvina distanced himself more clearly from the hopeless uprising of the Albanians in Kosovo against the Yugoslav rule by rejecting arms deliveries initiated by Gabriele D'Annunzio to the Kosovars, which were supposed to go through Albanian ports. The Prime Minister told Bajram Curri that Albania was too weak to be able to intervene militarily on the Kosovo issue; the diplomatic path would remain.

Worn down by three months of guerrilla fighting, the Italians were ready at the end of August 1920 to return Vlora to Albania. A corresponding agreement was concluded. With this, Sulejman Delvina and his government had established their rule throughout Albania within the borders of 1913 and secured the country's territorial integrity.

In the autumn of 1920 a movement formed, especially in the south of the country, which called for parliamentary elections to be held soon . This movement was also directed against the Delvina government insofar as it was led by large landowners, some of whom had belonged to the 1919 pro-Italian government and who had been temporarily ousted from power by the Lushnja and Suleyman Delvina congresses. Delvina believed that she no longer had the confidence of the population and therefore resigned with his cabinet on November 14, 1920. In a newspaper article Delvina was praised as "educated, strong character and true statesman" after his term in office.

Ministerial Offices and Emigration

The first Albanian parliamentary elections took place in February and March of the following year and actually resulted in a majority for the so-called progressives , the block of Muslim landowners who had successfully mobilized their clientele. Nonetheless, Delvina personally won a parliamentary mandate, and the generally recognized administrative expert soon returned to government responsibility. Iljaz Bej Vrioni , his successor as Prime Minister, appointed him Minister of the Interior in July 1921. He only held this post for three months until Vrioni resigned. Sulejman Delvina was then foreign minister in the liberal government of Fan Noli in the second half of 1924.

After Ahmet Zogu's successful coup against the Noli government, Delvina left Albania for a few years and lived as an emigrant in various European countries. In 1931 he returned to his home country ill; he died in Vlora the following year. He was buried in an honorary grave in his hometown.

Honor

Monument to Sulejman Delvina in Tirana

Sulejman Delvina is considered one of the most important Albanian statesmen in the history of Albania . Together with other politicians in the Lushnja Congress, he expanded the state apparatus, was able to preserve the territorial integrity of Albania and was very much appreciated in his time.

After Delvina, streets, squares, schools, etc. were built in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia . named. There are busts and statues of him in many cities.

Remarks

1. ↑ Albanians continued the titles they had acquired in the Ottoman Empire as part of the name even after their country became independent.

literature

• Sherif Delvina, Dashnor Kaloçi: Roli i Sulejman Delvinës si atdhetar dhe Kryeministër i Shqipërisë . In: Gazeta Shqip 19./20. April 2008. (Detailed article about Delvina's term of office as Prime Minister, created using numerous documents from the Albanian State Archives in Tirana.)
• Robert Elsie: Historical Dictionary of Albania . (= European Historical Dictionaries; 42). Lanham 2004, ISBN 0-8108-4872-4 .
• K. Lange: Delvina, Sulejman Pascha . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 1. Munich 1974, p. 387 f.
• Owen Pearson: Albania and King Zog. Independence, Republic and Monarchy 1908-1939 . (= Albania in the twentieth century; 1). London 2004, ISBN 1-84511-013-7 .
• Michael Schmidt-Neke: Development and expansion of the royal dictatorship in Albania (1912–1939) . (= Southeast European Works 84) Munich 1987, ISBN 3-486-54321-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ali Këlcyrë: Rregulli i Shtetit in: Mbrojtja Kombëtare v. November 11, 1920

predecessor	Office	successor
Turhan Pasha Përmeti	Prime Minister of Albania 1920	Ilyaz Bej Vrioni