Vatra (association)
Vatra ( Alb. For hearth fire , full name: Federata Panshqiptare Vatra , English Pan Albanian Federation Vatra ) is a nationalist - patriotic association of ethnic Albanian emigrants in North America. The Vatra was founded in April 1912 on the initiative of the Orthodox clergyman Fan Noli and the Muslim writer Faik Konica in Boston . These two became the first chairmen one after the other. Fourteen Albanian organizations active in the USA united in the Vatra to coordinate their activities. The main goals of the federation were to represent the interests of Albanian emigrants in the USA and to lobby politically for the emerging Albanian nation-state. The association's publication organ was the weekly Dielli , founded a few years earlier by Fan Noli . The Vatra was most important in the first 15 years after its foundation. During this time the association had over 70 branches in the USA and Canada.
As a representative of the Vatra, Faik Konica traveled in December 1912 to the London conference of ambassadors of the great European powers, which recognized the independence of Albania . In May 1913 the Vatra was represented by Konica at the Albanian National Congress in Trieste. After the First World War, the leaders of the Vatra gained access to US President Woodrow Wilson and were able to convince him to plead for the restoration of Albania at the Paris Peace Conference . Volunteers from the Vatra also took part in the fight against the Italian occupation forces in Vlora in 1920 . The founder of Vatra, Fan Noli, became the first representative of Albania to the League of Nations at the end of 1920 . In 1921 Noli was elected to the Albanian parliament. Around him the parliamentary club of the liberals was formed, which is sometimes referred to in historiography as the Vatra party. In the first half of the 1920s in particular, the association organized aid deliveries for the motherland, which was threatened by famine, and also helped set up schools. In 1926, Ahmet Zogu appointed Vatra chairman Konica as ambassador to Washington.
The Vatra had no relations with the governments installed by the Italians in occupied Albania (1939–1943) and with the communist rulers under Enver Hoxha (from 1944). From then on, the focus was on cultural work for the Albanian diaspora. The membership of the association was aging and declining because since the end of the 1940s, when the borders were closed, hardly any Albanian immigrants came to America. Nevertheless, the Vatra still exists today (2013). Their headquarters are in the Bronx, New York . The club's chairman is currently the doctor Gjon Bucaj. The centenary of the organization was widely recognized in the Albanian media in 2012.
swell
- Elsie, Robert : Historical Dictionary of Albania (= European Historical Dictionaries 42). Lanham 2004. ISBN 0-8108-4872-4 , p. 433
- Homepage of the Vatra
Individual evidence
- ↑ Federata pan-shqiptare 'Vatra' mbush sot 100 vjeç. In: Panorama Gazeta Online. April 28, 2012, Retrieved January 21, 2016 (Albanian).