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ISMAIL QEMALI: MEMORANDUM SENT TO LORD EDWARD GREY Title: Memorandum presented to Lord Edward Grey, British Minister of Foreign Affairs and President-in-Chief of the Conference of Ambassadors of the Great Powers in London Originally published: Originally written in 1913 as a private memorandum Language: French The text used is from Ismail Qemali, Përmbledhje dokumentesh, ed. by T. Hoxha, (Tirana: Sh.B “8 Nëntori,” 1982), pp. 232–235. About the author Ismail Qemali bej Vlora (also known as Ismail Kemal Pasha) [1844, Vlora, (It. Valona, present-day west Albania) – 1919, Rome]: politician and publicist. He was born into a noble family and received his primary education in his native town of Vlora. Like many other Albanians, after graduating from the ‘Zosimea School’ in Janina (Gr. Ioannina, Tur. Yanya) in 1859, he moved to Istanbul, where he began his career in the Ottoman administration. He served as a counselor to Midhat Pasha during the preparation of the Ottoman constitution of 1876. Soon he became one of the main activists of Albanian nationalism in Istanbul. He joined the ‘Albanian Committee of Istanbul’ and published several articles demanding the implementation of decentralizing reforms, which was for him the only way to save the Ottoman Empire from its final demise. By the end of the 1890s, he became one of the leaders of the Albanian movement. On 28 April 1900, fearing persecution due to his political activity , he escaped from Istanbul with his family, fleeing first to Athens, and then to Rome, London, and finally Brussels. It was during this period that he formulated his program, the main postulate of which was the preservation of the status quo in the Balkans. According to Ismail Qemali, this would allow Albanians to fully implement highly needed educational and economic reforms. Simultaneously, he published several articles in the European and Albanian press. Following the changes implemented as a result of the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, he was elected deputy of the region of Berat and became one of the leaders of the liberal opposition in the new Ottoman Parliament (see Prince Sabahaddin, A second account on Individual Initiative and Decentralization). Ismail Qemali was one of the leaders of the Albanian uprisings of 1910–1912. He directed the proceedings of the assembly gathered in Vlora, which resulted in the proclamation of Albanian independence on 28 November 1912. He was elected Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the first ISMAIL QUEMALI: MEMORANDUM SENT TO LORD EDWARD GREY 235 Albanian Government (4 December 1912–1 January 1914). After the fall of his government , he spent several years in Europe, mostly in Italy, where he died in 1919. Main works: Kujtime [Memories] (1917). Context The aggravation of the situation in the Balkans and the outbreak of the first Balkan War in 1912 entirely changed the political priorities of the Albanian movement. The defeat of the Ottoman army, the advance of the Serbian army into Kosovo, and inside Albania to Elbasan, the occupation of Shkodra (It. Scutari, Srb. Skadar) by the Montenegrin army, and finally the Greek army’s occupation of territories in the Epirus and Macedonia were seen by Albanian activists as an effort to divide what they perceived as Albanian lands—a turn of events that was reminiscent of the Eastern Crisis of 1878– 1881. Hence, on 28 November 1912, the assembly of the Albanian delegates gathered in Vlora decided to declare the full independence of the new Albanian state. A week later, a new government was founded with Ismail Qemali as its Prime Minister. For a long time, Ottoman and European circles treated Ismail Qemali as a moderate politician. His political program was not as radical as Sami Frashëri’s as it hardly ever mentioned full independence. Ismail Qemali rather concentrated on issues of cultural and economic autonomy. Even during the general uprising in northern Albania and Kosovo against the rule of the Young Turks, his request was for the establishment of Albania as an autonomous province within the Ottoman Empire. This request frequently appeared in different documents of the time, the most complete and most important being the Memorandumi i Gërçes (Gërçe memorandum), written jointly by Ismail Qemali and Luigj Gurakuqi. Ismail Qemali, as Abdyl Frashëri before him, was conscious of the necessity of an external ally for the Albanian movement. He first tried to strike an alliance with Greece in their common struggle against the ‘Slavic and Turkish threat.’ But Athens had rather different aspirations...

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