Historical figures

In the 1950s, when the State Security opened a file on Fan Noli, he had already been living in the United States for more than 20 years. Following the Second World War, he had supported the Albanian government and sought to secure recognition of Albania by the US government. Highly respected within the Albanian diaspora, he was honorary president of “Vatra” and led the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the United States, which he had helped establish.

During this period, amid growing dissatisfaction with communist policies, the State Security sought to strengthen its connections with Noli. At the same time, Noli requested assistance from the Albanian state to send a bishop and two priests to the United States, and expressed interest in republishing his works and in Albanian historical studies.

Fan Noli (1882–1965) was an important figure in 20th-century Albanian culture and history: an Orthodox clergyman, politician, diplomat, man of letters, and musician. Over the course of his career, he held a number of public and state positions, including member of parliament (April 1921–September 1923), minister, Prime Minister (1924), editor-in-chief of the newspaper Dielli, honorary chairman of the “Vatra” association, and Archbishop of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America.

The Sigurimi documentation for Musine Kokalari is part of the investigative-judicial file of the 37 defendants in January 1946. Immediately after the elections, they were arrested because they had spoken out against the new electoral law and had made attempts to postpone the first elections. Musine was part of the group that drafted a note addressed to the British mission to intervene with the Albanian Government to postpone the holding of the first elections in order to organize and prepare the opposition front against the Democratic Front.

Musine's documentation in the Sigurimi files belongs to the period 1945-1983, throughout her entire life lived under the communist regime.

Gjergj Kokoshi completed his studies in Italy and France, where he obtained a doctorate in literature. Upon returning to Albania, he supported the anti-fascist movement. At the Congress of Përmet, he was elected a member of the General Council of the National Liberation Anti-Fascist Council and was assigned responsibility for education.

He was appointed Minister of Education, a position he held for 80 days before resigning due to disagreements with the policies of the time. His opposition to the new electoral law of 1945, which did not guarantee free elections and hindered the establishment of a parliamentary opposition, marked a turning point in his political trajectory. Together with a group of intellectuals of the time, and with the involvement of the British and American missions in Albania, he sought to establish a political group that could oppose or postpone the elections, given the limited time available.

The group failed to formally establish an opposition to the Democratic Front, and Kokoshi was subsequently arrested as one of 37 people accused in the case. The trial began on 17 June and concluded on 2 July 1946. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

He died in Burrel Prison in 1960.

Mehdi Frashëri had a long career in the Albanian state administration, holding various ministerial positions, including Minister of the Interior, Minister of Public Works, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Agriculture, and Minister of Justice, as well as serving as Prime Minister. Following the Italian invasion of Albania in 1939, he was interned and later became Chairman of the Regency during the German occupation.

After the Second World War, he was sentenced to death in absentia by the communist regime.

The State Security file documents his activities during and after the war, including accusations of activities against the regime, attempts to emigrate, and connections with opposition groups, including the Central Committee in Cairo and figures such as Ahmet Zogu.

Mit’hat Frashëri was born on March 25, 1880, in Ioannina. He was the son of Abdyl Frashëri, one of the leaders of the League of Prizren, and the nephew of Sami and Naim Frashëri, prominent figures of the Albanian National Renaissance.

He was educated in Istanbul, where he also became involved in the Ottoman administration. His engagement in Albanian national affairs was particularly notable at the Congress of Manastir in 1908, where he was elected Chairman of the Congress and Vice-Chairman of the Alphabet Commission. The Congress represented a pivotal moment in the process of standardizing the Albanian alphabet, under the leadership of Gjergj Fishta as chairman of the relevant commission.

In 1944, amid the Second World War and political changes in Albania, he left the country and settled in the United States. Mit’hat Frashëri died on October 3, 1949, in New York, following a heart attack.

Following the explosion of a small quantity of dynamite in the courtyard of the Soviet Embassy on February 19, the communist regime used the incident as a pretext to target members of the intellectual elite.

Sabiha Kasimati, together with 21 other intellectuals, was arrested and accused, without concrete evidence, of being “enemies of the people” and “terrorists.” Without an opportunity to mount a defense and without a regular trial, they were executed near the Beshiri Bridge on February 26, 1951, while the decision authorizing their execution was issued on February 27, 1951, one day after their deaths.

Following the fall of the communist regime in 1991, the victims’ families sought clarification of the circumstances surrounding the event and the identification of the execution site. The Plenum of the Supreme Court declared the convicted individuals innocent, ruling that Decision No. 64, dated February 27, 1951, of the Military Supreme Court was unlawful and unsupported by concrete evidence.

Following further investigations, the execution site was identified in 1993, and the victims’ remains were reburied with honors at the Martyrs’ Cemetery of the Nation.