Figures

Drita Çomo was the daughter of Liri Belishova and Maqo Çomo, former high-ranking officials of the Party of Labour of Albania who, in the 1960s, were removed from their political and state positions and subsequently sentenced to imprisonment and internment.

Drita Çomo’s file was opened in December 1974 and closed in 1983, following her death.

The file documents a case of surveillance by the former State Security targeting an adolescent from a family regarded by the regime as “anti-Party”.

Rexhep Mitrovica, an activist for the national cause, a signatory of the Act of Independence in 1912, Minister of Education, and Prime Minister of Albania during a difficult period of the Second World War (1943–1944).

Despite his contribution in Kosovo in opposing Serbian Chetnik forces, his role in helping save Jews and Roma from deportation, and his efforts to defend Albania’s northern border, he was labelled a “collaborator” by the post-war government. This designation was linked to his election, on 16 October 1943, by the National Assembly in Tirana as a member of the High Council of the Regency, followed on 5 November of the same year by his appointment as Prime Minister of Albania.

Mustafa Merlika Kruja was an important figure in modern Albanian history. His political career began with the declaration of independence in 1912 and ended with his resignation as Prime Minister in 1943. After leaving Albania in September 1944, he lived in exile until he died in the United States in 1958, devoting himself primarily to historical and Albanological studies.

During the communist period, he was described as a quisling prime minister. At the same time, he is also remembered as the prime minister who sought to keep the Albanian-inhabited territories united and who refused to hand over Jews to the German forces. He left behind an important body of scholarly work, correspondence, and a lost dictionary; his works were republished posthumously.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate (Honoris Causa) by the University of Padua in 1942, named an honorary citizen of the city of Prizren in 1942, and awarded the title “Honour of the Nation” by the President of the Republic in 2012, on the occasion of the centenary of Albania’s independence. A bust has been erected in his honour in the city of Krujë.

Two files concerning Mustafa Kruja are held in the archives of the former State Security, comprising a total of 811 pages.

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.

Jusuf Vrioni (16 March 1916 – 1 June 2001) was born in Corfu. He was the son of Iliaz Vrioni, a former Albanian Prime Minister and diplomat. He studied in France and Italy, where he obtained a doctorate in law.

He returned to Albania in 1939, but in 1947 he was arrested by the communist regime as a “French agent” and sentenced to 15 years in prison. After his release, he worked as a translator, translating into French the works of Ismail Kadare, as well as several books by Enver Hoxha.

Following the fall of communism, he was appointed Ambassador to UNESCO in Paris. In 1998, he was awarded the title of Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur by France. In 2006, the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Albania established the “Jusuf Vrioni” Translation Award.

He died in Paris in 2001.