The conversation of the French journalist with Ismail Qemali, a few weeks before the declaration of independence of Albania

By: Aurenc Bebja

French newspaper, The Morning, on Monday, April 10, 1939, on the first and second pages, published the article of the journalist Stéphane Lauzanne about Albania with the title La lutte de l'Albanie pour la liberté (Albania's war for freedom). Albania had just lost its independence again as a result of the occupation by Fascist Italy.

The French journalist, through this painful event for Albania, recalls the period before the declaration of Albania's independence on November 28, 1912, where he had the opportunity to talk with Ismail Qemalin at the "Pera" Hotel in Istanbul. It simultaneously describes Albania and Albanians.

The following is the script:

In 1912, during the Balkan war, there was, in Constantinople, at the "Pera" Hotel, a man with a white beard which highlighted his two blue and very expressive eyes. For forty days that the war lasted, he did not leave the hotel lobby. I found him every evening when I had finished sending my writings to the "Matin" newspaper, and he asked me:

– What news?

I told him one day that the Serbs had fought (defeated) the Turks. He seemed satisfied and simply said to me:

- Ah, very good!

But three weeks later, after the "wheel of fortune" had changed, I learned that the Turks had defeated the Bulgarians. He didn't seem at all excited and told me again:

- Oh very good!

- Listen - I told him - it is not possible that it is very good for the Turks to be both winners and losers...

Then he explained to me his opinion, which stemmed from his people - because he was Albanian and his name was Ismail Qemali.

- Yes, it was very good regardless of the winner or the loser.

The moment he had been waiting for all his life had arrived, the people had been waiting for centuries for the moment when Albania would finally shake off the Turkish yoke and become an independent nation. It was done, in fact, a few weeks later and Ismail Qemali would be the first head of the interim government.

Ismail Qemali spoke proudly of the history of his country, which along the Adriatic offers the same boot aspect as Portugal along the Iberian Peninsula, but between rocks and ridges.

According to the genealogical tree, his race was the oldest in Europe, for it had its origin in the first Asiatic tribes which had come and settled at the dawn of our old world, precisely in Illyria. However, this race had no connection with the Slavic, Greek, Turkish, Roman races of the Balkans and it had preserved its primitive purity.

She practiced the most curious customs of the Middle Ages, such as allowing a woman to travel alone from one end of the country to another without being attacked or molested by anyone. And the men, in constant war (revenge), put their promise (allegiance) over everything.

This wild, uneducated, merciless country was where the idea of ​​the nation had deeper roots than the religious beliefs that branched off into a number of sects.

I often asked Ismail Qemali:

– How will you bring together the Catholics of northern Albania, the Muslims of central Albania and the Orthodox of southern Albania?

- They are united - he answered me with no doubt - by the only adoration that they carry for the homeland for six hundred years.

For this, Ismail Qemali did not exaggerate.

When, in the 15th century, the Turks flooded from Asia and broke the "dam" of Constantinople, the ancient Albanian race was found in front of them on the peninsula, which gave them a high resistance. It took the Ottoman legions fifteen months to conquer Shkodra, and when the janissaries entered the city, they found the corpses of women on the surrounding walls. These women had fought like men.

Five centuries later, in 1878, Europe, which has a habit of being generous with the remains of peoples it does not know well, gave Serbia the territories of Kurshumli and Vranje, while Montenegro those of Plava and Gucia. As a reason, a long tremor shook the Albanian mountains. Serbia had to use arms to take these territories, while Europe sent an international fleet to Ulcinj so that Montenegro could take its share...Albania, indignant, turned to Turkey, which had allowed the slaughter of the land of old Albania. A terrible uprising broke out. It took the High Gate an army of 30 to crush it.

In short, a people who fought for centuries not to be vassals and twenty-seven years ago believed that they would finally be independent.

I still see it, that morning in November 1912, when Ismail Qemali, appointed by Europe as head of the provisional government of autonomous Albania, left the Pera Hotel, with a bag in his hand.

His bag was not heavy, but his heart was full of hope.

- I'm taking the ship - he said. I am leaving for Albania, as a free country.

– Will she be happy? - I asked him.

- It will be, since it is freed from the Turkish yoke.

Well, the good Ismail Qemali was a dreamer, because you can free yourself from the Turkish yoke, but without being happy about it... /Darcian/