Mihal Grameno

Mihal Grameno in revolutionary uniform during the Albanian National Awakening
Born 1871
Korçë, Vilayet of Monastir, Ottoman Empire
Died 1931 (aged 60)
Korçë, Albania
Literary movement Romanticism, Albanian National Awakening

Mihal Grameno (January 13, 1871 – February 5, 1931) was an Albanian nationalist, politician, writer, freedom fighter, and journalist.

Biography

Born in Korçë in a merchant family, he studied there at the local secondary school before emigrating to Romania in 1885. It was in Bucharest that he got involved in the Albanian National Awakening where the movement soon collapsed due to financial reasons in the extended family who were dependent on money.

In 1907, he joined the newly formed Çerçiz Topulli's kachak band, an early guerrilla unit fighting against Turkish troops in Albania.[1] They were considered the Apostles of Albanianism and would go from village to village to discuss the Albanian predicament.[2]

Turkish officials sent out military patrols to capture the bandits. The activity of the band consisted of only one battle in two years, when the 5 people band was surrounded by 150 Turkish units in Mashkullore. Four out of five escaped the encirclement. Other bands of this nature, not having a journalist in their company, such as Grameno have remained unsung heroes.[3]

During the Young Turk Revolution (1908), the Albanian committee of Korçë at the behest of the Young Turks called on Albanian guerillas to join Ottoman insurgent bands.[4] The Albanian committee of Ohrid followed through with guerilla leaders Mihal Grameno and Çerçiz Topulli meeting Ahmed Niyazi Bey at Resen on July 23 with promises that a Ottoman constitution would be advantageous for the Albanian nation.[4] In 1909 Grameno founded in Korçë the Orthodox League (or Alliance) (Albanian: Lidhja Ortodokse)[5] and served as editor of its periodical with the same name during 1909–1910. In 1910 the organization proclaimed the establishment of an independent Albanian church, and was unrecognized by the Ottoman Empire.[6] Grameno was arrested in 1910 by Ottoman authorities for his work with the newspaper Bashkimi i Kombit.[7]

During the upheavals of 1911, Grameno traveled as a go between for Albanian revolutionaries in Albanian inhabited lands and leaders of the Albanian national movement in Istanbul to coordinate armed activities against the Ottoman Empire.[8]

He also served as the editor of the weekly Koha (Time), initially published in Korçë and later in Jamestown, New York where he lived from 1915 to 1919. He traveled back to Europe to represent Albania through the Albanian-American community at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and in the following year he returned in Albania.

In the 1920s he carried out his journalistic and literary activities until the dictatorship of Zog I forced him to retire from public life. Resigned and seriously ill, he died on February 5, 1931 in Korçë.

Works

Mihal Grameno's published works include:[9]

  • Vdekja (The Death), a patriotic poem published in 1903;
  • Mallkimi i gjuhës shqipe, (The curse upon the Albanian language), a comedy published in Bucharest 1905,
  • Vdekja e Piros (The Death of Pyrrhus), a historical tragedy published in Sofia, 1906.
  • Oxhaku (The Hearth), E puthura (The Kiss), and Varr' i pagëzimit (The Tomb of the Baptism), Korçë 1909, short stories.
  • Plagët (The wounds) Manastir 1912, a volume of poetry;
  • Kryengritja shqiptare, Korçë 1925 (The Albanian Uprising), memoirs of his experiences as a guerrilla fighter against the Turkish and Greek troops.

References

  1. ↑ Skendi 1967, pp. 207, 210-211, 421.
  2. ↑ Jacques 1944, pp. 313–317, 348.
  3. ↑ Jacques 1944, pp. 263-264.
  4. 1 2 Skendi 1967, pp. 340-341.
  5. ↑ Jacques 1944, pp. 313–314.
  6. ↑ Blumi 2001, pp. 19.
  7. ↑ Skendi 1967, p. 407.
  8. ↑ Skendi 1967, p. 401.
  9. ↑ Hoerder&Harzig 1987, pp. 474.

Sources

  • Lloshi, Xhevat (2008). Rreth Alfabetit te Shqipes [Around the Albanian Alphabet]. Logos.
  • Jacques, Edwin (1995). The Albanians: an ethnic history from prehistoric times to the present. McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-89950-932-0. Retrieved 2010-06-03.
  • Skendi, Stavro (1967). The Albanian national awakening. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9781400847761.
  • Blumi, Isa (2001). "Teaching Loyalty in the Late Ottoman Balkans: Educational Reform in the Vilayets of Manastir and Yanya, 1878–1912". Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 21 (1–2). doi:10.1215/1089201x-21-1-2-15.
  • Hoerder, Dirk; Harzig, Christiane (1987). The Immigrant Labor Press in North America, 1840s–1970s: An Annotated Bibliography: Volume 2: Migrants from Eastern and Southeastern Europe 031326077X. Retrieved 2010-06-03.


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