TIRANA – For the first time, one of the direct descendants of the family of the famous Toptanas recounts the events of forgotten heroes in history.
- What does Ajten Toptani testify about his father, who was the son of Murat Toptani and the grandson of Naim Frasheri, who was expropriated and pleaded guilty to the gravest charges of the time?
- Who are the Toptani men associated with the great Frasherians in the estates close to them, who secured and financed Ismail Qemali in the wild days when he was asked to head to the bush?
- What is the truth of the strange events of Esat Toptani, and what happened at the time of Shkodra’s surrender?
- Why did Ismail Qemali think of Esat Toptani as one of the favorite people to rely on to cope with the situations he was going through?
- What Esat Toptani asked President Wilson at the strange meeting he made in April 1919.
- What did he have in mind with the American protectorate and the sensational announcement in the prestigious Spectator newspaper in those days?
Mr. Ajten Toptani, what does it mean to you and your “Toptani” family, the “Monumental” day of November 28th?
28 November 1912. Independence Day. The perception of this important date belongs to years ago, when the analysis of the meaning of the national holiday began in our consciousness. Various large and small celebrations, mainly with political and propaganda loads, accompanied by euphoric and pathetic historical interpretations entertained the Albanian citizen or peasant on the day of rest on the laborious road of building a new life. Independence Day “28” was supplied with that of Liberation “29” that sometimes it did not accurately perceive the sensation even though what it represented belonged to different eras.
Let us dwell on the straightforward question which I did not vainly ask you. So what did this date mean for the Toptanis, whom the general Albanian public knew only as traitors?
November 28, Independence Day, for us of the Toptani family was one of the high emotional holidays not only for what it represented, but for the connection it had with some of its important protagonist characters who belonged to our family, politically to the point of trouble at that time.
Did your family members relate to this date? While you were stricken with ancestry throughout the tribe, were they mentioned as having contributed to Independence Day, as you are telling me?
When any of them were mentioned in the media at the time, the event was accompanied by a quick, hopeful communication between the tribes that the storm of class warfare had calmed down somewhat. “You got it …, they mentioned it! Someone might have been hoping for a sentence or someone else could come closer to their hometown, Tirana, that their ancestors created (from the female line, the Bargjins) and consolidated (from the line) masculine Toptanas) dominating it for nearly 150 years.
But when it could not be mentioned, how was the situation in your family associated?
When not mentioned…. The total disaster could be near the door. So this was the “28th barometer” that my father used to say, who was the son of Murat Toptani, nephew of Refik Toptani and nephew of Naim Frasheri, of course … a politically expropriated and convicted bourgeoisie for the most part. men of this declassified family.
Mr. Ajten. Let’s start with the composition of your acclaimed tribe. So who is the Toptani family?
Talking about the family, especially when seeking to identify contributions or merits that may be mistakenly interpreted as boasting, is a bit difficult, but I will try to be modest and assure you, our ancestors gave in some important moments of our history so much to the homeland and took almost nothing from it and in this case, in the society of consumerism we live in, there is no reason to boast. Even though our parents suffered, they were never discouraged in this regard, easily explained.
I’m not a historian, but as a kid I was passionate about it and as the years went by, it interested me to really know more and more who they really were, who they were talking about, or who they really were. Of course this was also in an attempt to reveal the shortcomings of the actors.
In parenthesis, am I curious how today’s Toptanas look at the history and figures of the nation in relation to historical contributions to jubilee dates?
Now, as I look at it, it seems that this anniversary, like many others, is not escaping politicization, reminiscences, goals and provincialism, albeit in a form “different than before.” I have been following with interest and attention the historical shows either from historians, publicists or journalists for the anniversary in question and I feel (not at all) where arrogant, preposterous and untrue attempts to portray historical events by pattern: o with us, o against us, that this is good and that is evil. Ismail Qemali good – Esati the traitor, Noli the good – Zogu satrapi, the very best June Revolution – Very bad legality, to remember the cliches and cementing of historiography in dictatorship in the entirety of lectures, forgetting and denying human nature of the protagonists in different times and situations, where the events took place. The distortion or untruth of history did not occur as it was maliciously discussed in some cases, for the fault of historians in general, who like all the citizens and intellectuals of this country at that time, had their work conditioned by the “tribulation” of the spirit. revolutionary, “rumble” of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism, and by the control of “special” inspectors of propaganda institutions. Voltaire has said “true history can only be written in one vacancy.” We were not a free country and today we are not completely like that. History is the mission of historians only.
More specifically, what are your reservations about what was said?
It is not graceful at this time and in the honor of some historians or publicists to use offensive words or jargon eg. (which was frankly not expected of a philosophy graduate from the Marxist-Leninist Institute of Philosophy) who wrote a letter to Esat Toptani, in the form of an offensive public pretense with doses of hate, more classy and immoral, 90 years after the assassination his political rivalry, unable to respond, reminiscent of the “lightning bolts” or special trials of the ’67 cultural revolution model, and the accused now a skeleton, of course, after so many years, in the Thiais cemetery in Paris, “trembled at the grip of the dictatorship of the proletariat” by the rhetoric of the ruthless accuser. These excuses are sometimes made funny in the stale chorus of refrain that has been going on for years.
How do you feel about dealing with history, at least nowadays, that surprisingly you still have reservations for?
History has not only a pedestal or rubbish bin according to the terminology of the Communist method of class warfare, but it has scientific analysis and careful and honest assessments of merit or error, of the sacred mission itself.
Do you think you have a chance to defend Esat Toptani figure nowadays, since now we are able to talk about his values, which had never been mentioned before?
I need to neither defend nor insult Esat because I am not a historian and do not claim to change anything about him. I have no personal interest in boasting or fainting about what he is accused of, that I personally enjoy as the personal historical background of Grandfather Murat Toptani, or other great-grandfather Naim Frasheri, etc., and not Esat, the third cousin or grandfather’s fourth. But the offensive, almost hysterical, and terrifying way of not betraying Esat on the pedestal is reminiscent of the calls of the last “violent pluralist” first president of the dictatorship, when swearing in the agony of the system, in the form of trust, “that we will never allow the return of the bailiffs, the owners and the bourgeoisie, that we and their fathers have been shaking our heads systematically for so many years. “
Since we are at Esat, which is certainly within reach of your tribe, I think you have to admit that there are a lot of charges against him, right?
I would like to tell you something about the main allegations made to him and will undoubtedly be made, that everyone is free to say what he thinks, when based on facts, such as. if it had not been for Hasan Pristina, Esat would have taken the life of Cekrezi MP in the honor of Ismail Kemal. Almost all those who criticize or betray him have not been close to him in difficult moments such as. in the war of the three wells in Greece, in the siege of Shkodra, in the trenches of Bardho, Bërdica and Taraboshi on the walls of the fortress where the 103 cannon shells or aircraft of Serbia, used for the first time, or in the fighting alongside Antanta, were flying, where the artillery whistled in the ear and where the brave warriors were tested, but accompanied the events of “great sorrow” with a glass of rakia of any roasted chicken.
Why, how could those around him, would have thought of him?
Those who have been closer thought differently, such as Gino Barri, Italo Suliotti, Artensa Von Zambauer, Baroness Maria, Amelia Freiin Von Godin, General Sarail, foreign consuls and personalities. Fishta in this respect has immortalized him in verse.
I agree on how much you analyze, but I would like to ask you how much you know about Esat Toptani’s work, who do you think are the most prominent moments in his history?
I would answer the question by asking: How is it possible that Turkey had no other men but elected Esat as chairman of the military commission for communicating the abdication of Sultan Abdulhamid II, who had been in charge of the Ottoman empire for 23 years?
The main charge against him is the fact of the surrender of Shkodra to the Montenegrins. Do you have a comment about it?
Surrendered Shkodra to the blacks. The task of a fortified city or castle is to withstand the enemy as long as possible and within its means. In the final period, Esat could not leave the office, as a hungry crowd of residents demanded bread and begged him to surrender, and the mustaches in the trenches boiled openings to feed them to continue their resistance. The only invincible fortress in us has been that of Enver on the Adriatic coast. In world history as in antiquity, during the Byzantine times, in the Middle Ages, when the opportunities for resistance extended all, surrendered or unconditionally to the enemy, I never heard the commanders being accused of being traitors, except in Shkodra. But besides Esat, Albania had no other men to defend Shkodra, but left it to the “traitor” to protect it? Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin, but no one accused the heroic crusaders of treason against the faith and the holy city. Centuries later, after the fall of Kruja, Shkodra Mehmet was handed over to the invaders, but none of the Venetians was accused of treason in historical chronicles. Hasan killed Riza Bey, but why the news of Istanbul’s official newspapers about the Montenegrin killer, Pedelin, who was paid 6,000 gold pounds for the murder, is not taken into consideration. Shkodra surrendered to Montenegro a month after the Conference of Ambassadors had reinstated it to Albania after 7 months of fierce fighting. Esat and the Austrians, who knew this, were well aware of this fact, and the garrison of Ioannina under the command of Esat Pasha Ioannina surrendered before the Conference of Ambassadors and Ioannina remained in Greece. Most Albanians defected and a large proportion of Turkish troops breathed in the mud of Myzeqe and other places, much different from the Shkodra Garrison. The commander of the garrison for the protection of Ioannina did not accuse anyone of treason.
But Esat is said to have made a sale in Shkodra, right?
Saying that Esat received money from Montenegro, the Montenegrin authorities after the surrender of the city did not have enough time to even “visit” the whole city, but were content with a pathetic speech by Nicholas Karadaku, where he cursed the Great European Powers for The injustice that he did, leaving about 5,000 killed and wounded in the war for Shkodra, returned from where he came from.
Do you think there is talk of violating the country’s integrity in the actions of Esat Toptani?
Looking at it from another point of view, Esat defeated them twice: once in the war and once in the Lek, if the latter is true. After that, Ismail Qemali appointed him Minister of Interior of the Provisional Government of Vlora. He made an agreement with Pashiiq. I do not know that these agreements have violated the country’s territorial integrity.
Anyway, in those periods we were talking about, was Albania violating its territorial integrity or not?
In those years and years ago, our Renaissance personalities were not often welcomed in the chancellery of Europe by powerful officials, with their faces facing the window contemplating the nature and cause of Albania daravit in the dark corridors of chancellery with menefregism. The disadvantage compared to other Balkan states was quite large. Serbia was pampered by the powers, as was Greece. The Albanian territories, Serbia and Greece did not take them to war, but were unjustly donated to the silver tray of their chauvinistic neighbors. Prior to and during this agreement the official Serbian nationalist and chauvinist propaganda, Nacernje, regarded Albanian Muslims as Turks, and Christian Albanians as Albanians Serbs or Greeks, savage and ignorant people who lived in the mountains and slept in trees, etc. etc., denying the existence of the Albanian nation. Serbia at the moment was treating an agreement (despite devilish intentions, where each party withdrew from it) with an Albanian and an Albanian nationality that evidenced large tribal families and were not treating a Turkoshka horde as they were trumpeted for centuries in an official way.
We are in the territorial integrity of the country. In the analysis and point of view of the Toptanas on whom the accusation has fallen. How do you comment?
The borders of Albania have been set by the Great Powers, and for the Albanians to change them at will has been historically impossible. Esat had nothing else to do, but being a representative of the protectionist movement, it turns out that during a meeting with US President Wilson in Paris in April 1919, he asked the US to accept the establishment of an American protectorate over the Albanian state, at least at the borders of 1913. The Spectator newspaper put forward the idea of establishing an American republic in the Balkans.
I do not know the accuracy of what you are stating, but the truth is that the American presence made the big decisions. I don’t know if you have the word here, do you?
It would take nearly a century later for NATO’s incursions under the US leadership under the Clinton presidency to create the new independent state of Kosovo.
written by Fatos Veliu
