By Ramiz LUSHAJ
Memorie.al / History knows the Xhydollars of Pogradec. They are from Udënishti. From Age. From Bregliq. Roots. Dedicated and sacrificed for their nation. Of mind, of rifle. One of them is Muharrem Hudënishti. Patriot of the time. A warrior with merit. A good man. Knowledgeable, strong. Representative personality of Hudënishti during the period of Independence, until the fascist occupation of Albania. With a name and place among the prominent figures of Pogradec. Even in the Korça District. And on both sides of Lake Ohrid and Prespa. And in all those centers and surroundings along the Black Drini, Shkumbin and Vardar.
Patriot Muharrem Hudënishti has his name and signature in the chancelleries of the world, among the Great Powers. It is in the File of the Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920), otherwise known as the “Versailles Conference”, which met in two years and signed five treaties: with Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. There, during the controversial discussion of the Secret Treaty of London (1915) and within the framework of the “Adriatic Issue”, the Issue of London Albania was also addressed, which was in danger of being taken over by its Balkan and Mediterranean neighbors, such as Greece, Versailles Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), and Italy.
There, Albania had Wilsonian protection, as Greece wanted Korça and Gjirokastra, just as Montenegro wanted Shkodra and Italy wanted Vlora, etc. This Conference was a necessity of the time and remains a bad example for the world, for the reasons that the principle of nationality and self-determination of peoples was not implemented, it did not take into account the demands and national interests of the Albanians for a state within its natural borders of 1878, it brought about the division of Albania again, to satisfy the wild chauvinism of our neighbors, it served as a “truce” between the two world warriors, it accelerated the arrival of Bolshevik communism in Moscow, etc. This Conference, like the others in 1978 and 1912-’13, will remain cursed for centuries from Albanian graves and cradles.
The national fighter Muharrem Hudënishti appears in a document sent by the “Eminent Persons of the Pogradec Province” to the Paris Peace Conference. This document, signed in Pogradec, is dated May 8, 1919. It is attached to Note XXII of the Albanian delegation to this International Conference. It is its “Annex IV”. Of course, this document had its role in that difficult diplomatic, political time, with wars, annexations of territories, etc.
The name of Muharrem Hudënishti is the tenth signatory in this document with 26 signatories from Pogradec in 1919. They are great men of their region, in the history of Pogradec…! This greatness is also evident in their surnames, which have the names of their regions: Pogradeci, Starova, Hudënishti, Çërrava, Memëlishti, Trebinje, etc.
The twenty-six patriotic signatories of this document of May 8, 1919, are named after the enlightened one:
Istref Sulejman Starova,
Jashar Isuf Starova,
Hasan Demir Starova,
Dilaver M. Starova,
Zenel Shahin Zagoriçani,
Muharrem Abedin Zagoriçani,
Emin Reshit Vërdova,
Bahri Reshit, Vërdova,
Riza Rexhep Memëlishti,
Muharrem Abedin Hudënishti,
Hysen Shemsejdin Vinçani,
Arsllan Demir Çaushlliu,
Adem Ymer Trebinja,
Rakip K. Pogradeci,
Hydriz D. Pogradeci,
Zia H. P. Pogradeci,
Koçi Tushi,
Tanas Kërxhali,
Pandi Pasko,
Arsllan Mehmeti,
Riza Xhaferri,
Muharrem Rushani,
Riza Rexhep Pretusha,
Dervish Karafil Shkoza,
Faik Pashë Çërrava,
Adem Selman Leshnica.
The Peace Conference had been meeting in Paris for four months. At this time, the “Elders of Pogradec” gathered and launched their demand of May 8, 1919. They spoke as “representatives of the people of the 140 villages of Pogradec”. They denounced and exposed the plans and intrigues of the Serbs, to enter as invaders and annexers on the other side of Lake Ohrid, in the great province of Pogradec.
This document is not simply a meeting of its 26 signatories. No. It was drafted after a national activity of the people of Pogradec, after “yesterday, on May 7, a meeting of 3,000 people was held in the village of Podgorije”. So, there, their voice is there. Their power is demonstrated. They are their demands. This document itself knows that; “We have sent the decisions of the Podgorje meeting, signed by all the representatives of the villages, to the Great Allied and Associated Powers, as well as to the Peace Conference”.
In that Request to the Great Men of Time and the World, its 26 signatories from Pogradec, made it known that; “In this meeting we have once again clearly shown our opinion that we do not want to submit to Serbia in any way, that we are and want to remain Albanians and that the ties that unite us with the Homeland cannot be broken”.
The Paris Peace Conference, chaired by Georges Clemenceau, Prime Minister of France, and the representatives of the Great Powers: Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Vittorio Orlando, Prime Minister of Italy, and their respective staffs, were also acquainted with the Pogradec Request, signed by 26 of its local representatives.
At that time, this year after the First World War (1914-1918), was extremely difficult for the Albanian Nation, as well as for Pogradec and the entire Korça Region, where French forces were also present. On the one hand, Korça, as always, was in danger from the Greeks. On the other hand, Pogradec, as always, was in danger from the Serbs. They speak with the sincerity of the Albanian faith to the Peace Conference, to each of the “Big Four”: “Today we are disarmed, but the situation of the French armies in the wind is for us a guarantee and protection”.
The Pogradec Letter of Demand, approved by 3,000 Pogradec residents and signed by 26 Pogradec signatories, is accompanied by their declaration: “We consider it our duty to declare that we have sworn to maintain the integrity of our land and that we will repel with our hearts the attacks of the enemy who seeks to enter.” Of course, these Pogradec residents understand and fight with “enemy” like the Serbs and Greeks and anyone else, wherever they come to their ethnic Albanian lands.
They, in concluding their statement, emphasize that; “By making the will of our people known,” they want the Albanian Delegation and the Peace Conference in Paris to “take care of our rights.”
Patriot Muharrem Abedin Hudenishti, one of the signatories of this Request for the Peace Conference, was one of the “First of Pogradec,” an emblematic heir to the Door of the Xhydollars of Hudenishti.
He was a national fighter with contributions over three decades, from the Declaration of Independence until the year of the occupation of London Albania by Italian fascism. He is a leading participant as a local figure in all local, provincial and national events, especially in the years 1912, 1915, 1919, 1920, 1930 and 1939. He was also a senior officer of the Royal Cavalry during the time of Zog. He came from a family with monarchist, legalist genes, hearts and activities. He himself was one.
Muharrem Hudënishti is a cousin of the same blood, of the same heart, of the same door, with Nanëmadhe Demire Xhydollari-Durollari, the mother of Dr. Guri Durollari, who for King Leka and the Royal Family, for the Albanian Monarchy, carried out acts, actions and political and public events, pan-Albanian and international.
Muharrem Hudenishti’s relationship with her cousin Demire and the Durollari family became closer, as her husband, Rrapush Durollari, had her as a friend in many ways: both in person, in ideals, and in arms. They got along well together. They were opponents and resisters of the fascist occupation of April 7, 1939. These two, not only were born in the same village, in Hudenisht, Pogradec, but they also died in the same year, in 1939; by the same enemy – the Italian fascist invaders.
The fighter for the Albanian national cause, Muharrem Hudenishti, because he had not accepted the occupation of the country, nor the cooperation offered by the foreigner, was imprisoned by the Italian fascists, in the Tirana prison. He died a mysterious death. He was poisoned in prison in the first months of the occupation. His body also disappeared; He still remains without a grave today. A great loss, extremely tragic.
His friend and comrade, Rrapush Durollari, died at the hands of the Italians, in Prrenjas, in 1939, leaving behind his great-grandmother Demire Durollari, who lived for 115 years, with three orphaned children: Guri, Shyqyri and Liri, who in America have created an “Albanian brigade” with sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, in several generations of genetic and vital connection.
One of the present-day grandsons of the local leader and national fighter, Muharrem Abedin Hudenishti, who wrote together with 25 other Pogradec citizens to the Peace Conference in Paris in 1919, lives in the United States of America. He bears his name: Muharrem. He has this name in honor. He holds his grandfather’s name high. Even when, as a retribution for his monarchist and legalist family, he was in the savage prison of Spaç for ten years, during Bolshevik communism. Even when he worked in the village and in the mines.
He, the successor Muharrem, was still “touched” in his biography, not only as a royalist, but also for another fact: he was married to Liria, the sister of the martyr poet, Vilson Blloshmi, whose life was taken by the dictatorship, in order to stop his freedom of speech, poetic verse, and perspective journey. Muharrem remained dignified even when, after December ’90, Democracy came to Albania and he worked as a state official in the Ministry of Order and the Ministry of Justice.
This, Muharrem of the Xhydollars, had it all: noble by genes, with contributions of generations to history, with experience in life, educated with higher education in recent decades, but still, once again, the socialists who came to power with the rebellion of ’97, fired him from his job, wanted to close his paths. But he fled to America. He spent almost two decades there, with his wife and two sons.
There, this “Second Muharrem”, has also written a book of stories. It is not for nothing that I said that these Xhydollars of Hudenisht are both of the rifle and of the pen. They hold high the name of their ancestors, such as Muharrem Abedin Hudenisht, who fought to the point of denial for the Albanian National cause, who also wrote to the Peace Conference in Paris. Memorie.al
