Gjergj Kokoshi, a political activist and Minister of Education from October 1944 to January 1945, has passed away. He was born in Shkodër in 1904 and studied literature in Paris. During World War II, he participated in the anti-fascist resistance as a colonel in the Dibra area and was a member of the National Liberation Council. In October 1944, he was elected Minister of Education, a position he resigned from in January 1945. In September and early December of the same year, despite being a member of the Democratic Front, he openly opposed the new election law, which excluded other parties from participating in the elections. His name is associated with the founding of the Albanian Social-Democratic Party and the opposition movement known as the Democratic Union. He was elected deputy in the first legislature after the war. In January 1946, he was arrested on the grounds of being a “collaborator and saboteur of the government” and for having joined the ranks of the National Front. He was sentenced to death along with the confiscation of his movable and immovable property. However, by decision of the Supreme Military Court, his sentence was commuted to 25 years of imprisonment and the loss of electoral rights for 5 years. (In the photo: Gjergj Kokoshi)
Text: Encyclopedic dictionary of victims of communist terror – Vol. IV , “West Print“, Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, Tirana, 2015, page 263.
Photo: © http://gazetashqiptare.al/2019/03/20/
Graphic processing: AHCF
