Mustafa (Merlika) Kruja passed away in Niagara Falls (USA). He was a prime minister during the period of fascist occupation from 1941 to 1943, a political activist, and a scholar. He was born in Krujë in 1887. He attended the Turkish high school in Ioannina and pursued higher education in political science at the University of Mülkiye in Istanbul (1910). He was a delegate from Krujë to the National Assembly of Vlorë (November 28, 1912), where he was elected a member of the Elderly Council. He was appointed sub-prefect in Vlorë and later became the first secretary of Ismail Qemali’s government. In 1914, he supported Wilhelm Wied; a year later, he was arrested by Esad Toptani and imprisoned in Bari, Italy, and from there, on the island of Favignana in Sicily. After his release in 1917, he settled in Rome, where he worked as the editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Kuvendi” (“The assembly”). He served as Minister of Posts and Telegraphs in Turhan Pasha’s government (December 25, 1918 – January 29, 1920). In 1919, he was the secretary of the Albanian delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris. He was a deputy for Kosovo in the first parliamentary elections of 1921. Fan Noli’s government appointed him prefect of Shkodër. In December 1924, he left the country and settled in Zadar, Dalmatia (which at that time belonged to Italy), and formed the “Zadar Group“, funded by Italy. There, he also engaged in linguistic studies. By the end of 1938, his group agreed to Italy’s plan to invade Albania. He became one of the four Albanian senators of the Kingdom of Italy and collaborated closely with the fascist occupiers. He was a member of the Albanian Royal Institute (Institute of Albanian Studies) and chairman of its Scientific Council. On December 3, 1941, he was appointed Prime Minister of Albania. In October 1944, he left Albania.
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(In the photo: Mustafa (Merlika) Kruja)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1361-1362.
Photo: © https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustafa_Kruja
Graphic processing: AHCF
