In Struga, in a family originating from Mati, Ibrahim Temo, an activist of the National Renaissance, was born. He completed primary school in his hometown, while he completed secondary school and higher studies in medicine in Istanbul. He was one of the initiators and activists of the “Young Turks” national movement against the despotic regime of Sultan Abdyl Hamit II. Together with three friends, he formed in Istanbul in 1889 the first Young Turks committee named “Union and Progress” (“Ittihad ve Terakki”). Ibrahim Temo was imprisoned for his revolutionary activity and then sentenced to death (in absentia) by the Ottoman government. Pursued by the sultan, he was forced to leave for Romania (1895), where he continued working for the good of the Young Turks movement, especially the Albanian National Movement. He stood out as an activist of the Albanian patriotic societies of Romania, where he gave a great help in the fight for the liberation of Albania from the Ottoman yoke. He participated in the drafting of petitions and memoranda sent to the Sublime Porte and the Great Powers by the Albanian societies of Romania and other diaspora colonies between 1896 and 1906, demanding the autonomy of Albania and the preservation of the integrity of Albanian lands from the risk of fragmentation. After the proclamation of the Constitution in 1908, he opposed the denationalizing anti-Albanian policy of the Young Turks and entered into conflict with them. After the Declaration of Independence, he was put in defense of the Albanian state. Together with other patriots of the Albanian colony of Romania, he directed a series of notes of protest to the Great Powers for the protection of the rights of the Albanian people and the entirety of their lands against the greed of neighboring countries. In 1914, he came to Albania as a doctor at the head of a sanitary team, to fight malaria. As the envoy of the Albanians of Romania, he strongly defended the Albanian cause at the Peace Conference in Paris (1919). (In the photo: Ibrahim Temo)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, page 2675-2676.
Photo: © https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Temo
Graphic processing: AHCF
