Qazim Koculi, a political activist of the Independence period, was born in Kocul of Vlora. He headed the Navy Academy in Istanbul, where he attained the rank of “lieutenant.” Koculi participated in the Assembly of Vlora in 1912 and served in the administration of the Provisional Government of Vlora. During World War I, he was engaged in national activities, which led to his election as a delegate from Vlora to the Congress of Lushnja in 1920. In the parliamentary elections of 1921, he was elected as a deputy. He aligned himself with political forces advocating for the democratization of the country’s governance and was appointed Minister of Agriculture in the democratic government of Fan Noli in 1924. After the suppression of the June 1924 Democratic Revolution, Koculi went into political exile. Following the Italian invasion of Albania in 1939, he returned to his homeland, collaborated with the Italian invaders, and was appointed a member of the Supreme Council of State. At the end of 1942, he was designated as the extraordinary commissar in Vlora by the Italian authorities. He was assassinated in Vlorë by the Italian invaders as a consequence of their defeat in the battle of Gjormi in 1943. (In the photo: Qazim Koculi)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1195.
Photo: © https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qazim_Koculi
Graphic processing: AHCF
