Dhimitër Berati, political activist, diplomat, was born in Korça. He studied political and legal sciences in Bucharest and Rome. Initially, he worked as the secretary of the Albanian Community in Bucharest. In 1912, the Albanian Community of Romania assigned him to accompany Ismail Qemali and Luigj Gurakuqi on their journey to Albania, where they would declare independence from the Ottoman Empire. He participated in the Assembly of Vlora, on November 28, 1912, where he signed the Act of Declaration of Independence of Albania. At the meeting of the elders, he was elected its secretary and served as Secretary of State in the Foreign Ministry of the Provisional Government of Vlora (1912). From August 1913 to March 1914, he was director of the newspaper “Përlindja e Shqipërisë” (“The birth of Albania”), the first official newspaper of the Albanian state. During the First World War he lived in Romania and was the secretary of the Albanian representation of Romania; in the years 1919-1921, secretary of the Albanian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference (1919). In order to refute the Serbian claims against Albania, Dhimitër Berati published the book “La question albanaise” 1919 (“The Albanian Question”), which summarizes articles written by foreign authors about Albania. In 1923, Dhimitër Berati was a director in the Foreign Ministry of Albania and a member of the International Commission for Borders; in 1930 he was appointed a delegate of Albania to the League of Nations; in 1934, he was appointed Minister of Economy and, from September to October 1935, he also headed the Ministry of Education; in the government of Mithat Frashëri, he was the Minister of Economy. From December 1941 to January 1943, he was Minister of Education in the government of Mustafa Kruja. At the end of the war, he emigrated to Italy, where he died in 1970. (In the photo: Dhimitër Berati)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 1 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 213.
Photo: © https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhimit%C3%ABr_Beratti
Graphic processing: AHCF
