Faik Konica

Faik Konica Bey ( born March 15, 1875 in Konica, † December 15, 1942 in Washington DC) was an active in the Albanian national movement Rilindja journalist and intellectual. After the Albanian Declaration of Independence of 1912, he was also active as a diplomat for his country.

Life

Faik Konica visited the Ottoman elementary school in his birthplace of Epirus, after which he continued his education at the Jesuit school in Shkodra continued. There he was first introduced to Western culture and European ideas into contact. Also learned the young Toske know the well-kept by the Shkodraner Catholics Gheg dialect literature. Later Konica changed to the French-language high school in Istanbul's Galata. In 1890 he went to France, finished the high school education in 1892 in Carcassonne and then studied Romance languages ​​at the University of Dijon. After graduating, he moved on to Paris, where he dealt with ancient languages ​​. Konica finished his studies in 1896 with a fellowship at Harvard University in the United States.

After his training, the young Konica was a polyglot man. He controlled not only Albanian and French, spoken and written, but knew also in Turkish, English, German and Italian express well. The period of study in the West has also greatly influenced Konicas political and philosophical thought. The Albanologist Robert Elsie referred to him as the first modern Western-style Albanian intellectuals.

Since 1895 Konica has written articles on Albania for French newspapers. In September 1897 he moved to Brussels, where he founded the monthly magazine Albania. This magazine has quickly become one of the major titles of the early Albanian press products. The bilingual Albania was not only the Albanian diaspora in Western and Central Europe, but was also responsible for the diplomats of the great powers an important source of information about the situation in Albania. Even after moving to London in 1902 Konica gave the magazine still out until 1909. In that year he went to the United States.

Konica settled first in Boston, a center of the Albanian emigrants down. He was editor of the newspaper founded by Fan Noli Albanian Dielli, the Vatra was the organ of the cultural association. 1912 Konica was also Secretary General of this important for the Albanian National Movement Association.

Konica 1912 traveled to London to operate on behalf of Vatra at the Conference of Ambassadors lobbying for Albanian independence. For this he was able to use his earlier knotted in the British capital good contacts. On 17 December 1912, the Conference of Ambassadors Albania at first recognized only as an autonomous country under the suzerainty of the Sultan.

Konica, which had fallen out in March 1913, the first Albanian Prime Minister Ismail Qemal Bey Vlora, supported in the following time Essad Pasha Toptani, who was also an opponent of William of Wied. In May 1913 Konica spoke to the delegates of the Albanian National Congress of Trieste. More and more he was started on an opponent of Austria -Hungarian Albania policy that looked at the new state as a bulwark against Serbs and Montenegrins and, at least that meant Konica, not enough for the Albanian cause in the still unclear border with Greece.

At the outbreak of World War Konica was in Austria. He was suspected to be an Italian spy, and had to leave the country. He settled in Lausanne, where he also met Mehdi Bej Frashëri. In November 1915 he published there directed against Germany font. He accused the German diplomacy to try to sacrifice the independence of Albania in favor of their war aims. ( To do so, of course, all the belligerents were ready. Directed against Germany The writing was therefore also due to the sympathy for Esat Pasha, because this tended to the Entente. ) In March 1916, Konica in Sofia and the following July again in Austria. Which political game he played on these trips is unclear. The Germans and Austrians declared Konica any case, persona non grata, and he returned to Switzerland.

1921 Back in the USA, Konica was elected president of the Vatra and he took his journalistic career again. 1926 appointed him Ahmet Zogu the Albanian ambassador in Washington. He remained in this post until Albania was occupied by Italy in April 1939. Konica died in December 1942 in Washington. He was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston. After the end of communism, his remains were transferred to Tirana.

Faik Konica appeared less as a writer than as a promoter and facilitator of the Albanian literary life in appearance. He campaigned for a unified Albanian written language and also for the collection and publication of older texts. In the magazine Albania and later in Dielli he made the Albanians and interested strangers for the first time with a number of writers such as Thimi Mitko, food Normandin Kristoforidhi, Andon Zako Cajupi and Gjergj Fishta known. He was active in his newspapers as a knowledgeable literary critic. Works, but not distinguished literary quality merely national pathos, he commented sarcastically, as he did the naive nationalism of many of his Albanian countrymen faced critical. Thus, just as with his political orientation, first as a sympathizer Essad Pasha and Ahmet Zog later, he had made ​​many enemies.