Bajram Curri

This page is about the Albanian national hero - for the town named after him, see Bajram Curri (town).

Bajram Curri (1862 – March 29, 1925) was an ethnic Albanian politician and activist within the Vilayet of Kosovo, Ottoman Empire. He is awarded the title Hero of Albania.

Curri was born in Gjakova, in the Rumelia Province of the Ottoman Empire. Whilst the present-day regions of Albania and Serbia were under Ottoman control, Curri represented the interests of the Albanians. He successfully fought in 1912 against the Young Turks. During World War I, he organized a guerrilla unit as part of the Kachak movement trough the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo which he was a member.

When Albania was reconstituted after the war, he held various governments posts as a Minister and as a commander in the army. As an opponent of the later King Ahmed Zogu, to whom the Kosovo issue was less important, he was pursued by the King's troops and encircled in the northern Albanian mountains. He shot himself on March 29, 1925, in order to escape capture. The place where he died, Dragobi, in Tropojë District, was renamed after him (Bajram Curri), to commemorate him as a freedom fighter.

See also

• Kachak
• List of Albanians

Notes and references

Notes:

a.	^ Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Serbia and the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo. The latter declared independence on 17 February 2008, while Serbia claims it as part of its own sovereign territory. Its independence is recognised by 86 UN member states.

References: