Hasan Dosti
Minister of Justice
In office
December 12, 1941 – January 19, 1943[1]
Personal details
Born1895
Kardhiq, Ottoman Empire
(now Kardhiq, Albania)
Died29 January 1991(1991-01-29) (aged 96)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Political partyBalli Kombëtar
ChildrenVictor Dosti
Alma materUniversity of Paris
ProfessionLawyer, politician
Signature

Hasan Dosti (1895 – January 29, 1991) was an Albanian jurist and politician. He was the leader of the Balli Kombëtar after the war and was considered by the communists to be one of Albania's greatest enemies.[2]

Biography

Early life

Hasan Dosti was born in Albania (then part of the Ottoman Empire) in the village of Kardhiq near Gjirokastra,[3] to Elmaz Aga of the Dosti branch of Muslim Albanian Tosk household Dosti-Hajdaragaj.[4][5] Back then the village was part of the Ottoman Empire and belonged to the Vilayet of Janina with majority Albanian population. He attended the schools in Filippiada and the Philosophy Zosimaia School in Ioannina.[3] His family moved to Vlora after World War I, where Dosti came into contact with Avni Rustemi. Dosti then moved to Paris to complete his tertiary education at the faculty of law of the University of Paris.[3] After graduating, he returned to Albania to work as a lawyer.[3] In the 1920s he served a member of court of cassation of Albania under Thoma Orollogaj, who was the minister of justice at the time.

Opposition to monarchy

An opponent of Ahmet Zogu, he was imprisoned several times. From 1932 to 1935 he was sentenced to prison because of his participation in the Movement of Vlorë, an anti-monarchist organization founded by Dosti himself and Skënder Muço among others. In the late 1930s he organized an assassination plot against leading Italian and Albanian fascists.[6]

Balli Kombëtar

In 1941 he initially became Minister of Justice in Mustafa Merlika-Kruja's cabinet under Italian occupation;[7] however, in 1943 Dosti defected and joined the Balli Kombëtar.[7] He was a leading figure of the Balli Kombëtar during World War II[3] and was one of Balli Kombëtar's representatives in the Assembly of Mukje after he left the government in June 1942. With the communists on the brink of victory, Hasan Dosti managed to escape to Italy in a boat provided by the Abwehr.[8]

Exile

Hasan Dosti emigrated to the United States from Italy in 1949 and became head of the National Committee for a Free Albania after Mit'hat Frashëri's death.[9] The "National Committee for a Free Albania" was an organisation that was part of the National Committee for a Free Europe seeking to undermine Communist rule in Eastern Europe. He dismissed as Communist propaganda assertions that Albanian emigres included collaborators with the Axis powers during the war.[10]

He sought to bring about unity with the Prizren Committee, expressing the view that the liberation of Albania could be utilised effectively to bring about the overthrow of the government led by Enver Hoxha. Hasan Dosti felt that Yugoslav promises not to establish by force a Titoist government in Albania were not completely reliable, but that if such a government was established it would at least remove Albania from the Soviet orbit. However, official circles in Washington and London did not share Dosti's views, and the United States government presented an aide-memoire to Yugoslavia stating that it would “look with concern on efforts by any interested nation to take unilateral action vis-a-vis Albania”.[10]

Death

Hasan Dosti died at the age of 96. He had eight children, Luan, of Los Angeles, an aerospace engineer; and seven others who remained in Albania, including Shano Sokoli, Viktor Dosti, Tomorr Dosti, Ernest Dosti and Veronika Dine who spent their lives under Albania's Stalinist regime in labor camps and prisons.[11] After the fall of communism, his son Tomor Dosti served as a deputy chairman of the anti-Communist Democratic Party, was elected as a deputy of the Albanian parliament in the 1990s.

Sources

  1. ↑ Neuwirth, Hubert (2008). Widerstand und Kollaboration in Albanien 1939–1944. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 259. ISBN 978-3-447-05783-7. Retrieved 12 February 2012.
  2. ↑ Miranda Vickers, James Pettifer (1997). Albania: from anarchy to a Balkan identity. Hurst. Retrieved 31 March 2012. ... whose father Hasan Dosti had been the leader of the BK after the war and was considered by the communists to be one of Albania's greatest enemies.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Robert Elsie (2010). Historical dictionary of Albania. I.B.Tauris. p. 116. ISBN 9780810873803. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
  4. ↑ Rozi Dosti (30 January 2013). "Hasan Dosti akuzoi agjentin Kim Filbi per vdekjen e njerëzve të tij në Shqipëri" (5894). Interviewed by Fatos Veliu. Gazeta Shqiptare: 20–21. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  5. ↑ Vlora, Eqrem bej (2003). Lebenserinnerungen [Kujtime 1885-1925]. Translated by Afrim Koçi. Tiranë: IDK. p. 583. ISBN 99927-780-6-7.
  6. ↑ Aldrich, Richard James (2002). The hidden hand: Britain, America, and Cold War secret intelligence. Overlook Press. p. 162. ISBN 978-1-58567-274-5. Retrieved 12 February 2012.
  7. 1 2 Fischer, Bernd Jürgen (1999). Albania at war, 1939–1945. Hurst. p. 116. ISBN 978-1-85065-531-2. Retrieved 12 February 2012.
  8. ↑ Fischer 1999, p. 229
  9. ↑ Corke, Sarah-Jane (2008). US covert operations and Cold War strategy: Truman, secret warfare and the CIA, 1945–53. Routledge. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-415-42077-8. Retrieved 12 February 2012.
  10. 1 2 Owen Pearson (8 September 2006). Albania as dictatorship and democracy: from isolation to the Kosovo War. ISBN 9781845111052. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
  11. ↑ New York Times: Hasan Dosti, 96, Dies; Ex-Official in Albania
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