[Alb-Educ] Ihsan Toptani

[Mithat Gashi]

Ihsan Toptani

Politician and journalist
1908-2001

He was the doyen of the Albanian community in Britain, a keen member of
the Anglo-Albanian Association and a campaigner against the Stalinist
regime of Enver Hoxha and its successors.

Ihsan Bey Toptani, who has died aged 92, was prominent in the wartime
Albanian resistance to Italian and German occupation, and gave invaluable
help to the British military missions.

It gave him great pleasure to return to his homeland after the Stalinist
regime's collapse and to walk again on Mount Dajti.

Born as he was into the turmoil of the ailing Ottoman Empire, Toptani's
earliest memories were of his family's houses being torched by mobs loyal
to the sultan in Istanbul. He was the son of Abdi Bey Toptani, a signatory
to the 1912 independence proclamation and a minister in the first
independent government of Albania. The family were prominent members of
the land-owning class, and had dominated Tirana in the 19th century.

At the age of eight, young Ihsan was sent to school in Vienna, and
eventually took a political science doctorate at the University of Graz.
There, he became acquainted with Austro-Marxism, and convinced that
communism would be a deadly threat to his homeland.

On Good Friday 1939, Mussolini invaded Albania, declaring it Italy's
second overseas province (after Ethiopia). The operation was facilitated
by the fact that the Albanian army was run by Italian advisers. Soon,
three main resistance movements sprang up: the supporters of King Zog; the
nationalist republicans; and the communists, at first several quarrelling
factions, which were later united as the National Liberation Council under
Enver Hoxha.

All three groupings viewed the others with suspicion. Toptani, until then
inactive politically, made it his task to unite the resistance into a
common front - he was an observer at the leaders' meeting at his house
which led to the Mukaj agreement. Within days, however, Hoxha denounced
the pact at the request of his Yugoslav advisers, and the Communist Party
declared war on the nationalist republicans.

Shortly after this, Toptani heard that a British officer operating in
Albania was gravely ill. Under the eyes of the Germans, he moved
Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Nicholls through Tirana for an operation.
Nicholls died 10 days later, and Toptani arranged his secret burial.

British military missions had been active in Albania since 1943, and in
April 1944, Colonel Billy Maclean, Julian Amery and David Smiley were
dropped into the country's northern region. From Toptani's country houses,
they maintained radio contact with their Italian headquarters.

By autumn 1944, the Germans were leaving Albania, the communists were
winning the civil war and Maclean's mission was withdrawn - to their shame
and disgust, they were forbidden from taking any Albanians with them.
Toptani made a wretched boat journey, which included six days adrift
without food or water, reaching Italy with a handful of prominent members
of the nationalist resistance.

After the war, he worked for Newsweek magazine in Rome, before joining the
BBC Monitoring Service at Caversham, and retiring to Surrey in 1967. He
obtained British nationality in 1958.

To the end, he remained clear-headed, with diverse interests in languages,
photography, philosophy and computing. Befitting his status as one of the
last surviving holders of the Ottoman title "bey", he was a striking
figure, with distinguished aquiline features; he invariably wore a bow
tie.

At the age of 91 he was still making plans. "When I am 100," he said,
"provided the Albanian people have made use of those physical and
spiritual assets which have enabled them to preserve their national
identity over thousands of years, I will return to spend that time which
is left in my homeland."

Andrew van der Beek The Guardian, London






-I had the opportunity to visit Mr. Toptani at his house in London in
1996.  I was greatly impressed with him. -M.Gashi