Over the centuries, Albania has always been a freedom-loving country. Despite its small size, it has played a crucial role in preserving individuality, defending its freedom and also that of neighbouring countries. It wasn’t always so. In 1355, when Serbian Emperor Stefan Duscan died, Albania was thrown into chaos. Feuding noblemen established their own dominions. When Ottoman forces entered Albania, they were faced with small principalities that were engaged in vicious fights among themselves. Consequently, in the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire established itself in the Balkans with little resistance. Local Christian nobles were still fighting amongst themselves and didn’t see the advance of the Ottoman Empire as a threat to their power. Instead of seizing the opportunity to repel the Ottomans, some Serbs and Hungarians even helped the future Sultan Mohammed I seize power. Freedom for the Albanian people came through the military leader, Skanderbeg. Born in 1405 to the noble Kastrioti family, in a village in Dibra, Skanderberg was taken hostage by the Sultan at the age of 18 and served the Ottoman Empire for the next twenty years. He deserted in 1443 with 300 other Albanians. They captured Kruja and declared its independence from the Sultan. On this day in history, March 2, 1444, Skanderbeg called the Albanian princes to Lezha to unite the country. Skanderbeg’s example gave impetus to the liberation movements in Central and Northern Albania. In spite of the discord among the princes, they founded a federation of independent rulers, which went down in history by the name of the League of Lezha. The League followed a common foreign policy, jointly defended their independence, and contributed their armed forces to the alliance. At the same time, each clan kept its possessions and exercised its autonomy in solving internal problems, keeping Albanians free. For the …
Announcing Project: FREE MARKET LIBRARY
[alert style=”yellow”] Project Period: First phase (Sep 2013 – Dec 2014)[/alert] This project aims at promoting the Liberal Free Market literature, through translating into Albanian and publishing of such books, to help students of Economic, Law and Political and Social Studies Faculties during their Bachelor and Master/Doctorate studies for general and specific knowledge, and for their theses. It will also address to Albanian readers and Business Associations, because our book market lacks this kind of literature. These books, for some of which the centre has the copyright, are taken from classical and up-to-date liberal literature, and are included into the curricula of many international universities, so this project aims also to do this, in cooperation with respective university chairs, by propagating and discussing this kind of literature in various activities such as organizing the Open Evenings with students and professors. The books will be distributed to every library of public and private universities and also to city bookshops. Up to now, two books from Free Market Odyssey have already been published, with the help of ISIL – International Society for Individual Liberty: – The Aventurat e Xhonathan Gullible (revised) by Ken Schoolland; – Anthem by Ayn Rand. The first phase of the project will start with other publications, as follows: – Beyond Democracy by Frank Karsten; – The Logic of Classical Liberalism by Jacque de Guenin; – The Law by Frederic Bastiat; – The Free Market and its Enemies by Ludvig von Mises; – Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt; – Libertarianism by David Boaz; For the moment, we are working with the translation of the first two books and also looking for grants to publish them within 2013. [toggle title=”Organizer information” state=”closed”] Organization: CENTER “OPEN EDUCATION ALBANIA”, Address: Rr. Abdyl Frasheri, Pall. de Rada, Njesia 4. Project manager: KOZETA …
And This Year’s ISIL Liberty Award Goes to…
The late ISIL director Bruce Evoy established the Marshall Bruce Evoy Memorial Award to honor ISIL members who had done special work to advance liberty despite substantial personal sacrifice and/or in difficult circumstances. This year’s Evoy Award, presented at the banquet in Lausanne, went to Kozeta Cuadari-Cika, ISIL Rep for Albania, one of the poorest and politically volatile countries in Europe. Kozeta began her libertarian activities around 1997, just after an economic crisis and civil war in Albania,working for an economics thinktank led by Zef Preci. She has helped the Liberal Club and the European Libertarian University in Tirana, and has translated and published two editions of Ken Schoolland’s The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free-Market Odyssey and also published an Albanian version of Ayn Rand’s Anthem. Kozeta plans to submit a formal bid to host an ISIL international conference in Tirana.