The establishment of the “Club of Ioannina”

The “Club of Ioannina”, an Albanian cultural-patriotic association, was founded. It was among the first Albanian clubs and one of the largest that was established immediately after the victory of the Young Turk Revolution, in 1908. It was founded by the Albanian patriots of Ioannina, with Zija Beu as president. In 1910, Kadri Gjata was elected president of the Ioannina Club. The club consisted of intellectuals, officials of the local state apparatus, schoolteachers, etc. It had its Statute under the name “Regulations of the Society of Albanians in Ioannina” (1908), according to which the main goal of the Ioannina Club was the cultural and educational upliftment of the Albanian population of the vilayet of Ioannina. The club of Ioannina published its own press organ, the newspaper “Zgjimi i Shqipërisë” 1909-1910, which was the first Albanian newspaper in the capital of the vilayet. In the autumn of 1908, the Ioannina Club managed to introduce the teaching of the Albanian language with the Albanian alphabet in the high school (idadiye) of Ioannina. In the spring of 1909, the Club of Ioannina requested from the local state bodies, that in all the Turkish state schools of the vilayet the Albanian language should be introduced as a subject, while in the Greek schools the Albanian language should be introduced (along with Greek) as a language of instruction for Albanian students, who made up the majority of students in these schools. This request was opposed by the governor of Ioannina. In August 1909, the Ioannina Club was subjected to persecution by the Young Turk authorities; its chairman and other activists were arrested, who were able to escape from exile in Anatolia, only thanks to the protests of the club and the patriots of Ioannina. From the summer of 1910, the Ioannina Club, like other Albanian societies, was put in difficult conditions due to the violence exercised by Shefqet Turgut Pasha, who spread the Young Turk terror throughout Albania, and began to persecute the Albanian patriots everywhere. (In the photo: Kadri Gjata, chairman of the Ioannina Club, 1910.)