In London passed away Ihsan bey Toptani, son of Abdi bej Toptani, signatory of the Declaration of Independence and Minister of Finance in the Provisional Government of Ismail Qemali in 1912. He was born in Tirana in 1908. He studied in Graz, Austria, where he attended secondary school from 1920 to 1928 and completed his doctorate in political science in 1940. He returned to Albania in 1942. He played an important role in efforts to unify various resistance movements during the Italian and German occupation, but without success. In October 1944, Ihsan bey Toptani fled with Abaz Kupi to Italy and worked for “Newsweek” in Rome. In 1949, he joined British agent David Smiley in Malta and helped train anti-communist agents to infiltrate Albania. Ihsan Toptani worked in Paris before moving to England. In London, he worked for the BBC monitoring service and obtained British citizenship in 1958, before retiring in 1967 to live in a country house in Surrey. (In the photo: Ihsan bej Toptani)
Text: Robert Elsie, Historical Dictionary of Albania, Second Edition, London, “The Scarecrow Press, Inc.”, 2010, pages 448–449.
Photo: © Toptani Family
Graphic processing: AHCF
