An Important Stage in the Educational Activities of Albanians during the Second Constitutional Period: Elbasan Education Congress

Abstract

With the declaration of the second constitutional period, Albanians thought that there was no obstacle to the fulfillment of their demands for the opening of schools giving education in their native language. In this regard, they opened many schools in several cities of Albania. The Albanian intelligentsia believed that the only way to preserve their national asset was to raise the educational level. Hence, they accelerated the activities in the educational field. However, these developments gave rise to discussions about which alphabet to be used in Albanian education. This is because different alphabets had been used among Albanians until that time, which caused divisions in the Albanian society. While Albanians were holding congresses to reach an agreement on the alphabet issue, they also embarked on the quest of solutions for the control of the opened schools from a single center and for meeting the teacher requirement. In line with these, they held an important congress in Elbasan. The activities to be implemented in the educational field were discussed in detail; the steps to be taken were determined; and a road map was drawn in this congress, which gave acceleration to Albanians' educational movement. Then the decisions taken started to be put into practice in no time. This study evaluates the Congress of Elbasan, which is one of the most important educational activities of Albanians, based on the press of the constitutional period and the Ottoman archival documents.