The General Directorate of Archives has been enriched by over 1 million documents on Albania and Albanians from the imperial archives of Istanbul. GDA informs that the documents are in digital form and cover political and social activity of Albanians during the Ottoman rule.

Among the documents there are decisions and decorations of various personalities, information on political clashes between leaders in the Albanian space, information on the dynasties of Albanian cities, data on Albanian, Greek, Serbian national movements and documents of a religious nature.

“Over 1 million donated documents enrich the fund of Ottoman materials. The General Directorate of Archives (GDA) has been enriched by over 1 million documentary units, obtained in the form of another donation from the counterpart institution, the Archives of the Ottoman Empire based in Istanbul.

This donation comes in the wake of several years of efforts of the Albanian Archives Directorate and the Cooperation Agreement between the two institutions, for the exchange of archival documents. Earlier, in 2015 and 2020, the Istanbul Archives donated about 5,000 and 350,000 documents, respectively. Among them were ordinances, farms, biographical data of Ismail Qemali, as well as documentation on Ali Pasha, a part of which has been donated to the local memory organ, the Museum of Tepelena. This broad research base will serve as an impetus for conducting further research, which sheds light on the overall activity of Albania and Albanians during the Ottoman period until the declaration of Independence”, GDA announces.

/Artan Pupa/