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"Precursor of the European Union"/ 127 years since the birth of the intellectual Llazar Fundo

2026-03-20 19:15:00, Kulturë CNA

"Precursor of the European Union"/ 127 years since the birth of the

Today marks the 127th anniversary of the birth of the renowned intellectual Llazar (Zai) Fundo.

Fundo was born in Korça, on March 20, 1899, into a merchant family originally from Voskopoja. He attended the French Lycée in Thessaloniki, then studied law at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he came into contact with communist ideas.

In 1923 he returned to Albania. He was an activist and chairman of the “Bashkimi” society of Avni Rustemi, a well-known exponent of the communist movement, then a social democratic journalist. Meanwhile, he participated in the “Bashkimi” Society (1922-1925) and after the assassination of Avni Rustemi in 1924 he was elected chairman of the society and directed the newspaper “Bashkimi”. At the end of December, when the Noli government fell, he left his homeland for Italy, Austria, Germany, France and Russia.

During this time he collaborated with the newspaper “Liria Kombëtare” of Omer Nishani. During his stay in Vienna, he joined the Balkan Communist Federation, which included the Kosovo Committee, where Zai Fundo operated. He then emigrated to the USSR, graduated in philosophy in Moscow and lectured on the subject in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) where he joined the Comintern.

Fundo participated in the 8th Congress of the Balkan Communist Federation where he discussed the formation of the Communist Party in Albania, helping to form the Korça Communist Group.

"Precursor of the European Union"/ 127 years since the birth of the

In 1933, Lazar Fundo was in Germany where he saw the Reichstag fire and left for the Soviet Union with his friend Gjergj Dimitrov, the man who a few years later would save his life, after he was sentenced to death by the Comintern for his anti-Stalinist stance.

In 1939, after the Italian invasion, he was arrested by the Italians and exiled to the infamous island of Ventotene, as a communist exponent. Fundo would be one of the close collaborators and debaters with Altiero Spinelli and Sandro Pertini.

Fundo had become a communist in Paris during his university studies. While his intellectualism and knowledge of several languages ??gave him confidence, his political engagement had reached beyond Albania and when Dimitrov was arrested after the Reichstag fire, Fundo was in Berlin as one of his collaborators. He escaped arrest and re-entered Moscow where he worked for the International. When the wind of the great purges began, he, a loyal communist but educated in a liberal cultural atmosphere in democratic countries, had frequented quite a few opponents of Stalin...

In Ventotene he had naturally become close to former communists and socialists, with whom he often spoke about the curse of Stalin's regime.

Otherwise he walked calmly, straight, handsome, with blond hair blowing in the wind, softly muttering the words of Plato that he was reading in Greek, searching in ancient texts for the spiritual peace that the failure of his communist experience had taken from him and that he could not find anywhere. After September 8, when the last group of Ventotene internees was released, Lazar Fundo went down to the coast of Puglia, then stayed in Rome, and crossed over to Albania with the Kryeziu brothers.

Despite all the brotherly and friendly support that Sandro Pertini gave him, in a last meeting with him in Rome, in August 1943, who wanted to convince him to stay in Italy to fight fascism with him, he decided to return to Albania to fight. He joined the Kryeziu brothers and the British mission near them in the Gjakova Highlands.

In September 1944 he was captured by Tito's and Fadil Hoxha's partisans on Mount Dobrej in Tropoja and handed over to the Albanian communists. Convicted of "Trotskyism" and collaboration with the British Intelligence Service. He was arrested and killed by partisan forces in Kolesjan in Kukës on September 23, 1944, without trial. 

Enver Hoxha's radiogram on September 21, 1944 states: "Zai tortured Fundo to death and then shot him."

Llazar Fundo was a drafter of the Ventotene Manifesto "For a free and united Europe". But later, due to his principled ideas, he clashed with Spinelli and other authors, according to many of their manuscripts. The "Ventotene Manifesto" is known as the precursor of the Hague Congress and the Schuman Declaration.

They developed a new vision for the creation of a free and united Europe, based on the idea of ??sovereignty, workers' movement, common currency, etc. Italian scholars would call them the forerunners of the European Union. /CNA





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