Ismail Qemali

Ismail Qemal Bey was born on January 16, 1844, in Vlorë into a distinguished aristocratic family. Educated at the Zosimaia School in Ioannina and in law in Istanbul, he served as a prominent Ottoman civil servant and governor of Beirut and Tripoli before defecting to lead the Albanian national renaissance.

Amid the chaotic collapse of the Ottoman Empire during the First Balkan War in 1912, Qemali convened eighty-three delegates from all Albanian lands at the Assembly of Vlorë. On November 28, 1912, he unfurled Skanderbeg's historic red and black flag, proclaiming an independent Albania. He served as the first Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, defending the borders of the fledgling nation at the 1913 London Ambassadors Conference.