Nationality Albanian Role Albanian statesman Name Spiro Koleka | Spouse(s) Lica Koleka Other names Spiro Thoma Koleka Died 2001, Tirana, Albania | |
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Born 7 July 1908 ( 1908-07-07 ) Vuno, Janina Vilayet, Ottoman Empire
now Albania Political party Party of Labour of Albania Party Party of Labour of Albania | ||
Spiro Koleka (7 July 1908 – 22 August 2001) was an important Albanian statesman, communist politician and a high-ranking military officer during World War II. He was a civil engineer by profession. Spiro Koleka served as a parliament member in all legislatures from 1944 until 1990. Koleka was a member of the Politburo of the Party of Labor of Albania during the years 1948 to 1981. As part of his political career he also served as Chairman of the State Planning Commission, Minister of Industry and Construction of Albania, as well as Vice Prime Minister.
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Ethnicity
According to British academics James Pettifer and Miranda Vickers, Koleka was born into an ethnic Greek family and was one of the few members of the Greek minority serving in the Socialist People's Republic of Albania political system. As such he was unpopular among the minority and was accused by various ethnic Greeks of implementing an anti-Greek agenda of the regime, including forced relocations of people of the same ethnicity as himself. Spiro Koleka was a distant relative of Spiro Jorgo Koleka (1879 or 1880–1940), a leader of the Albanian national movement and later interwar government minister. Edi Rama, a maternal descendant of the Koleka family, said that the family is of Mirditor origin, and that the surname was derived from Kol Leka.
Life and career
Koleka was born in the village of Vuno, an Orthodox Albanian village part of Himara, a predominantly Greek speaking region.
After completing his secondary education in the Italo–Albanian college of San Demetrio Corone (Collegio of Sant'Adriano), in the Italian province of Cosenza, Spiro Koleka continued his higher education at the University of Pisa (1930–1934) where he graduated as a civil engineer. After his return to Albania, he was involved in anti-Zogist and anti-Italian activities; in 1935 he participated in the Fier rebellion against King Zog and shortly after found himself arrested by the authorities.
During 1937–39 Spiro Koleka travelled extensively in Italy while taking an active part in the resistance against the Italian occupation of Albania. Upon the Italian occupation (7 April 1939) he fled to Yugoslavia, but returned to Albania in December 1939. During 1940–41 he began cooperating with the communist resistance underground while at the same time co-founding and running the Mani and Koleka Engineering Company. Koleka was elected as a member of the General Council and of the General Staff of the Communist Party of Albania at the Labinot Conference (1943). In May 1944, he was appointed Minister of Public Works at the Pennet Conference, officially in October as part of the first of Hoxha's governments.
In October 1948 he became Minister of Communications, and then also President of the State Planning Commission in November 1948. He was a member of the Politburo. Koleka was part of the Trade Delegation's visit to Moscow in 1949. In November 1949 he became Deputy Prime Minister. In the capacity of Deputy Prime Minister, Koleka presented in 1952 the very first Five Year Plan for the economy.
In 1966, he was again appointed chairman of the State Planning Commission.
Koleka's background and experience as a technocrat allowed him to lead numerous economic and political delegations of the time to many East European countries, including the Soviet Union. Moreover, he was reported by the national and international press to be the chief architect of Albanian industrial development which was the backbone of the program of the Albanian Workers' Party after the Second World War.