The legend of Mehmet Pasha Deralla

Abstract

This research deals with life, acts, contributions and work of Mehmet Pasha Deralla in the establishment of the Albanian Army and establishment of state, military and police institutions in the service of the homeland and the Albanian nation. A boy from the village of Gradec, a settlement at Sharri’s footpath between Tetovo and Gostivar, where he had been raised and cared for, Mehmet Pasha Deralla had advanced so rapidly in the imperial hierarchy that one day he had become Sultan Hamiti's personal advisor in Istanbul. This adviser will be the one to save Mehmet Pasha’s life in a dispute over the resistance to the Ottoman rule. The Sultan wanted to condemn Mehmet Pasha Deralla to death; hence he called his second advisor, namely the former orphan of Gradec, who had been cared for by Pasha of Tetovo. Sultan asks him for advice, and the man from Gradec said, "If you take such action, all of Tetova will stand up". Mehmet Pasha Deralla was born in 1843 in an Albanian family with patriotic and military traditions of Hasan Deralla from the village of Gradec near Gostivar. His primary education was completed in Tetovo and secondary school in Skopje. After that he studied at Istanbul's first Turkish Military Academy, where he graduated as an officer with excellent results. While he served in an infantry regiment in Anatolia he continues his higher studies at the Royal High School in Istanbul. In 1878 he received the rank of brigadier general and served for several years in the Turkish Empire, later serving as commander of the Vilayet of Kosovo in Bitola and Skopje. From 1878 to 1881 he supported the Albanian League of Prizren in organizing its military forces where together with his father, and carried out combat actions against Slavic chauvinism. After the dissolution of the Albanian League of Prizren he is engaged in the Peja Assembly; from 1899 he was interned in Baghdad.
These are some of the features that distinguish Mehmet Deralla through historical periods. He is the first Army Minister in Albanian history.