Speech of Ambassador Donika Hoxha on the occasion of the inauguration of Albania’s Corner at the National Library of Bulgaria:

Dear Madam Director, Your Excellencies, Albanian-language speakers, ladies and gentlemen,

Good afternoon. I have great pleasure in welcoming you all to this meaningful event. For me it is always a pleasure to work with such wonderful institution as the National Library, which safeguards a patrimony of knowledge. Indeed, it safeguards, among others, the 1st Albanian primary published in Sofia in 1899. This fact brings me back to the old relations and traditional friendship with Bulgaria. Bulgaria was one of the first countries to recognize the independence of Albania, and before that it supported its cause. Many Albanian patriots of Renaissance found shelter in Bulgaria to carry out their patriotic activity for the independence of their homeland.

I don’t think anybody could seriously doubt that the Albanian language is more widely spoken than it was 110 years ago – or even 30 years ago. There are plenty of reasons for this. People today, Albanians in this case are more mobile – they relocate to new countries in search of a new career, a new experience, a different lifestyle. One of the most interesting Albanian facts is that another 10 million Albanians are living outside the country’s boundaries. This is part of the globalisation process. Yet, in addition to learning a new language or speaking the main language for international communication, they continue to cultivate their own identity and language. We owe them a big thank you for preserving and passing their roots from one generation to another.

An important fact is also that the Albanian language, one of the most ancient languages in the world is taught at university here in Bulgaria. Every year about 60 students learn Albanian language, literature, history and culture at the University of Sofia. We are grateful to Albanian language professors at this university for engaging students in meaningful activities and I wish the opening of this corner will provide a language-rich learning environment.

Ladies and gentlemen,
This is not a symbolic corner. It contains more than 550 volumes in Albanian language and more than 700 volumes speaking about Albania and the Albanians. 350 volumes in two copies referring to Albanian traditions, costumes, culture, history as well as development of Albanians’ social life have further enriched the already existing fund of the library. They have been donated recently by the Academy of Albanology and Academy of Sciences of Albania.

We would like students, researchers and Albanian speaking people to make greater use of these materials and learn more about the country called Shqiperia.

Ladies and gentlemen,
As you can see, in this room, we are surrounded by wonderful photographs that show our colors, the “Colors of the Albanians”.
These are photographs from a digital contest organized by the Foreign Ministries of Albania and Kosova, whose basic aim was not simply to include young men and women, people without distinguishing features in a competition where each of them had the opportunity to take a photo, of course not from those professional photos that we are used to seeing, but photos that testify to our beauties as a nation.
The photos we have selected are some of the winning photos of this competition, which last year also had a special theme “Identity Traces”, through which we have tried to juxtapose the present and the past.

We invite you to have a look at them, while thanking you all again for being here today. I would like to take this occasion and extend special thanks to Director Alexandrova and her staff whose support for the Embassy of Albania and myself have never missed.

Thank you again.