Today marks the birthday of the former President of Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova. He was born on December 2, 1944, in Cërcë, Istog. On January 10, 1945, communist forces in Yugoslavia executed his father, Uka, and his grandfather, Rrustë Rugova, who had been a well-known fighter against the Chetnik units that were penetrating Kosovo during World War II.
Ibrahim Rugova completed his primary education in Istog and his secondary education in Pejë in 1967. He graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Albanian Language and Literature, at the University of Pristina. During the 1976-77 academic year, he stayed in Paris at the École Pratique des Hautes Études under the supervision of Professor Roland Barthes, where he pursued his academic interests in literary studies, focusing on literary theory. He obtained his doctorate in literature from the University of Pristina in 1984.
In 1996, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova was elected a correspondent member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Kosovo. Initially, he was an editor at the student newspaper Bota e Re and the scientific journal Dituria (1971-72), both published in Pristina. He also worked for the journal Fjala. For nearly two decades, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova developed his scientific career at the Albanological Institute as a researcher in literature. He also served as the chief editor of the Gjurmime Albanologjike journal. Rugova began his literary activity in the early 1960s.
In 1988, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova was elected president of the Writers’ Association of Kosovo, which became a powerful core of the Albanian movement opposing the Serbian and Yugoslav communist rule in Kosovo.
As a renowned intellectual who voiced this political and intellectual movement, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova was elected, on December 23, 1989, the first president of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), the first political party in Kosovo to directly challenge the communist regime in power. Under his leadership, LDK quickly became the leading political force in Kosovo, rallying the majority of the population around it. In cooperation with other Albanian political forces in Kosovo and the Kosovo Assembly at the time, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova and LDK completed the legal framework for the institutionalization of Kosovo’s independence. The Declaration of Independence (July 2, 1990), the proclamation of Kosovo as a Republic, and the adoption of its constitution (September 7, 1990), along with the popular referendum for independence and sovereignty held at the end of September 1991, were preludes to the first multi-party elections for the Kosovo Assembly, held on May 24, 1992. Dr. Ibrahim Rugova was elected President of the Republic of Kosovo. He was re-elected in the 1998 elections.
Under Dr. Ibrahim Rugova’s leadership, the LDK won the majority in the first internationally sponsored local elections in post-war Kosovo in October 2000, as well as in the national elections of 2001 and the second local elections in 2002. LDK also won the final national elections in 2004.
Dr. Ibrahim Rugova was elected President of Kosovo in March 2002 and was re-elected in 2004.
Dr. Ibrahim Rugova passed away on January 21, 2006, in Pristina, and was buried at the “Bregu i Diellit” with the highest honors from the people of Kosovo.
On the anniversary of Ibrahim Rugova’s death, on January 21, 2007, the President of Kosovo, Dr. Fatmir Sejdiu, decorated the historic President of Kosovo with the Order of “Hero of Kosovo,” the highest national honor given to historical Albanian and Kosovo figures who have performed “acts of heroism for the freedom and independence of Kosovo.”
