A solemn ceremony organized at the Faculty of Pedagogy, the University of Tetova marked November 22, the Day of the Alphabet. This academy was honored with presence of Rector, Prof. Dr. Vullnet Ameti, President of the Senate, Prof. Dr. Kushtrim Ahmeti, Head of the Democratic Union for Integration, Ali Ahmeti, first deputy prime minister of the Government, Artan Grubi, Minister of Education and Science, Jeton Shaqiri, senators, vice-rectors, deans, professors and students.
The central report dedicated to the Day of the Alphabet was read by the university professor, Prof. Dr. Fatmir Sulejmani, who said that the path of the Albanian alphabet has been long and difficult. It is laid with the blood and broken bones of the martyrs of the light of knowledge, consciously sacrificed in the cogs of the satrapic powers, who detest the Albanian as their own master, the civilized Albanian in the school auditoriums, the conscious Albanian to work harder for himself than for the other.
“The choice of a single ABC for the writing of Albanian language challenged the anarchy of the alphabets that were used on the eve of the Congress of Bitola, making the language not only a means of saving the nation, but also an element that began to seriously endanger its existence. This was the last moment to understand that the disintegration of the language also meant the disintegration of ethnicity. Looking at today’s time distance, it must be said that the Congress of the Alphabet of the Albanian Language represents one of the great historical and cultural victories that our nation has reaped. Without him, we wouldn’t even have today’s language standard, which, despite the remarks that can be made, brought us to where we are as a single nation, strongly challenging, precisely through ALBANIA, the tragic divisions that others did. Therefore, the day of ABC should be celebrated everywhere where Albanians live, without any BUT…, because they are letters of our language – the synonym of the Motherland”, emphasized Prof. Dr. Fatmir Sulejmani.
Whereas, Prof. Dr. Izmit Durmishi, during his speech, said that remembering the anniversary of the Congress of Bitola is not just an honor, but the duty and obligation of our generation to remember those people who spared nothing of themselves, facing persecution, the various reprisals to solve one of the biggest issues of our culture, the common Albanian alphabet. “The unification of the Albanian alphabet has been among the first-hand problems in the program of the Albanian National Renaissance Movement, although at the top of its program was of course the political and ideological struggle for the unification of the Albanian people and for raising their national awareness, to be freed from centuries-old foreign invasions. And, we already know, the efforts to liberate our ethnic lands, according to the program of the League of Prizren (1878), failed. In such circumstances, the Ottoman Empire, by violently destroying the League of Prizren and deporting its most prominent activists and ideologues outside the Albanian territories, made it impossible to realize the program of the Albanian National Renaissance. As a result of all these brutal measures against our National Movement, the biggest national problem, the liberation of the Albanian lands, remained unsolved, which made it difficult to solve the unification of the alphabet and the unification of the Albanian language” – declared, among other things, Prof. Dr. Izmit Durmishi.
The academy dedicated to ABC day, Alphabet Congress, was concluded with an artistic program prepared by the students of the Faculty of Pedagogy, the Faculty of Philology and the Faculty of Arts.
