After the ‘90s the royal family, started
finding and identifying the remains of the Mother of King Zog and started the
efforts for a possible reconstruction of the original mausoleum, inaugurated in
1935. The original mausoleum was the work of the architect Kemal Butka. But on
the day of the liberation of the city, on 17 November 1944, the Communists
'signed' one of their first crimes. They blew up the mausoleum of King Zog's
Mother without even moving her remains from the site.
In 2011 within the framework of activities
of the 100th anniversary of Albania's independence, it was decided the return
the remains of King Zog I of Albania upon which the reconstruction of the
mausoleum itself began. The Mausoleum of today was built as a modernized replica
of the original Mausoleum by a decision of the Albanian Government and was
inaugurated on 17 November 2014. Today the remains of the Queen Mother Sadie,
King Zog, Queen Geraldine, King Leka, Queen Susan and the other members of the
Royal Family lie there.
King Zog was the founder of the modern
Albanian State and the first King of the Albanians, creating the first stable
governmental institutions and consolidation of governance after decades of
political turbulence. During the 1920s, extended periods of political turmoil
and instability became the key factor for considering constitutional change, a
proposal made by the deputies of Skrapar. The Statute Commission was held which
proposed the regime change.This proposal was voted on August 30, 1928 and the Constitutional
Assembly proclaimed Albania as a Hereditary Parliamentary Constitutional
Monarchy.
On September 1st, 1928 the Constitutional
Assembly proclamation was put into effect. After this proclamation, the
parliament created a commission which would communicate the decision to offer
the Royal Throne to the incumbent President Ahmet Zogu. After he accepted the
Throne, King Zog I took His oath on the Bible and Quran in respect of two major
religions in Albania, in an attempt to unify the country.
The coronation of King Zog is even nowadays
a controversial issue in Albania, as many people think that he was a
self-proclaimed king, so a false king. However, despite this, others say that
since King Zog was of a notable albanian family that at the time ruled the area
in which they lived, acting similar to small principalities.
Xhemal Pasha, ruler of the Mat region was
the father of King Zog I. He governed Mat with grandeur and magnanimity which
characterized the Zogolli Family. The Queen Mother Sadije Toptani, was born in
Tirana in 1876. The Toptanis where the most powerful family in central Albania
at the time.
In 1929, King Zog abolished Islamic law in
Albania, adopting in its place a civil code based on the Swiss one, as
Ataturk's Turkey had done in the same decade. The price for such modernization
was high, though.
In April 1938 Zog married Countess
Geraldine Apponyi de Nagy-Apponyi, a Roman Catholic aristocrat who was
half-Hungarian and half-American. The ceremony was broadcasted throughout Tirana
via Radio Tirana that was officially launched by the monarch five months later.
Their only child, HRH Crown Prince Leka,
was born in a hospital in Johannesburg on 5 April 1939. The hospital was
declared Albanian territory for the duration of the Prince's birth.
Two days after the birth of Zog's son and
heir, on 7 April 1939, Mussolini's Italy invaded, facing no significant
resistance. The Albanian army was ill-equipped to resist, as it was almost
entirely dominated by Italian advisers and officers and was no match for the
Italian Army. The Italians were, however, resisted by small groups of the
Gendarmerie and by the general population.
After passing through Greece to Turkey, the
royal family fled to England and in the beginning settled at The Ritz in London.
In 1946, King Zog and most of his family left England and went to live in Egypt
at the behest of King Farouk. However, Farouk was overthrown in 1952, and the
family left for France in 1955. He created his final home in France, where he
died of an undisclosed condition on 9th
April 1961, aged 65. Zog was a heavy smoker, and had been seriously ill for
some time.
His widow, Queen Geraldine, King Leka and
his wife and son Leka II, together with other members of the royal family came
back to Tirana in 2002. Queen Geraldine, died of natural causes the same year
at the age of 87 in a military hospital in Tirana, Albania.
Albania's Communist government abolished
the monarchy in 1946, but, even in exile, the royal family insisted that Lek
Zogu was Albania's legitimate ruler. Lek Zogu died on 30th November 2011.
Prince Leka II, is the proclaimed successor
of the Royal crown. He is engaged to Elia Zaharia, an albanian artist.