Aleks Buda

Buda was born on 7 September 1910 in Elbasan, Ottoman Empire (modern day Albania) to a well-established Jewish merchant family.{{Cite web |title=Aleks Buda immortalized in statue at the Academy of Science – Tirana Times |url=https://www.tiranatimes.com/?p=1714 |access-date=2024-08-05 |language=en-US}} He went to elementary school at Lecce in Italy and completed secondary school in Salzburg, Austria, in 1930.{{cite book|last=Elsie|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Elsie|title=Historical Dictionary of Albania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=haFlGXIg8uoC&pg=PA58|date=19 March 2010|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-7380-3|page=58}} After that he enrolled in the University of Vienna where he studied philosophy and literature, but he returned to Albania without graduating.{{citation|url=http://www.kastriotmyftaraj.com/?p=335 |author=Kastriot Myftaraj |language=sq |year=2012 |title=Biografia e fshehur e delegatëve të Kongresit të Drejtshkrimit të vitit 1972 |trans-title=The hidden biography of the delegates of the Congress of Orthography of 1972 |quote=Aleks Buda, ndonëse kishte nisur studimet universitare në Vienë për filozofi dhe letërsi, ai nuk mundi që të diplomohet dhe u kthye në Shqipëri pa diplomë universitare...
Aleks Buda ishte i vetmi historian që mori pjesë në Kongresin e Drejtshkrimit... |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130712020918/http://www.kastriotmyftaraj.com/?p=335 |archive-date=2013-07-12 }}

Although his specialty was in literature, he made a career as a historian. He was also referred to as the founder of the Albanian post WWII historiography.{{cite book|last1=Hysa|first1=Armanda|last2=Keber|first2=Katarina|title=Historièni seminar 8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QFKZ_D8_Y6AC&pg=PA120|year=2010|publisher=Založba ZRC|isbn=978-961-254-216-0|pages=111, 120}}

Buda belonged to a group of most notable Albanian politician historians during the socialist period in Albania.{{harvnb|Jürgen Fischer|1999|p=281}} Buda was a member and a president of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.{{cite book|title=Socialist Thought and Practice|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1PRVAAAAYAAJ|year=1983|publisher=Jugoslavija|page=62|quote=... Aleks Buda, scientist and President of the Academy of Sciences of Albania, ...}} In some sources he was referred to as personal confidant of Enver Hoxha.{{cite book|title=Radio Free Europe Research: Communist area. Albania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=syxNAAAAYAAJ|date=January 1971|publisher=Radio Free Europe|page=9|quote= Aleks Buda, the country's leading historian and a personal confidant of Enver Hoxha.}} Buda was the only historian to participate in the Albanian Orthography Congress held in Tirana in 20–25 November 1972.

He participated at the National Conference of Ethnographic Studies held in 1976 to commemorate 35th anniversary of the establishment of Party of Labour of Albania. Buda belonged to a group of historians and Marxist philosophers who attacked contemporary theories and trends outside Albania as capitalist and revisionist.{{cite book|last1=Hysa|first1=Armanda Kodra -|last2=Hann|first2=Chris|last3=Boskovic|first3=Aleksandar|title=The Anthropological Field on the Margins of Europe, 1945-1991|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gPTYAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA140|date=31 December 2013|publisher=LIT Verlag Münster|isbn=978-3-643-90507-9|page=140}}

Contemporary historians point to Buda's work as a source for the Albanian position of the origin of Albanians.{{cite book|last=Kola|first=Paulin|title=The Search for Greater Albania|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nAANq88bBH8C&pg=PA2|date=January 2003|publisher=C. Hurst & Co. Publishers|isbn=978-1-85065-664-7|page=2|quote= On the Albanian position on the origins of the Albanian nation see Aleks Buda, ...}} He was considered as the leading Albanian scholar of Illyrian history who belonged to group of historians who also pointed out that there is no trace of Illyrians between the 6th century (when they were mentioned in historical documents for the last time) and the 11th century (when Albanians were recorded in historical documents for the first time).{{cite book|last1=Musliu|first1=Fahri|last2=Banjac|first2=Dragan|title=Untying the Kosovo Knot: A Two-sided View|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uYxpAAAAMAAJ|year=2005|publisher=Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia|isbn=978-86-7208-111-4|page=68|quote= - do not support the continuity assumption of the Illyrian ethnogenesis theory: as between the sixth and eleventh centuries there is no trace of the Illyrians (as Aleks Buda, the greatest of Albanian scholars of Illyrian history, ...}} Based on the hypothesis of Illyrian origin of Albanians, Buda emphasized that Albanians belong to the oldest inhabitants of Balkans and even Europe.{{cite book|title=Encounter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dfsmAQAAIAAJ|year=1985|publisher=Martin Secker & Warburg.|page=65|quote=The Albanians are among the oldest inhabitants of the Balkans and even Europe}}

Buda belonged to a small group of intellectuals allowed by the Albanian communist regime to have access to foreign literature in order to use them to prepare new ideological and theoretical directives for the rest of their colleagues.

Buda's work include:

• {{cite book|title=Historia E Popullit Shqiptar, Etc. (Botim i Dytë.-Stefanaq Pollo Dhe Aleks Buda-redaktorë Përgjegjës.).|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=92D0MgEACAAJ|year=1969|publisher=Enti i teksteve dhe i mjeteve mësimore i Krahinës Socialiste Autonome të Kosovës}}, (coauthorship)
• {{cite book|author-link=Aleks Buda|title=Kuvendi I i Studimeve Ilire: Tiranë 15-20 shtator 1972 : [referate, kumtesa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mWOTAAAAIAAJ|year=1974}}
• {{cite book|title=Konferenca kombetare e studimeve per Lidhjen Shqiptare te Prizrenit, 1878-1881: (12-28 gershor 1978)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jZccAAAAMAAJ|year=1979|publisher=Akademia e Shkencave e RPS të Shqipërisë, Instituti i Historisë}}
• {{cite book|title=Problems of the formation of the Albanian people, their language and culture: conference (selection)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BIlpAAAAMAAJ|year=1984|publisher=The "8 Nëntori" Pub. House}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Citation |last=Jürgen Fischer |first=Bernd |author-link=Bernd Jürgen Fischer |title=Albania at war, 1939-1945 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P-MiG9ngCp8C&q=Historiography+in+Albania&pg=PA281 |year= 1999 |publisher=Purdue University Press |location=West Lafayette, Ind. |isbn=9780585063881 |oclc=42922446 }}

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Category:1910 births

Category:1993 deaths

Category:Albanian people of Jewish descent

Category:Members of the Academy of Sciences of Albania

Category:20th-century Albanian historians

Category:People from Manastir vilayet

Category:University of Vienna alumni

Category:People from Elbasan