Today 16 years after President Ibrahim Rugova's death

Today marks the 16th anniversary of the death of former Kosovo historic president Ibrahim Rugova.

President Rugova died on January 21, 2006, following a battle with lung cancer. He was buried with high state and military honours.

On the 16th anniversary of his death, there will be homazhe at his tomb in Velani. A memorial academy will also be held at 2: 00 a.m. in Gjilan.

On the first anniversary of Ibrahim Rugova's death, former Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu decorated Rugova with the Kosovo Order “Hero, the highest title in our country given to the Albanian and Kosovo historical figures.

Who was Ibrahim Rugova?

Ibrahim Rugova was born on December 2, 1944, in the village of Cerrca in the municipality of Istog.

On January 10, 1945, Yugoslav communists shot father Uke Rugova and Grandpa Rhuste Rugova, who had been a prominent fighter against the qualms that were breaking through World War II in Rugova province.

Ibrahim Rugova finished his secondary schooling in Pec in 1967. Diplomo at the Albanology branch of the Pristina University Faculty of Philosophy in 1971.

Rugova stayed during an academic year (1976-77) in Paris, at Ecole Pratique des Houtes Etudes, under the supervision of Prof. Roland Barthes, where he followed his scientific interests in the literature study, focused on literary theory.

Ibrahim Rugova received literature at Pristina University in 1984.

In 1996, Rugova was elected a member of the Kosovo Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Yes, this year he was declared an honorary doctor of the University of Paris V. III in Paris.

Author of ten books, Dr. Ibrahim Rugova was the initiator in the student paper “The new world” and in the scientific magazine “Duturia” (1971-72), published in Pristina. Dr. Rugova worked at Pristina's Albanology Institute as a literature researcher. For a time, he was editor-in-chief of the magazine “Albanological Gen5>, which this Institute released.

Dr. Rugova has been elected chairman of the Association of Kosovo Writers in 1988, which became the powerful core of the Albanian movement that was opposing Serbian/Yugoslav communist rule in Kosovo.

As the famous intellectual who gave voice to this intellectual and political movement, Dr. Rugova was elected on December 23rd 1989 chairman of the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), the first political party in Kosovo to directly challenge the communist regime in power.

The LDK soon became the leading political force in Kosovo, gathering most of the people, even though in the meantime they appeared on stage and other parties and groups.

Under Dr. Ibrahim Rugova, The LDK, in co-operation with other Albanian political forces in Kosovo and with the then Kosovo Assembly, completed the legal framework for institutionalising Kosovo's independence.

The Declaration of Independence (2 July 1990), Kosovo's declaration and the adoption of its constitution (7 September 1990), the popular referendum on Kosovo's independence and sovereignty held at the end of September 1991, were pre-emptive for Kosovo's first multiparty elections and presidential elections in the Republic of Kosovo on 24 May 1992.