By Artan Lame
Tirana, 27 April, 1938. Following dragged out efforts and research, Zog, Albania’s Monarch for ten years, married Geraldine de Nagy-Appony, from a family of the Hungarian nobility bearing the same name. The marriage took place in Tirana following an engagement that lasted for some months. Tirana of those years did not offer any suitable venue to host such an event, and the biggest hall available, was the Officer’s Club in Kavaja Street (today the seat of the Writers’ League). However, due to the fact that this hall was not big enough either to accommodate all the guests invited, another solution, albeit, not very royal, was found. In the absence of anything better, bordering on the sacred grounds of Moslem worship, adjacent to the then Royal Palace (today the Academy of Sciences), a huge tent was erected, three sides of which were rolled up but adorned with curtains, whilst the actual wall of the Palace served as the fourth side of the tent. Not all that dignified, but nevertheless, it functioned.
The photo shows the royal couple going through the ritual of the civil marriage inside this hall of cotton fabric walls.
King Zog (1) is the central figure in the photograph, in the uniform of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces which is covered in medals, and with his hands resting on the hilt of his sword. Standing beside him is his royal bride (2), wearing a long white veil and holding a bouquet of lilies in her hands. On the other side of the King, dressed in diplomatic uniform, stands Count Galeaco Ciano, the son-in-law of Mussolini, and, at that time Foreign Affairs Minister of Italy. Ciano was present at this ceremony as Mussolini’s special envoy and in the capacity of a witness to the marriage for the groom. Further, in full tuxedo stands Prince Habib (4) brother-in-law to Zog, married to one of his sisters, and, at that time Ambassador to Paris. Habib is the son of the dethroned Sultan Abdyl-Hamid II. These three men (Zog, Ciano and Habib), also wear across their breasts the Ribbon of the Order of the Pledged Word, the highest award of the Kingdom. Worthy of remembering here, is that, according to the statute of this Order, only up to five living persons could be awarded this decoration.
The Master of Ceremonies is Hiqmet Delvina (5), at that time Speaker of Parliament, who, on this occasion is discharging the role of the Civil Registry official and who holds the Book of the Civil Code in his hand. Behind this main group, stand other guests, amongst whom you can see General Xhemal Aranitasi (6), the Commander of National Defence and Major Osman Gazepi (7), one of the droll and humorous figures of the Court. To one side of the photograph, dressed in the pompous Hungarian uniforms (8), is one of the companions of the new Queen (view in profile), while behind him is Esat Kryeziu, usually called Prince Tati, Zog’s nephew, (the son of his sister), the father of whom, Ceno Bey Kryezi, was killed in 1928, in an assassination that was never solved, but from the responsibility of which the King never escaped.
The sides of the hall (excuse me, the tent), were decorated with national costumes and old firearms. On the table, apart from the Civil Registry Book lying open there, is a silver ink and pen stand with the lid open on the ink pot.
Zog’s dream of a dynasty lived only one year. On 7 April of the coming year (1939), Ciano was to return to Tirana, but this time, in the capacity of a witness to the invasion of the country of that monarch, who had invited him to be his witness at his wedding ceremony one year earlier.
