Biography

Nexhip Draga was born in 1867 in Mitrovica

Kosovska Mitrovica

Kosovska Mitrovica , is a city and municipality in northern Kosovo. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous district....

, then a town of the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

. His father was Ali Pasha Draga, a notable local of Mitrovica who owned lands in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar

Sanjak of Novi Pazar

The Sanjak of Novi Pazar was an Ottoman sanjak that existed until the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 in the territory of present day Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo.-History:It was part of the Bosnia Vilayet and later Kosovo Vilayet and included...

. He finished his elementary studies in Mitrovica

Kosovska Mitrovica

Kosovska Mitrovica , is a city and municipality in northern Kosovo. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous district....

 before going in Istanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

, where he studied at an idadiye school and the Mekteb-i Mülkiye

Mekteb-i Mülkiye

Mekteb-i Mülkiye, established on February 12, 1859 in Istanbul, was a vocational high school in the Ottoman Empire. Following the foundation of the Republic, the school moved in 1936 to Cebeci quarter in Ankara. On December 4, 1938, the school was renamed "School of Political Sciences"...

 (modern Ankara University

Ankara University

Ankara University is a public university in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. It was the first higher education institution founded in the Turkish Republic....

). Apart from Albanian

Albanian language

Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 7.6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece...

 Draga could speak and write French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, Turkish

Turkish language

Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...

, Serbian

Serbian language

Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

 and Bulgarian

Bulgarian language

Bulgarian is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group.Bulgarian, along with the closely related Macedonian language, demonstrates several linguistic characteristics that set it apart from all other Slavic languages such as the elimination of case declension, the...

.

He completed his administrative in Skopje

Skopje

Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...

, Monastir Province

Monastir Province, Ottoman Empire

The Vilayet of Monastir was an Ottoman vilayet, created in 1864. The Monastir Vilayet was occupied during the First Balkan War in 1912 and later divided between Principality of Albania, Kingdom of Greece and Kingdom of Serbia.- Demographics :...

. From 1896 to 1902 he was kaymakam

Kaymakam

Qaim Maqam or Qaimaqam or Kaymakam is the title used for the governor of a provincial district in the Republic of Turkey, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and in Lebanon; additionally, it was a title used for roughly the same official position in the Ottoman...

 (sub-governor) at Kratovo, Novi Pazar

Novi Pazar

Novi Pazar is a city and municipality located in southwest Serbia, in the Raška District. According to the official census in 2011, number of inhabitants of municipality is 92,776, while the city itself has a population of 60,638...

 and Veles

Veles (city)

Veles is a city in the center of the Republic of Macedonia on the Vardar river. The city of Veles is the seat of Veles Municipality.-Name:The city's name was Vylosa in Ancient Greek and before the Balkan Wars, it was a township with the name Köprülü in the Üsküp sandjak, Ottoman empire for 600...

. In Skopje he was one of the leaders of the Committee of Union and Progress

Committee of Union and Progress

The Committee of Union and Progress began as a secret society established as the "Committee of Ottoman Union" in 1889 by the medical students İbrahim Temo, Abdullah Cevdet, İshak Sükuti and Ali Hüseyinzade...

. In 1908 through the Albanian assembly of Ferizaj he supported the constitutionalist movement. The same year, during the Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire

Second Constitutional Era (Ottoman Empire)

The Second Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire began shortly after Sultan Abdülhamid II restored the constitutional monarchy after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution. The period established many political groups...

, he was elected deputy for Skopje, Monastir Province. Along with Ismail Qemali

Ismail Qemali

Ismail Qemal Bej Vlora or commonly Ismail Qemali and in Turkish İsmail Kemal Bey or İsmail Kemal Vlora , was a distinguished leader of the Albanian national movement, founder of the modern Albanian state and its first head of state and government.-Life:He was born in Avlonya to a noble family...

, Hasan Prishtina

Hasan Prishtina

Hasan Prishtina born Hasan Berisha was an Albanian politician, who served as Prime Minister of Albania in December 1921.-Biography:He studied politics and law in Istanbul...

 and Shahin Kolonja

Shahin Kolonja

Shahin Kolonja was an Albanian journalist and politician.Born in Starje, southern Albania Kolonja was a graduate of the school of civil service and had served as director of several idadiye schools. Later he was arrested in Bitola and sentenced to three years in prison for disseminating...

 he was a member of the group of deputies promoting Albanian issues in the Ottoman parliament and opposing the Young Turks

Young Turks

The Young Turks , from French: Les Jeunes Turcs) were a coalition of various groups favouring reformation of the administration of the Ottoman Empire. The movement was against the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Sultan and favoured a re-installation of the short-lived Kanûn-ı Esâsî constitution...

.

In 1912 he became a prominent member of the Albanian uprising. During the Balkan Wars

Balkan Wars

The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...

 he was imprisoned in Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 by the Kingdom of Serbia

Kingdom of Serbia

The Kingdom of Serbia was created when Prince Milan Obrenović, ruler of the Principality of Serbia, was crowned King in 1882. The Principality of Serbia was ruled by the Karađorđevic dynasty from 1817 onwards . The Principality, suzerain to the Porte, had expelled all Ottoman troops by 1867, de...

 and then was released in 1914. In 1920 he formed a political organization named Cemiyet and was elected deputy in the Yugoslav

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...

 parliament along with six other members of his party. He died a few months later in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

, after undergoing an operation for cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

. After Draga's death, the leadership of the party was assumed by his brother Ferhat, under whose leadership the party managed to get fourteen deputies elected in the 1923 elections.

Sources