{{Short description|Albanian communist activist and politician}} {{Infobox officeholder | name = Liri Gega | image = {{CSS image crop|Image = Miladin Popović i Enver Hodža.jpg|bSize =600|cWidth=220|cHeight=300|oTop=160|oLeft=190|Location=center}} | office1 = Member of the Constituent Assembly | term1 = 1945–1948 | constituency1 = Vlorë | birth_date = 1917 | birth_place = Gjirokastër, Albania | death_date = December 1956 | death_place = Tirana, Albania | parents = Beso Gega (Father), Asija Gega (Mother) | spouse = Dali Ndreu }}
'''Liri Gega''' (1917 – December 1956) was an Albanian communist activist and politician. The only female founder member of the Communist Party of Albania, she was one of the first group of women elected to parliament in 1945. However, she was later executed after being accused of being a Yugoslavian agent.
==Biography== Gega was born in Gjirokastër in 1917,<ref name=WR>Wojciech Roszkowski & Jan Kofman (2016) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_HGlDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA280 Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century]'', p280</ref> to Asija and Beso Gega, a pharmacist and mayor of the town. Her father’s roots may be from northern Albania as the surname Gega represents Ghegs usually. After graduating from the Queen Mother Pedagogical Institute in Tirana,<ref>[https://naishtedikur.info/nana-mbretneshe-instituti-qe-edukoi-vajzat-shqiptare/ "Nana Mbretneshë", instituti që edukoi vajzat shqiptare] Na Ishte Dakur, 30 September 2007</ref> she won a state scholarship to study in Florence. However, she was arrested in 1940 and imprisoned for nearly two years.<ref name=WR/>
She was the only female founder member of the Communist Party in 1941 and became a member of its politburo in March 1943.<ref name=WR/> During the Congress of Përmet in May 1944 she was elected to the Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council.<ref name=P>[https://www.parlament.al/Files/sKuvendi/LigjvenesitNeVite.pdf Ligjvënësit Shqiptarë në Vite] Parliament of Albania</ref> In the same year she became secretary general of the Anti-Fascist Women's Union and the Anti-Fascist Youth Union.<ref name=WR/> In August 1944 she murdered fellow politburo member Mustafa Gjinishi under orders from Yugoslavian communists after he had made an agreement with the anti-communist Balli Kombëtar.<ref name=WR/> She was subsequently removed from the politburo in November, although she remained head of the Women's Union until 1946.<ref name=WR/>
Gega contested the December 1945 parliamentary elections in the Vlorë constituency, and was one of three women elected to the Constituent Assembly alongside Naxhije Dume and Ollga Plumbi.<ref name=WR/><ref>Sonila Boçi [https://digilib.phil.muni.cz/bitstream/handle/11222.digilib/135432/2_PortaBalkanica_7-2015-2_5.pdf?sequence=1 The December 2nd, 1945 Albanian Elections: Legitimization, or Mere Formalization for Communist Power?]</ref> She married Dali Ndreu the following year. At a meeting of the Communist Party's central committee in 1948, Gega was accused of sympathising with separatists in northern Albania, political terror and sectarianism.<ref name=WR/> This was a result of her opposition to eliminating the units that had operated in the area following the end of World War II.<ref name=WR/> She was removed from the Assembly and subsequently worked as a teacher. In 1956 she and her husband were arrested while trying to leave Albania. She was charged with collaboration and the couple were executed for being 'Titoist agents'.<ref>Peter Morgan (2017) ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Uy8rDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA313 Ismail Kadare: The Writer and the Dictatorship 1957–1990]'', p313</ref> Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev claimed that Gega was pregnant at the time.<ref>[https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/119256.pdf?v=a28e888f5a8093b61bd8531ba5e4ea26 Memorandum of Meeting with Khrushchev, Moscow] Wilson Center</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gega, Liri}} Category:1917 births Category:Politicians from Gjirokastër Category:Albanian communists Category:Party of Labour of Albania politicians Category:Members of the Parliament of Albania Category:Women members of the Parliament of Albania Category:20th-century Albanian educators Category:1956 deaths Category:20th-century women educators Category:Executed Albanian people Category:People executed by Albania by firing squad Category:Executed politicians Category:Executed women Category:20th-century Albanian women politicians Category:Women's International Democratic Federation people Category:Executed communists