Congress of Lushnjë Museum

The small museum on the site of the 1920 congress that saved Albanian independence

A modest one-storey building near the centre of Lushnjë, the museum marks the site of the Congress of Lushnjë — the assembly that in late January 1920 declared Albania's continued independence in the face of a proposed great-power partition. The Congress moved the country's capital to Tirana, established a regency council, and is rightly counted as the moment Albania survived its post-WWI crisis.

The display is small and old-fashioned — original furniture from the congress room, photographs of the delegates, documents, and the typewriter on which the constitution was drafted — but the place is genuinely important. Captions are in Albanian, with limited English; a half-hour visit is enough.

things to do museum
A story
In late January 1920, with Italian troops occupying parts of the country and the Paris Peace Conference proposing to partition Albania between Italy, Greece, and Yugoslavia, fifty-six Albanian delegates gathered in this modest house in Lushnjë. Over six days they declared the partition unacceptable, rejected the Italian protectorate, moved the provisional capital to Tirana, and named a new four-man regency. The partition plan was abandoned within months.