Prime Minister Edi Rama honoured Professor Hubert Hasenauer, Rector of the renowned University of BOKU in Austria, with the Star of Public Recognition for his remarkable contribution and dedication to transforming the Agricultural University of Tirana (UBT) following the model of BOKU Vienna, paving the way for the mutual recognition of their degrees.
“Today you are another jewel in the long chain of friendship and connection between Albania and Austria, another gem in the crown of this friendship. Thanks to your contribution, dear Professor, the Agricultural University has been reborn not only in its hope, but also in its ambition, its desire and passion, and above all, its faith,” stated Prime Minister Rama during the special ceremony held on this occasion.
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Prime Minister Edi Rama: Dear Professor Hasenauer, esteemed friend, colleague and guest of honour, I believe that today’s ceremony is not simply an act of recognition for an individual who fully deserves this honour, but also a symbolic moment that brings to light the link between two longstanding and distinguished traditions, the Austrian and the Albanian. In a shared spiral of values: knowledge, dedication, and love for one’s land and humanity itself.
No speech could be long enough to describe the journey, brief yet deeply meaningful, that has brought us together. But today, dear Hubert, I wanted to tell you that you are now part of a constellation of stars that have shone from Austria upon Albania. It is a rare constellation illuminated by figures who gave our nation culture, language, identity, and light. Today, Hubert Hasenauer becomes the latest in this long chain that stretches back centuries to Vienna, where the sound of the Albanian language was first heard; where in the 19th century Gustav Meyer deciphered its linguistic laws and wrote that this language, more than any other in the Balkans, is a testimony to the endurance of a people; or where Norbert Jokl, who became known as the father of modern Albanology, believed that Albanian is the living bridge between East and West. He was taken by the Gestapo and disappeared into the darkness of the Holocaust, but his books remain as points of light for anyone venturing into the labyrinth of the Albanian language’s mysteries and riches, in the libraries of Vienna and Tirana alike.
And then Franz von Nopcsa, the adventurous aristocrat who rode on horseback through Albania’s mountains and wrote that “in these gorges one learns more about the soul of Europe than in any salon of Vienna.” Or Maximilian Lambertz, who supported the Literary Commission of Shkodra in shaping the Albanian language and left us with a sentence that still moves every Albanian who reads it:
“The complete history of humanity will be written only when the Albanians take part in writing it.”
They were people who loved Albania with heart and soul, and fortunately for this nation, there were many of them.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Theodor Ippen, the Austrian consul and diplomat, took part in founding Albania’s first modern institutions. He wrote that “whoever understands the Albanian land, understands the very essence of the word dignity.” In his diaries, he mentioned that before every official meeting he followed a custom he had learned in Shkodra: first greet with the eyes, then with the hands.
Not only I, having shaken many hands out of duty, but you too, have often experienced handshakes where the eyes looked elsewhere. That is not a true greeting.
Equally noble was Leo Freundlich, the Jewish journalist who gave voice to Albania when it was shunned by Europe, through his book “Albania’s Golgotha,” an act of moral courage that, in a way, redeemed the continent’s honour.
Hubert is not the first Austrian to be decorated in these lands. His predecessors were truly distinguished people whose names remain rightfully inscribed in this country’s history, as will Professor Hasenauer’s.
Alfred Rappaport and August Kral were decorated by King Zog with the Order of Skanderbeg and together they described Albania as “a small nation with a great soul.”
What is most moving and impressive for us Albanians is that Austria never saw Albania as a periphery, but as a light that must not be allowed to fade. Even in my personal experience, from my very first contact with Austria, whether as an individual or as an official, I have always felt that same thread connecting our two nations.
That spirit continues today through scholars such as Wilfried Fiedler, who revived part of our southern soul through Came songs; Kurt Gostentschnigg, who has patiently documented countless cultural ties between our countries; Basil Schader, professor in Zurich, who says that “the Albanian language is living poetry within the structure of a language”; and Peter Paul Wiplinger, the poet, essayist, and photographer who dedicated to Albania a verse.
The story of Albania’s long and profound bond with Austria, which I am sure even the honored professor himself may not be fully aware of, includes figures who joined not only their knowledge but their blood with ours in the struggle for survival, such as General Basta, an Albanian-Austrian who in the early 17th century wrote a treatise on honor and discipline, or Karl Gega, the engineer of the Semmering railway, who said that “the roads that connect people are more important than those that divide territories.”
Or Aleksandër Moisiu, the Albanian actor who entered the pantheon of Austrian theater, filling the stages of Vienna and Berlin with his incomparable voice, a voice of which Thomas Mann wrote, “This is the voice that makes man tremble before the truth.”
Even in the roots of the new Austrian aristocracy flows a trace of noble Albanian blood, that of the Sina and Dumba families from Voskopoja, who brought art and philanthropy to Vienna. Altogether, there were about thirty Albanian families whom the empire ennobled for their virtues.
And today, Professor, you join this constellation of stars in the shared sky of our history. A man who radiates the light of a teacher and a gentleman, who believes in the power of knowledge and good manners. A quiet man, but I am convinced that as Rector, even if I have no inside information, you are a firm leader.
A professor who came to Albania not to talk about reform or to give advice, but to plant a new spirit, with delicacy, respect, and patience, never turning away from anything that might have disturbed his cultivated Austrian sensibility, but rather embracing our reality and treating the grounds of the Agricultural University as a spiritual soil where he could help us plant a new tree for this new century.
Thanks to your contribution, dear Professor, the Agricultural University has been reborn not only in its hope, but also in its ambition, its desire and passion, and above all, its faith. Faith rooted in an academic body whose individual members possess all the needed virtues, yet collectively had struggled to unite around a shared goal, ambition, and conviction.
Today, Professor, you are not merely a scholar who came here to share knowledge; you have become part of us. You might ask how that is possible, when we declared you one of our own without even asking your permission, just as we arrived at your university steps without asking first. It is said that we Albanians can be a little forceful, and perhaps where that label fits is precisely here: when we love, we love unconditionally, even stubbornly, whether you like it or not.
So there is no escape. Today you are another jewel in the long chain of friendship between Albania and Austria, another gem in the crown of this friendship. And without doubt, tomorrow your name will be remembered alongside Meyer, Jokl, Ippen, Gega, and Moisiu, within this community of spirits that have nourished the bond you are now strengthening with your own contribution.
Above all, what unites all those Austrians whose names are written in the pages of our history, and now unites you with them, is one simple truth: none of them ever approached Albania to take, but all remained faithful to Albania to give. For that, Albania is grateful.
And for that, dear Hubert, together with the Rector, the President of the Academy of Sciences, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Agriculture, and all the leadership of the Agricultural University and the wider academic community that has the honour to know and work with you, we are deeply and forever grateful.
Now, I would like to invite you to join me to receive the Star of Public Recognition, placing you among a select group of friends and allies we have honoured with this distinction. One more thing to prepare for, dear Hubert: the Albanian passport, which will come to you unannounced. Because you will not leave this world only as an Austrian, but as both Austrian and Albanian. Please say a few words. And here is the certificate to show the Austrian customs that this precious item is not contraband, but authentic, yours, and fully deserved.
Thank you very much.
