Qazim Turdiu (Tirana, June 7, 1917 – April 8, 1989), was a prominent Albanian teacher, lecturer and author in the field of mathematics. For his contribution to the field of education, as part of the constellation of post-independence teachers, such as Eqrem Çabej and Arshi Pipa, and in the field of academic texts, he was honored with numerous titles. He was born into a prominent Tirana family, one of the many children of Mahmud Turdiu and Nadira e Myslym Llagami. After graduating from the Tirana Gymnasium in 1937, he continued his higher studies in mathematics at the University of Montpellier in France, where he graduated in 1939, with the highest results in his course.
He returned to Albania after the Italian occupation (1939), as the second Albanian with a full education in mathematics, where he was appointed as a lecturer at the Shkodra Gymnasium (1940-1942) and later at the Tirana Gymnasium, with the position of deputy director (1943).
As an apolitical nationalist, he opposed the Italian occupation and supported the idea of an ethnic Albania. He was honored with the task of carrying the remains of Naim Frashëri in the ceremonies of their return to Albania. He intervened with the King's Viceroy, Jacomoni, to save communist high school students arrested by the Italians from prison.
As one of the well-known intellectuals of the time, he was invited (through the mediation of Abdyl Këllez) to participate in the National Liberation Movement. He refused because of the Kosovo issue and the alliance of the Albanian communists with the Yugoslavs. With the opening of the Higher Pedagogical Institute (1948), he was among its first lecturers and likewise with the opening of the University of Tirana (1957), where he worked until 1983.
In the conditions of the lack of higher education in Albania, he was the founder of teaching mathematics in high schools. In the years 1958-1960, he completed postgraduate studies at the Lomonosov University of Moscow, under the guidance of the renowned mathematician Kollmogorov.
During his 44-year career, he educated thousands of cadres and gained fame for his level of communication in the classroom and objectivity in student assessment. He distinguished himself as a mathematics didactics and methodologist, making a great contribution to increasing the scientific level and professional qualification of mathematics teachers.
He is known as the author of many school programs, textbooks, and monographs, including those on mathematical methodology, analytical geometry, mathematical analysis, plane trigonometry, the history of mathematics, etc.
He distinguished himself as a defender of the tradition of Western education and influenced the preservation of the professional objectivity of the school, against the tendencies of the communist system for extreme politicization. The high level of teaching in the exact sciences, and in general the professionalism of the Albanian school, is owed to a considerable extent to the contribution of Prof. Qazim Turdiu.
During the communist regime, he worked and lived in difficult political conditions, both general and personal. He suffered constant attacks from the regime's circles due to his class origin, from the former upper classes and his two "fugitive" brothers (Dr. Faik Turdiu and Dr. Ramazan Turdiu).
In the State Security file for Prof. Eqrem Çabej, it appears that the agent with the pseudonym "Shigjeta", on October 20, 1957, informed that; "Professors of the University of Tirana Eqrem Çabej, Qazim Turdiu, Minella Karajani and Rrok Zojzi, speak badly about the regime in Albania". The former Minister of the Interior, Feçor Shehu, testified to the investigator in 1982 that Qazim Turdiu had been taken under surveillance several times.
In the 1970s, he had fierce conflicts at the university, with tendencies to imitate the Chinese Cultural Revolution and then with the loosening of discipline and the search for accountability within the framework of "liberalism", which he survived mainly thanks to the personal prestige he enjoyed with members of the regime's leadership, who were of his generation, or his former students, such as Ramiz Alia.
In 1956 he married Asime Pipa (1931-1999), from the Pipa family of Shkodra, and had two children (Parid, 1958 and Silva, 1961). The engagement in 1981 of his daughter, Silva Turdiu, to the son of Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, was condemned by the communist leader Enver Hoxha, due to the girl's family's sexual connections with well-known anti-communists (Ramazan Turdiu, Myzafer and Arshi Pipa, etc.) and became the pretext for the tragic end of the Shehu family.
The regime's revenge also included Prof. Qazim Turdiu and his family. In 1983, after the publication of Enver Hoxha's book "The Titists", which attacked the Turdiu and Pipa families as being connected to the United States of America, the regime forced him into retirement. He died in Tirana on April 8, 1989, from a serious illness (lung cancer). Thousands attended his funeral, defying the regime's stigma.
Honors
Prof. Qazim Turdiu was awarded the title of Associate Professor in 1957, the degree of Candidate of Sciences in 1960; he was awarded the high title of "Merited Teacher" in 1965; then the title of Professor in 1972; he was decorated with various orders and medals, etc. In 1992, upon the proposal of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, which also had the unanimous support of the relevant instances, the President of the Republic, Prof. Dr. Sali Berisha, awarded him the high title of "People's Teacher".
The Tirana Municipal Council, in 1999, decided that the new 8-year school (now 9-year school) on “Don Bosko” Street, would bear his name. He was later awarded the “Naim Frashëri” Order of the First Class and “Honorary Citizen” of Tirana. / Memorie.al
