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UÇKHistory and Memory
Life: 1948 –

Analytical profile · Political leaders · Political prisoners

Azem Vllasi

Azem Vllasi was one of the Albanian leaders of the League of Communists of Kosovo in the 1980s. His removal from the provincial leadership in November 1988 was one of the causes of the Trepça miners' march. In March 1989, at the height of the crisis over the constitutional changes, he was arrested and tried on political charges; he was later released. In the postwar years he remained a public figure and a lawyer.

Also known as: Azem Vlasi

Living person — personal information is deliberately limited.

Source basis

Academic monographs on Kosovo in the 1980s; public roles only.

Black-and-white portrait of a smiling man in suit and tie, seated in a hall.
Azem Vllasi, Yugoslav politician from Kosovo, in 1988. Photo: Stevan Kragujević, released with the permission of his daughter Tanja Kragujević.Photo: Stevan Kragujević · 1988 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Vllasi's fall from power was part of the process by which Serbia's new leadership under Slobodan Milošević replaced Kosovo's Albanian cadres with people more willing to accept the curtailment of autonomy [1] [2].

The miners' march and the Trepça hunger strike demanded, among other things, that the province's chosen leadership be kept. His arrest in March 1989 came in the same weeks as the adoption of the constitutional changes [1]. The exact date of his release requires verification.

Photographs

Miners in helmets walk along rails in a dimly lit mine tunnel.
Miners in the tunnels of the Trepça mine, October 2012. The November 1988 march set out from this mine.Photo: FitimSelimi · 2012-10-27 · CC BY-SA 3.0
Four miners in white helmets and yellow boots sitting by the rock wall underground.
Miners during a break in the Trepça mine at Stari Trg near Mitrovica; photo by Fabio Walser, about 2011.Photo: Fabio Walser · 2011 · CC BY-SA 3.0
White and brick-coloured multi-storey building with a flag on top, behind a square with trees.
The building of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo in Pristina, photographed on 13 September 2020.Photo: Arianit · 2020-09-13 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sources

  1. [1]Noel Malcolm. Kosovo: A Short History. HarperPerennial, New York (botim i përditësuar); botimi i parë: Macmillan, Londër, 1998, 1999. https://archive.org/details/kosovoshorthisto0000malc. Accessed 2026-09-16.
  2. [2]Miranda Vickers. Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo. Hurst & Company (Londër) / Columbia University Press (New York), 1998.· Awaiting verification

Editorial status: Awaiting verificationDrafted from the cited sources; not yet fully reviewed by the editors.

Last reviewed:

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