ABSTRACT
New Ottoman schools like the Mekteb-i Mülkiye, the famous School of Administration that opened in 1859, contributed not only to the creation of a new elite in the Ottoman Empire but also to the formation of elites in the new states that were created later, such as Turkey, some Arab countries, and Albania. In the young Albanian state, no less than about thirty graduates of the Mülkiye became high-ranking officials, prime ministers, ministers, ambassadors, consuls or governors of provinces between the two world wars. 1 The study of such groups of former students is thus an important issue concerning the Ottoman intellectual heritage, in that a significant proportion of these officials were also intellectuals or were, at least, part of that area’s very thin elite stratum during the first half of the twentieth century.
