Donika Gervalla-Schwarz: Childhood Emigrant Becomes Kosovo’s Top Diplomat

Gervalla-Schwarz was born in North Macedonia capital, Skopje, in 1971, when it was still part of socialist Yugoslavia. She spent her early childhood living between Skopje and Pristina, where her father, Jusuf Gervalla, was a well-known writer, singer and artist.

He was also a political activist, and the young Gervalla-Schwarz's life was turned upside down in 1980 when her family had to migrate to Germany shortly after her father escaped arrest by the Yugoslav Police because of his involvement in campaigning for more rights for ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, which at that time was autonomous province within the Yugoslav republic of Serbia.

Before they left, the family were subjected to threats, Gervalla-Schwarz told BIRN in January. "We went through a very difficult one-month period, with expressions of violence against my mother, and with scenes I would not want any child to experience," she said.

She was speaking ahead of the parliamentary elections in Kosovo in February, in which she ran for office as part of a group of politicians led by Vjosa Osmani who had quit the Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK party and allied themselves with Kurti's Vetevendosje (Self-Determination).

Gervalla-Schwarz won more than 71,000 votes, the fourth-largest tally among Vetevendosje candidates, and the party won the election by a landslide.

Vetevendosje won more than 50 per cent of the vote and 58 MPs in the 120-seat parliament, soundly beating the country's traditional ruling parties, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, and her former party, the LDK.

A difficult childhood

Vjosa Osmani (center L) and Donika Gervalla (R). Photo: Official Facebook Account of Vjosa Osmani

On January 17, 1982, Gervalla...