Shaqe Marie Çoba, the Albanian feminist and suffragist, born in 1875 into the prominent “Shiroka” family in Shkodra, Albania.
She finished primary school in her hometown and then continued her studies in Zagreb, at the Austrian Institute, where she studied Italian, German and Serbo-Croatian. In 1904 she moved and completed her studies in Venice. After graduating, she married the Albanian intellectual and patriot Ndoc Çoba, in whose family her patriotic and feminist ideas were encouraged and flourished.
On August 3, 1920, she founded in Shkorda the organization “Gruaja Shqiptare (The Albanian Woman)”, with honourary chairwoman, Habibe Bekteshi, secretary, Paulina Leka and accountant, Albina Ashiku. The organization was interested in issues of Albanian female emancipation and meeting funds in aid of the Albanian Army that was facing attacks by the Serbo-Montenegrin forces in Koplik.
To make the work of the Albanian Woman public, the organization also ran a magazine by the same name, which was published from November 1920 until July 1921, informing readers about donations, as well as publishing articles on the issues of women, debating the rights and the role of women in the development and progress of the family and society in state-building, promoting girls’ education and encouraging people to give up old and harmful traditions.
During the Koplik War (1920) she activated many women and girls, who with white ribbons on their arms, with the red initials “G.SH. (standing for Gruaja Shqiptare / Albanian Woman)”, worked on the front line, healing the wounds of the fighters, pulling them from the front, and sending them to Shkodra hospitals, where they served as well.
They also provided financial and material assistance to the families of combatants, as well as to poor families. On November 10, 1937, Ms. Çoba made also a re-planning of women’s associations at the national level with the participation of 150 prominent women, with the objective of fighting against old customs, illiteracy, improving women’s lives, and clothing, protecting their health, etc.
With the advent of the ruthless communist regime in Albania, her husband Ndoc Çoba was arrested in January 1945 and died in prison after three months of torture, on March 6, 1945. While Shaqe Marie Çoba died in Shkodra in December 1954.