Skender Luarasi

Skënder Luarasi was born in 1900 in Luaras, a town in the Pindus mountains in northern Greece, not far from the present Albanian border. He was the son of Albanian patriot Petro Nini Luarasi, descendant of the Kostallari family of the Luaras village. He studied at the Jesuit Saverian College in Shkodra and at the French-language Imperial Galata secondary school in Istanbul. He also learned Greek, Italian, Turkish, and German. In 1927, he converted from Islam to Roman Catholicism, and changed his name from Kostandin to Dominik. [1](^1^) [2](^2^) He moved to the United States in 1930, where he studied at Harvard University and became involved in the Albanian nationalist movement. He published some articles on social and political issues under the pseudonym Muza (the Muse). He also wrote his first literary work, a collection of ten prose tales inspired by the popular culture and folklore of Gjirokastra, titled As my old mother tells me. The book was published in 1941 in Tirana and is considered the first literary work by a female writer in Albanian history. He also published an Italian-Albanian dictionary, which has not been found. [3](^3^) [4](^4^) He returned to Europe in 1936 and settled in Brussels, where he founded the magazine Albania, which became the most influential publication of the Albanian diaspora. He edited the magazine until 1945, and then again from 1950 to 1976. He also wrote for other Albanian newspapers and journals, such as Dielli (The Sun) and Vatra (The Hearth). He was a prominent figure in the Albanian cultural and political scene, promoting the Albanian language, literature, and identity. He also advocated for the independence and unification of Albania, and participated in several international conferences and congresses. He was one of the organizers of the Monastir Congress in 1908, which sanctioned the creation of the Albanian alphabet. He also supported the Social Democratic Party of Albania, a moderate and pro-European political force. He was a vocal critic of the Ottoman Empire, the Balkan states, the Italian occupation, and the communist regime. He was also a friend and mentor of many Albanian writers and intellectuals, such as Fan S. Noli, Gjergj Fishta, and Lasgush Poradeci. [5] [6] He moved to Rome in 1939, where he continued his journalistic and diplomatic activities. He was appointed as the Albanian ambassador to the United States in 1941, and moved to Washington, D.C. He tried to gain support for the Albanian cause and to counter the propaganda of the Italian and German occupiers. He also wrote two more books of prose, Around the Hearth and How life swayed, which were published in 1944. He died in 1982, in Tirana, of poisoning by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and the Young Turks. He was 82 years old. He was buried in an unknown grave. [7] [8]