Pandeli Sotiri

Pandeli Sotiri was born in 1843 in Selckë, a village in the Lunxhëri region of Gjirokastër County, Albania. He was educated at the Greek teacher seminary in Qestorati, where he learned Albanian from Koto Hoxhi, a secret nationalist teacher. He became involved in the Albanian National Awakening movement and joined the Central Committee for Defending Albanian Rights in Istanbul in 1877. He also founded the Society for the Publication of Albanian Writings, which aimed to spread the Albanian language and culture. He published the first magazine entirely written in Albanian, Drita, and later renamed it Dituria. He also worked on one of the versions of the Albanian alphabet, which was later adopted by the Congress of Monastir in 1908. In 1887, he opened the first Albanian school of modern times in Korçë, known as Mësonjëtorja, where he taught Albanian language and literature. He had to flee to Greece later that year, due to the pressure from the Greek Orthodox Church and his Greek wife. He died in 1892 in Thessaloniki, allegedly killed by Greek fanatics who threw him from the third floor of his apartment. He was one of the most important figures of the Albanian Renaissance and a pioneer of Albanian education and writing. [1](^1^) [2](^2^) [3](^3^)