Ilo Mitke Qafezezi

Ilo Mitkë Qafëzezi was born on 5 November 1889 in Korçë, Ottoman Empire (modern day Albania). He came from a Bektashi family and was the son of Hoxhë Dedë, a prominent politician and diplomat who participated in the Congress of Manastir, the Congress of Elbasan, and was a deputy in the National Assembly. He emigrated to Romania when he was thirteen and then to the United States. In 1924, he returned to Korçë, where he worked as a teacher and later as the school director of the Romanian school of the city, in use mostly by the Aromanian local community. [1](^1^) Until World War II, he was known as the foremost Albanian biographer. [2](^2^) An autodidact, Qafëzezi was very prolific in his publications in several literary and historical periodicals and bulletins. He also published important historical works on Moscopole, Berat and Vithkuq, and he discovered manuscripts of Theodore Kavalliotis 's work, as well as a copy of the first edition of the Εισαγωγική Διδασκαλία ("Introductory instruction") of Daniel Moscopolites, published in Venice in 1794. Later, he discovered manuscripts of Kostandin Berati, as well as the primer of Naum Veqilharxhi, dated 1844. Qafëzezi translated into Albanian the Alipashiad, a poem on Ali Pasha of Tepelena, written originally in Greek, by Haxhi Shehreti. [3](^3^) He also discovered an original Aromanian liturgical text from the 18th century known as the Aromanian Missal, which was posteriorly published by the Romanian Aromanian linguist Matilda Caragiu Marioțeanu in 1962. [4](^4^) He died on 16 April 1964 in Tirana, Albania. He was a patriot, historian, and publicist who devoted his life to the cause of Albania and its people.