Dhimitër Pasko

Dhimitër Pasko was born on the 13^th September 1907 in Pogradec; he died on the 4^th May 1967 in Tirana, Albania.

source of picture: www.radiokosovaelire.com

Career

Pasko studied at a foreign language school in Greece, and he later relocated to Bucharest and it was there that he finished with the doctorate degree in economics.

While he was still in Bucharest, he turned himself into a journalist with the Albanian weekly newspaper called Shqipëri' e re, using the Pseudonym Janus. In the year 1937, he published Lasgush Poradeci’s collection of verse called Ylli i zemrës, which was a compillation of the 8 tales of village life that is from Pogradec. The edition of the book was heavily destroyed by fire and only became widely read through the second edition 0f the book that was published in the year 1944.

He went back to his country in the year 1942 and at the time of the World War II, he wrote and published most of his main works. After the World War II, he found a short-lived literary periodical called Revista letrare with Nexhat Hakiu, Vedat Kokona and Sterjo Spasse, combined the editorial board of Bota e re, which was the first literary journal of the country, Albania after the war, and became a founding member of the Albanian League of Writers and Artists. He died of a heart attack in the year 1967, leaving a novel that he was writing on Illyrian theme incomplete.

Imprisonment and Release

After the World War II, the communist party took over power in the country. Pasko, an official Albanian delegate of the country Yugoslavia, could not approve of a proposed currency and custom union that was agreed between two countries and of a Serbian re-occupation of Kosovo; an earlier PASKO POEM of the year 1944, proclaimed his disparagement of the action of the serbians. Upon his return to Yugoslavia, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the criticism, and at that time he tried to commit suicide. He was released following the the freeing of the Yugoslavia’s hold over party politics of Albania, and he worked as a translator for Naim Frasheri, a publishing company that was owned by the state.

Works

Ø  "Lasgush Poradeci" - 1937

Ø  "Net shqiptare" (Albanian nights) - 1938

Ø  "Pylli i gështenjave" (The Chestnut Forrest) - 1958

Ø  "Ago Jakupi e të tjera rrëfime" (Ago Jakupi and other stories) - 1943

Ø  "Sulm e lotë" (Attack and tears) - 1943

Ø  "Shënime letrare" (Literary Notes) - 1944

Ø  "Havadan më havadan" (From Havadan to Havadan) - 1944

Ø  "Kapllan aga i Shaban Shpatës" (Kapllan Aga of Shaban Shpata) - 1944

Ø  "Dashuria e berberit Artan" (The Love of Barber Artan) - 1946

Ø  "Xinxifilua" - 1962

Ø  "E Bija e Hënës dhe e diellit|Tregime të moçme shqiptare" (Old Albanian Tales) - 1965

Ø  "Tregime të zgjedhura" (Selected Stories) - 1972

Ø  "Baltë nga kjo tokë" (Mud from this land) - 1973

Ø  "Në një cep të Ilirisë së poshtme" (In a Corner of Southern Illyria) - 1983

Ø  "Këngë e britma nga qyteti i djegur" (Songs and Cries from a Burnt city)

Ø  "E madhe është gjëma e mëkatit" (Great is the Lament of Sin) - 1993

Translations

Ø  "Kujtimet e një gjahtari" (Memories from a Hunter) from Turgeniev

Ø  "Tregimet e Petërburgut" (Peterburg's Stories) and "Shpirtra të vdekura" (Dead Souls) from Gogol

Ø  "Zotërinj Gollovlinovë" (The Golovlyov Family) from Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin