Pjetër Bogdani

Pjetër Bogdani was born in the year 1622 and he died in the year 1689. He is the earliest original writer of literature in Albania. He wrote, Cuneus Prophetarum in the year 1685, the first work of substance that was written in the language of the country, Albania.

source of picture: en.wikipedia.org

Life and Work

He was born in Hasit in the year 1622. Bogdani was educated in the culture of the Catholic Church. He has an uncle, Andrea Bogdani who was Archbishop of Skopje and the author of the latin-American grammer that is now lost. Bogdani is believed to have gotten his first schooling from the Franciscans at the Chiprovtsi that is in the modern northwestern Bulgaria and then he studied Illyrian Colege of Loreto that is near Ancona, as his predecessors, Pjetër Budi and Frang Bardhi did. He served as a parish priest in Pult from the year 1651 to the year 1654 and from the year 1654 to the year 1656 he went to study in the College of the Propaganda Fide that is in Rome, and it was there that he graduated as a doctor of Philosophy and theology. In the year 1656, he was pronounced to be a bishop of Shkodra, he was with the post for 21 good years and was named the Administrator of the Archdiocese of Antivari until the year 1671.

At the time of the most difficult years of the War of Ottoman-Austia, 1664 to 1669, he ran and took refuge in the village of Barbullash and Rjoll that is near Shkodra. The cave that he stayed as a refugee in Rjoll is still bearing his name. He was eventually caught by the Ottomans and he was sent to prison in the fort of Shkoder. The bishop of Durres, Shjefen Gasperi reported to the propaganda Fide that he was saved by the brothers Pepe and Nikolle Kastori. He replaced his uncle as the Archbishop of Skopje and Administrator of the Serbian Kingdom in the year 1677. The zeal of religion and his patriotic ambitions made him never to come in terms with the Ottoman forces and in the ether of war and misperception in the country, he took a decision and leave to Ragusa, from where he kept going with his Venice and Padua, with his manuscript. When he got to Padua, he was gracefully welcomed by Cardinal Gregorio Barbarigo, Bishop of Padua as at then., whom he served in Rome. Cardinal Barbarigo was in charge of the affairs of the church in the East and so he has interest in the traditions of the orient, as well as Albania. The cardinal also had found a print press in Padua called the Tipografia del Seminario, and the served the needs of another language and was with Hebrew, Arabic and Armenian fonts.  Thus the cardinal was well exposed and was able and willing to help Bohgdani in the latter’s historic undertaking.

After making arrangement for the publication of the Cuneus Prophetarum, Bogdani went back to Balkans in March of the year 1686 and he spent a year in promoting resistance to the armies of the Ottoman Empire, especially in Kosovo. He and his Vica Toma Raspasani performed a great function in the pro-Austrian movement in Kpsovo at the time of the Great Turkish War. He made a contribution of 6,000 soldiers from Albania to the Austrian army that got to Pristina and assisted it to capture Prizren.

Poetry

It was in Padua in the year 1685 that his vast treatise on theology, Cuneus Prophetarum was completed and published in Albanian language as well as Italian with the help of Cardinal Barbarigo. The allbanian version of the book was completed 10 years before the publication but the Propaganda Fide refused that the book be published until it is translated to another language. The full title of the published version of the book is; "Cvnevs prophetarvm de Christo salvatore mvndi et eivs evangelica veritate, italice et epirotice contexta, et in duas partes diuisa a Petro Bogdano Macedone, Sacr. Congr. de Prop. Fide alvmno, Philosophiae & Sacrae Theologiae Doctore, olim Episcopo Scodrensi & Administratore Antibarensi, nunc vero Archiepiscopo Scvporvm ac totivs regni Serviae Administratore" translated  in english language it is; “The Band of the Prophets Concerning Christ, Saviour of the World and his Gospel Truth, edited in Italian and Epirotic and divided into two parts by Pjetër Bogdani of Macedonia, student of the Holy Congregation of the Propaganda Fide, doctor of philosophy and holy theology, formerly Bishop of Shkodra and Administrator of Antivari and now Archbishop of Skopje and Administrator of all the Kingdom of Serbia”.

The book was seen as the masterpiece of the early literature of the country, Albania and it is the first work in the country that has full artistic and literary quality. It covers the scope of philosophy, science and theology, having digressions on the following; geography, astronomy, physics and history. With the poetry and prose of the work, he touched the question of aesthetic theory as well as literary theory. The work is a humanist work of the Baroqu period that is geared toward the cultures of Plato, Aristotle, St Augustine, and St Thomas Aquinas. The fundamental aim of Bogdani is the knowledge of God, sorting out the problems of existence, for which he struggles with the motive and brainpower.

Bogdani’s talents are well observed in the prose of the work. It is in his work that what is known as the first literary Albanian language was encountered. And for that he could easily bear the name of the father of Albanian prose. His great religious poetry are of a great interest. The corpus of his verse is the melodies of the Ten Sibyis, which are; the Cumaean, Libyan, Delphic, Persian, Erythraean, Samian, Cumanian, Hellespontic, Phrygian, and Tiburtine that are instilled with the Baroque proclivity for religious themes and biblical references.

Legacy

Pjetër Bogdani is portrayed on the front of the 1000 lekë banknote of Albania that was issued in the year 1996.