Skënder Luarasi

Skënder Luarasi was born in the year 1900; he died in the year 1982. He was a student, an anti-fascist activist and a writer from Albania.

source of picture: www.voal-online.ch

Laurasi was born in Lauras if Kolonje province on the 19^th January 1900. He was the son of the Albanian patriot Petro Nini Laurasi from the Kostallari family of the village of Lauras and Lino Sevo. Though his father Laurasi was a protestant, yet he got the name Skender from the father, and the name is used to refer to the Albanian National Hero called Scanderberg. Naim Frasheri was his godfather.

Laurasi did the first studies in an Albanian language school of Negovan and Korce from the year 1909 to the year 1911. Subsequent to the death of his father who was poisoned, he was sent to Robert College of Istanbul from the year 1912 to 1913. He continued his education at the Easton Academy in the United States from the year 1914 to the year 1916, International College in Springfield MA in the United States from the year 1916 to 1918, Classis Gymnasium in Freistadt Austria from the year 1922 to the year 1926 and he graduated from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Vienna Austria in the year 1930. At the time of his return to his country, Albania, from the year 1920 to 1922, he served as a teacher in the schools that were opened by the Red Cross of US in Elbasan District of the country.

Laurasi began his literary work since the year 1917. In the 1930s, he showed himself to be a teacher, a critic, a journalist and a translator; he also distinguished himself to be a playwright, a director and cooperator of many press periodicals. He was once the chief editor of the periodicals called Studenti, in the year 1920 in the US Djaleria, Austria, from the year 1927 to 1928 and Magazine called Vullnetari I Lirise, Spain in the year 1930, along with Petro Marko. From the year 1930 to the year 1936 taught at the Technical School that is located in Tirana, Vlora and in Shkodra and he was there until he left the country for Spain to join the International Brigades. Laurasi had been arrested and sent to prison for three times by the Zogist regime of the country. He was arrested also at the time of the Italian and German Occupation and he was interned in many concentration camps, which included Vernet, Gurs, St.Cyprien, etc.

After the World War II, he was elected to represent the Kolonje province of the Albanian Assembly in the year 1945. Laurasi was among the initiators of the foundation of Albanian League of Writers and Artists and he was also a member of the Presidium until the November of the year 1949, which was when he was expelled for many years from the league because of the anti-conformist behavior. Until he retired from public service in the year 1967, he worked as a teacher and a historian in the State Pedagogic Commission Qemal Stafa High School, the Publishing Company of the Science Institute, Pedagogical School, "Jordan Misja" Artistic Lyceum, and Faculty e History-Linguistics of the University of Tirana, and it was there that he made the English Language the major. Until the year 1982, he focused on the activity of publicists, monographs, theatrical works, historical and literary studies.

Laurasi was given the award of Flag Order in the year 1960 and the Honor of the Nation in the year 1966 by the government of the country with motivation "For distinguished patriotic, anti-fascist, democratic, literary, and educative activity". Many schools in the country are bearing his name as the name of the school.

Laurasi died on the 27^th January 1982.

Main works

Studies, monographs, momoirs

Ø  Isa Boletini, short biography, Prishtina, "Rilindja" 1972. OCLC 43365281

Ø  Ismail Qemali, biography, Tirana, Shtëpia Botuese e Librit Politik, 1972. OCLC 80727030

Ø  Les soeurs Qiriasi, study, Tirana, 1962. OCLC 79170189

Ø  Kolonel Thomson, monograph

Ø  Petro N. Luarasi, jeta dhe vepra, study, Tirana, "Naim Frashëri", 1958. OCLC 560911213

Ø  Migjeni, jeta dhe vepra, study, Tirana, "Naim Frashëri", 1961. OCLC 462044090

Ø  Gjerasim Qiriazi, jeta dhe vepra, study, Tirana, Naim Frashëri, 1962. OCLC 28785711

Ø  Sevasti Qiriazi, vepra, study

Ø  Në Brigadat internacionale, memories, Tirana, Toena, 1996. OCLC 37228386

Ø  Fjala shqipe, study, Tirana, "Naim Frashëri", 1961. OCLC 462053473

Ø  Fjala e lirë shqipe (publicistikë e studime), study

Ø  Kujtime historike, memoirs

Ø  Kujtime autobiografike (Ç'kam parë e ç'kam dëgjuar), autobiographic collection

Ø  Tri jetë, Koloneli Tomson - Ismail Qemali - Isa Boletini, collection of biographies, Tirana, "Migjeni", 2007. ISBN 9789994394319

Theatrical plays

Ø  Agimi i Lirisë (Freedom's Dawn)

Ø  Stuhi në prill (Storm in April)

As co-author

Ø  Zgjimi Kombëtar Shqiptar : 1878-1912 (Albanian National Awakening), Stavro Skëndi; Skender Luarasi; Nestor Nepravishta, Tirana, Phoenix : Shtëpia e Librit dhe e Komunikimit, 2000, ISBN 9789992742198

Translations to Albanian

Ø  King Lear by Shakespeare, Prishtina, "Rilindja", 1968. OCLC 503885742

Ø  Richard III by Shakespeare, Prishtina, "Rilindja", 1968. OCLC 503889228

Ø  The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare, Prishtina, "Rilindja", 1968. OCLC 503895560

Ø  Scanderbeg by Thomas Whincop, Shtëpia Botonjëse "Naim Frashëri", 1967. OCLC 504060109

Ø  Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, Prishtina, 1961, OCLC 558205528

Ø  The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Tirana, 1960. OCLC 562688044

Ø  Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Tirana, Ndërmarrja shtetrore e botimeve, 1957. OCLC 163308588

Ø  Fuente Ovehuna by Lope de Vega, Prishtina, "Rilindja", 1980. OCLC 441739925

Ø  Götz von Berlichingen by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Tirana, "Naim Frashëri", 1959. OCLC 43129221

Ø  Intrigue and Love by Friedrich Schiller, Tirana, Ndërmarrja shtetërore e botimeve, 1955. OCLC 796248147

Ø  Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by Byron, Tirana, Ndermarrja Shteterore e Botimeve, 1956. OCLC 248867971

Ø  Emilia Galotti by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Tirana, "Naim Frashëri", 1962. OCLC 72370973

Ø  Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, Tirana, Ndërmarrja Shtetërore e botimeve, 1956. OCLC 660230353

Ø  William Tell by Friedrich Schiller, Tirana, Shtëpia botuese "Naim Frashëri", 1975. OCLC 77886954

Ø  Albania: Its discontents and their origin by Frederick Morton Eden (1865-1948), Tirana, Infbotues, 2011.