Gjon Buzuku

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Page from the Meshari Gjon Buzukus

Gjon Buzuku was an Albanian Catholic priest. He lived in the 16th century and his exact life is unknown. Buzuku became famous for the translation of the Roman missal into Gegische , a dialect of the Albanian language . The Meshari (German missal) is the first book printed in Albanian .

Live and act

Gjon Buzuku came from northern Albania. He probably lived in Venice or the vicinity of this city for a long time . He is said to have been a monk and later bishop of one of the northern Albanian dioceses, but this cannot be proven with certainty. Little that is known about Buzuku is taken from the colophon he wrote on the last page of the Meshari.

From March 20, 1554 to January 5, 1555 he worked on the translation of the Roman Missal, which he then had printed. The print is 188 pages. In terms of its size, it is the most important ancient Albanian language monument. The only known copy of the book is in the possession of the Vatican Apostolic Library . The title page and the first 16 pages have been lost, so the exact title and year of printing are not known. This edition was exhibited in the National Library in Tirana on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Albania's independence in November 2012 .

The Meshari contains the liturgical texts for the Catholic holidays, excerpts from the Bible, various prayers and rituals as well as some catechetical texts . The initials are decorated and there are also numerous other illustrations. Buzuku used the Latin alphabet, which he added a few additional letters to reproduce the sounds of the Albanian language. The missal is in the Gegic dialect of Malësia e Madhe , a region northeast of Shkodra .

Since the texts in the book are translations of known content, it is particularly suitable for linguistic analyzes. It has been found that Buzuku had used a rich vocabulary and that his translation is characterized by a fairly uniform orthography , which suggests a skilled scribe.

The oldest Albanian missal was rediscovered in 1740 by Archbishop Gjon Nikollë Kazazi of Skopje- Petrovec. After the Second World War, the book Buzukus was examined linguistically several times by albanologists .

literature

Editions

  • Namik Ressuli: Il "Messale" di Giovanni Buzuku. Riproduzione e trascrizione. Citta del Vaticano 1958.
  • Namik Resuli: Meshari i Gjon Buzukut. St. Gallen / London 2013. ISBN 978-3-9523077-6-2
  • Eqrem Çabej : Meshari i Gjon Buzukut (1555). Botim review. 2 volumes. Prishtina 1988 and 1989.

Secondary literature

  • Martin Camaj : Il "Messale" di Gjon Buzuku. Contributi linguistici allo studio della genesi. Roma 1960.
  • Wilfried Fiedler: List of verb forms in the "Missal" of Gjon Buzuku. Munich 1993.
  • Eqrem Çabej (Ed.): Gjon Buzuku dhe gjuha e tij. (= Studime gjuhësore 6). Prishtina 1977.
  • Bardhyl Demiraj (ed.): After 450 years, Buzuku's “Missal” and its reception in our time. 2nd German-Albanian cultural studies conference in Munich from October 14th to 15th, 2005. Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 9783447054683

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Koco Bihiku: A History of Albanian Literature. Tirana 1980, p. 13
  2. ↑ Meshari i Gjon Buzukut mbërrin në Shqipëri. Tema, November 11, 2012, archived from the original on November 17, 2012 ; Retrieved November 19, 2012 (Albanian).
personal data
SURNAME Buzuku, Gjon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Albanian Catholic priest
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century or 16th century
DATE OF DEATH after 1555