Pashko Vasa

Pashko Vasa, year unknown

Pashko Vasa (also known as Vaso Pascha or Wassa Pasha ; * 1825 in Shkodra , † June 29, 1892 in Beirut ) was an Ottoman - Albanian writer and politician. He was an important figure in the Rilindja national movement . Vasa is particularly well known to his compatriots for his poem O moj Shqypni , which expresses the love for the Albanian people in verse.

Life

Vasa came from a Catholic family in Shkodra. He obtained his elementary education through private lessons and self-taught studies. In the process he learned several European and Oriental languages. From 1842 to 1847 he worked as a secretary in the British consulate in his hometown. At the age of 22, Vasa went to Italy . In 1848 he took part in the anti-clerical movement against papal rule in Bologna . In Venice he took part in the uprising against Austrian rule in the summer of 1849 . After the defeat of this revolution he was arrested and expelled into the Ottoman Empire .

Vasa married in 1855. His wife Drande and four of his five children died before him.
In Istanbul , the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Vasa embarked on a successful administrative career after some initial difficulties, during which he rose to become governor of the Vilâyets Lebanon . He found his first job in the Ottoman Foreign Ministry. For some time he was the embassy secretary in London . In 1863/64, because of his knowledge of Serbo-Croatian , Vasa was a member of a government commission that collected data for an administrative reform in Bosnia .

In addition, he has always been involved in cultural and political matters in his Albanian homeland since the 1860s. In 1860 he had joined a group of patriotic Albanians in Istanbul, which also included Kostandin Kristoforidhi and Ismail Qemali . With Sami Frashëri and other Albanian patriots, he spoke out in 1878 for the use of the Latin alphabet in the creation of a uniform Albanian written language .

In October 1879, Vasa co-founded the Istanbul Society for the Printing of Albanian Literature ( Albanian  Shoqëria e të shtypuri shkronja shqip ) and he also participated in the League of Prizren . The most important political goal of the league was to prevent the cession of Albanian populated areas to Bulgaria , because after the defeat of the Ottomans in the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877/78 , Russia wanted to create a Bulgarian state in the Peace of San Stefano , whose territory from the west to beyond of Lake Ohrid should be enough. As a respected administrative officer, Vasa represented Albanian interests equally in Istanbul and in western countries. For example, he sent a memorandum to the British Foreign Minister, Edward Henry Stanley , in which he stated that the formation of a Greater Bulgarian state was not only against the interests of the Albanians and the Ottomans, but was also undesirable for the Western powers and for Greece . Opposite the Turkish government he advocated a vilayet encompassing the entire Albanian settlement area.

In 1879 Vasa was awarded the title Pascha . In 1883 Vasa became governor of Lebanon ; he remained in this post until his death in 1892. In 1978 his remains were transferred from Beirut to his native Shkodra.

plant

Vasa's literary work was largely created in the 1950s and 1960s, although some of it was not printed until years later. He has written poems, short stories and novels, textbooks on the Albanian language, political writings and a large number of articles in newspapers and magazines. His best-known work is the poem O moj Shqypni , composed between 1878 and 1880 , in which he calls his compatriots to unity and to love the country. This poem is now part of language lessons in Albanian schools.

selected Writings

• La mia prigionia, episodio storico dell'assedio di Venezia . (1850)
• La Bosnie et l'Herzégovine pendant la mission de Djevdet Efendi . (1865)
• Trëndafila dhe gjemba . (Collection of poems, 1873)
• La vérité sur l'Albanie et les Albanais, étude historique et critique . (1879), German in the same year: Albania and the Albanians. A historical-critical study .
• O moj Shqypni . (Poem, 1878/80)
• Grammaire albanaise à l'usage de ceux qui désirent apprendre cette langue sans l'aide d'un maître . (1887)
• Bardha de Témal. Scènes de la vie albanaise . (Novel, 1890)

literature

• Aristotel Mici (ed.): Pashko Vasa: Vepra letrare. Tiranä 1987. (work edition)
• Johannes Faensen: The Albanian National Movement. Wiesbaden 1980.

Web links

Commons : Pashko Vasa  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Biography at Shkoder.net (English) ( Memento from July 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Pashko Vasa: Memorandum on the new Bulgaria. (No longer available online.) In: albanianhistory.net. Archived from the original on January 27, 2012 ; accessed on October 2, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.