Earlier this month, UNESCO honoured Parashqevi Qirazi who died on 17 December 1970. She was an Albanian teacher who dedicated her life and works to the Albanian alphabet and teaching the Albanian language, otherwise known as Shqip.
Widely regarded as one of the “key figures” of Albanian Englightenment in the 19th and 20th Century, she had a pioneering role in educating and emancipating women in the Ottoman Empire. UNESCO compared her to Maria Montessori in Italy, Annestine Beyer in Denmark and Marianne Hainisch in Austria.
Qiriazi was born on June 2 1880 in what is now Bitola, North Macedonia. At the age of 11, she began helping her brother Gjerasim and sister Sevasti to teach written Albanian to girls in the county’s first girls school; Shkolla e Vashave, which opened in October 1891. She then studied in Istanbul and after her graduation, she worked at the Mesonjetorja in Korce along with her sister. This school was the first in Albania and opened in 1887.
In 1908, she was the only woman at the Congress of Monastir, an academic conference with the goal of standardising the Albanian alphabet. Prior to the conference, the Albanian language was represented in as many as six different alphabets with many variants. Congress represents one of the most important events in Albanian history, after the establishment of the League of Prizren, as its decision was legally implemented by the Ottoman Empire.
A year after the congress, she published an abecedarium- a document containing the letters of the Albanian alphabet, in order- for schools. She also contributed to the founding of the Yll’i Mengjesit association and was involved in its publication until 1920. The magazine included articles in Albanian on topics like politics, society, history, literature, and folklore.
She was forced to leave Albania in 1914 following the Greek occupation of Korce, and she later emigrated to the United States where she became a member of the Albanian-American community. She then participated in the Conference of Peace of Paris in 1919, representing Albanians. in 1921, she returned to Albania and founded a Female Institution called Kyrias. Later, she held a leading position in Gruaja Shiptare that promoted education, hygiene, and charitable activities with a female focus. The organisation also published a periodical called Shqiptarja which sought to refute conservative thinking about women’s roles in society.
Following the Italian invasion in 1939 and her firm anti-fascist views, her and her sister were deported and interned at the Anhalteleger Dedinje camp near Belgrade by pro-Nazis. She survived and returned to Tirana but was persecuted by the Communists. Her family was interned and imprisoned.
She died in Tirana at the age of 90. Today, her and her sister are considered the mothers of Albania education.
UNESCO commended her for the “outstanding roles that Parashqevi Qiriazi played on the women’s education scene and, more broadly, in the Albanian national movement for independence from the Ottoman Empire.”
They added that “Nothing could undermine her determination, neither the harsh working conditions, nor political pressures, two Balkan wars and two World Wars, nor even the difficult moments spent in a concentration camp, where she was deported in 1943 with her sister Sevasti and other members of her family, as a result of their anti-fascist activity.”
