Naum Veqilharxhi (Bredhi) was born in Vithkuq in Korça, the first ideologist of the Albanian National Renaissance, a prominent Enlightenment thinker and activist of the Albanian school. He spent his childhood in his hometown. Before 1806, he emigrated with his family to Moldavia (Kishinev). In 1821, he participated in the Eterist uprising in Romania against Ottoman slavery as one of its leaders, together with Albanians from the colony there. He dedicated himself to the liberation of Albania, guided by the fundamental Enlightenment idea that people can emerge from backwardness only if they write their native language and spread education and national culture. In 1824, he started work on compiling a special Albanian alphabet with 33 letters, acceptable to all, to overcome the difficulties associated with other alphabets. It was intended for the writing system to adapt to the peculiarities of Albanian phonetics. With this alphabet, in 1844, he published the first Albanian primer, “Evetarin“. The primer was received with enthusiasm and spread to the southern provinces of Albania. In order to meet the many requests he had, he republished it in 1845 under the title “Fare i ri Evëtar shqip“, accompanied by a “E parathënme për djemtë e rinj shqiptarë” (“Foreword for young Albanian boys”). He also prepared grammar and other books and manuscripts that have not been preserved. The foresight of Naum Veqilharxhi lies, not only in the push he gave to the movement of the Albanian people against centuries-old Ottoman slavery, but also in the fact that he was the first to recognize and warn of the danger that would come to the nation from the Greek circles and from the politics of the Patriarchate. As an enlightener, Naum Veqilharxhi thought that the learning of Albanian and the rise of culture could bring the homeland to the ranks of civilized countries. He saw cultural liberation as a factor without which even political liberation could not be achieved. He saw the Albanians as a nation with a special character, with its own language and customs, with an inherited cultural treasure. He stood up against religious divison and called on the patriots to first of all work for the awakening of the national consciousness of the Albanians. Naum Veqilharxhi understood the great danger of denationalization coming from foreign schools and worked for an Albanian school with secular content and for all children of the people. He gave help and showed new thoughts even for the cultivation of the language. He relied on the language of the people, used old and rare words and expressed himself in favor of cleaning Albanian from foreign words. He enriched Albanian with a range of terms of culture and knowledge. Naum Veqilharxhi also tried to create a cultural society to unite other patriots. He passed away in Istanbul, in 1854. (In the photo: Naum Veqilharxhi)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, page 2872-2873.
Photo: © https://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naum_Veqilharxhi
Graphic processing: AHCF
