On April 27, 1982 , in Tirana, Skënder Petro Luarasi, publicist and translator, anti-fascist fighter, education and Albanian school activist, passed away. He was born in Luaras of Kolonjë. He received his first Albanian lessons from his father, Petro Nini Luarasi. He attended the Robert College High School in Istanbul, and then in USA and Austria. In the years 1926–1930, he attended higher studies at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Vienna. He worked mainly in education, at the Technical School of Tirana, the Trade School of Vlora, the Gymnasium of Tirana and Shkodra. He openly expressed his democratic and anti-monarchist convictions, acknowledging persecution and imprisonment. In the years 1939-1944 he suffered in concentration camps in France and in 1945 he returned to his homeland, where, in the same year, he was elected a deputy for a legislature. He continued working in education in the high schools of Tirana and in the Institute of Sciences. With the opening of the department of English language and literature at the University of Tirana (1961), he was appointed a lecturer. Then, until he retired, he worked at the Institute of Linguistics and Literature. He dealt with translations, literary creativity and publishing. He was among the founding members of the League of Writers of Albania, but for his free ideas he was expelled (1949) and removed from the active public life. Following the tradition of Fan S. Noli in translations, he brought to Albanian several masterpieces of world literature, such as: “Wilhelm Tell” (1934) and “Intrigue and Love” by Schiller, “Childe Harold” by Byron, “The Song of Hiawatha” by Longfellow, “King Lear” by Shakespeare, “Faust” by Goethe, “The Storm” by Ostrovsky, etc. He published the historical biographies: “Ismail Qemali” (1962), “Isa Boletini” (1970) and “Gjerasim Qiriazi” (1963), as well as the works of Petro Nini Luarasi and Migjeni. He summarized a part of his essays and publicist writings in the book “Fjala Shqipe” (“Albanian word”) (1961). Skënder Petro Luarasi has been decorated with the “Order of the Flag” and the “Honour of the Nation” Order. (In the photo: Skënder Petro Luarasi)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 2 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1540.
Photo: © https://gazetavatra.com/
Graphic processing: AHCF
