Justin Rrota, philologist and linguist, cleric, Teacher of the People, was born in Shkodër. He completed high school in his hometown. He completed higher theological studies in Austria. In 1911 he was ordained a priest. For about 25 years, he worked as a teacher of Albanian and Latin at the “Illyricum” high school in Shkodër. After the war, being sick, he lived in the Assembly of the Franciscan Friars in Shkodër and, as an associate of the Institute of History and Linguistics, he was mainly involved in the drafting of the voluminous work “Gjuha e shkrueme ase vërejtje gramatikore” (“The written language: grammatical remarks”), which deals with phonetics, lexicology, morphology and syntax of the Albanian language and a short history of albanology; the work was published by the Academy of Sciences and the Albanian Franciscan Province (Shkodër, 2006). Justin Rrota has been particularly engaged in the tracing and critical publication of texts of old authors, transcribing them and providing commentary. From the field of the history of literature, he published “Letratyra shqype” (“Albanian literature”) (1925, complete edition 1934). As a writer, he published a collection of stories, novels and the memoirs “Rreth votrës” (“Around the hearth”) (1945). Justin Rrota brought to Albania for the first time, in 1929, three photographic copies of Gjon Buzuku’s “Meshari” (“The Missal”) and was constantly engaged in the study of the language of this work, publishing several study articles, where he also addressed the historical-cultural circumstances of the time when the first Albanian book was published. He passed away in 1964. (In the photo: Justin Rrota)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 3 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2009, page 2285-2286.
Photo: © https://www.vaticannews.va/sq/kisha/news/2020-02/at-justin-rrota-ne-pervjetorin-e-lindjes.html
Graphic processing: AHCF
