Jeronim de Rada, poet, journalist, folklorist, philologist, founder of Arbëresh literature and culture, National Renaissance activist, Teacher of the People, passed away. He was born in Maq (Macchia Albanese) in the province of Cosenza; he completed his first lessons at the college of Saint Adrian in San Demetrio Corone (Italy). In 1848, he published the first Albanian newspaper “Albanese d’Italia”, in which he expressed his views on the events of the time. Jeronim de Rada published the works: “Antichita della nazione albanese” (“Antiquity of the Albanian nation”), (1864) and ” Rapsodie d’un poema albanese” (“Rhapsody of an Albanian poem”) (1866), which played an important role in the propaganda of the Albanian national issue. He gave valuable help to the national issue with the magazine “Fiamuri i Kombit”, which he published in the years 1883-1885. He developed fruitful activities in the field of language studies; paid attention to the issue of the origin of Albanians and the Albanian language, protecting their antiquity. De Rada is one of the first Albanian researchers of the grammatical structure of Albanian. He made continuous efforts for a common Albanian alphabet with Latin letters. He started publishing early, but the creation that brought him fame as a poet with an outstanding talent is the lyrical-epic poem “Këngët e Milosaos” (“The Songs of Milosao”) (1836), a work of Albanian romantic literature with great artistic value, evaluated by Victor Hugo as a “perfectly romantic work”. (In the photo: Jeronim de Rada; The house where De Rada was born, Calabria.)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 1, Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 421-423.
Photo: © National History Museum
Graphic processing: AHCF
