Arshi Pipa, a writer, translator, and scholar passed away in Washington, D.C. Born in Shkodra on July 28, 1920. He completed his primary and secondary education in his hometown. He pursued higher education in philosophy in Florence, where he defended his doctoral thesis. He returned to Albania in 1941 and taught philosophy at state lyceums in Tirana, Shkodra, and Durrës until the end of 1944. In 1944, he directed the magazine “Kritika,” published by his brother, Myzafer Pipa. From 1945 to 1946, he was a member of the editorial board of the magazine “Bota e Re” (The New World). For a short time in 1945, he taught Italian and Albanian language at the Teachers’ College in Tirana. He was arrested in April 1946 and served his sentence in the Maliq camp. In 1957, he fled to Yugoslavia and in 1958 emigrated to the United States, initially working as a cashier in a hotel in New York City. In 1960, he started teaching philosophy at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the years 1961–1962, he headed the Department of Italian Language at City University, Georgia, at the School of Languages and Linguistics. During the same period, he also taught philosophy at the College of Fine Arts. From 1963 to 1966, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Italian Language at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching courses in modern Italian literature and leading seminars on literary criticism for De Sanctis (1963), Croce (1964), and Vico (1965). In 1965, he also taught courses on Albanian language, literature, and folklore, as well as Roman philosophy. In 1966, he moved to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, initially as an associate professor, and later as a professor of Italian language in the Department of Romance Languages. For eight consecutive years, he taught a course on Albanian language at the University of Minnesota. In 1970, he conceived and developed Master’s Programs for French and Italian languages. In 1987, he was elected a member of the editorial board of the quarterly journal “Telos” in California. In 1990, he began publishing the journal “Albanica – A Quarterly Journal of Albanological Research and Criticism” in Washington, D.C. After retiring, he settled permanently in Washington, D.C., near his sister, Fatime. During this time, he intensified his connections with the newspaper “Dielli.” In the spring of 1991, he was elected president of the “Vatra” federation, without being a member, a position he held for only a year, as he was not re-elected in June 1992. He was honored with the title “Naim Frashëri” of the first class and was declared an “Honorary Citizen” of his hometown, Shkodra. (In the photo: Arshi Pipa)
Text: Encyclopedic dictionary of victims of communist terror – Vol. VI , “West Print”, Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, Tirana, 2017, pages 301-303.
Photo: © Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, Tirana.
Graphic processing: AHCF
