Pashko Vasa
(1825-1892)

 

One figure from northern Albania who played a key role in the Rilindja culture of the nineteenth century was Pashko Vasa, also known as Wassa Effendi, Vaso Pasha, or Vaso Pasha Shkodrani. This statesman, poet, novelist and patriot was born in Shkodra.

From 1842 to 1847 he worked as a secretary for the British consulate in that northern Albanian city where he had an opportunity to perfect his knowledge of a number of foreign languages: Italian, French, Turkish and Greek. He also knew some English and Serbo-Croatian, and in later years learned Arabic.

In 1847, full of ideals and courage, he set off for Italy on the eve of the turbulent events that were to take place there and elsewhere in Europe in 1848. We have two letters from him written in Bologna in the summer of that revolutionary year in which he expresses openly republican and anti-clerical views. We later find him in Venice where he took part in fighting in Marghera on 4 May 1849, part of a Venetian uprising against the Austrians. After the arrival of Austrian troops on 28 August of that year, Pashko Vasa was obliged to flee to Ancona where, as an Ottoman citizen, he was expelled to Constantinople.

He published an account of his experience in Italy the following year in his Italian-language La mia prigionia, episodio storico dell'assedio di Venezia, Constantinople 1850 (My imprisonment, historical episode from the siege of Venice).

In Constantinople, after an initial period of poverty and hardship, he obtained a position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whence he was seconded to London for a time, to the Imperial Ottoman Embassy to the Court of St James's. He later served the Sublime Porte in various positions of authority.

In 1863, thanks to his knowledge of Serbo-Croatian, as he tells us, he was appointed to serve as secretary and interpreter to Ahmed Jevdet Pasha , Ottoman statesman and historian, on a fact-finding mission to Bosnia and Hercegovina which lasted for twenty months, from the spring of 1863 to October 1864. The events of this mission were recorded in his La Bosnie et l'Herzégovine pendant la mission de Djevdet Efendi, Constantinople 1865 (Bosnia and Hercegovina during the mission of Jevdet Efendi).

A few years later he published another now rare work of historical interest, Esquisse historique sur le Monténégro d'après les traditions de l'Albanie, Constantinople 1872 (Historical sketch of Montenegro according to Albanian traditions).

Despite his functions on behalf of the Porte, Pashko Vasa never forgot his Albanian homeland. In the autumn of 1877 he became a founding member of the Central committee for the defence of the rights of the Albanian people in Constantinople. Through his contacts there, he also participated in the organization of the League of Prizren in 1878. He was no doubt the author of the Memorandum on Albanian Autonomy submitted to the British Embassy in Constantinople.

Together with other nationalist figures on the Bosphorus, such as Hodja Hasan Tahsini, Jani Vreto and Sami Frashëri, he played his part in the creation of an alphabet for Albanian and in this connection published a 16-page brochure entitled "L'alphabet latin appliqué à la langue albanaise", Constantinople 1878 (The Latin alphabet applied to the Albanian language), in support of an alphabet of purely Latin characters. He was also a member of the Society for the publication of Albanian writing, founded in Constantinople on 12 October 1879 to promote the printing and distribution of the Albanian-language books.

In 1879, Pashko Vasa worked in Varna on the Black Sea coast in the administration of the vilayet of Edirne with Ismail Qemal bey Vlora (1844-1919). He also acquired the title of Pasha and on 18 July 1883 became Governor General of the Lebanon, a post reserved by international treaty for a Catholic of Ottoman nationality, and a position he apparently held, true to the traditions of the Lebanon then and now, in an atmosphere of Levantine corruption and family intrigue. There he spent the last years of his life and died in Beirut after a long illness on 29 June 1892.

In 1978, the centenary of the League of Prizren, his remains were transferred from the Lebanon back to a modest grave in Shkodra.

To make the Albanian language better known and to give other Europeans an opportunity to learn it, he published a 'Grammaire albanaise à l'usage de ceux qui désirent apprendre cette langue sans l'aide d'un maître', Ludgate Hill 1887 (Albanian grammar for those wishing to learn this language without the aid of a teacher), one of the rare grammars of the period. Pashko Vasa was also the author of a number of literary works of note. The first of these is a volume of Italian verse entitled Rose e spine, Constantinople 1873 (Roses and thorns), forty-one emotionally-charged poems (a total of ca. 1,600 lines) devoted to themes of love, suffering, solitude and death in the traditions of the romantic verse of his European predecessors Giacomo Leopardi, Alphonse de Lamartine and Alfred de Musset. Among the subjects treated in these meditative Italian poems, two of which are dedicated to the Italian poets Francesco Petrarch and Torquato Tasso, are life in exile and family tragedy, a reflection of Pashko Vasa's own personal life. His first wife, Drande, whom he had married in 1855, and four of their five children died before him, and in later years too, personal misfortune continued to haunt him.

In 1884, shortly after his appointment as Governor General of the Lebanon, his second wife Catherine Bonatti died of tuberculosis, as did his surviving daughter Roza in 1887. Bardha de Témal, scènes de la vie albanaise, Paris 1890 (Bardha of Temal, scenes from Albanian life), is a French-language novel which Pashko Vasa published in Paris under the pseudonym of Albanus Albano the same year as Naim Frashëri's noted verse collection Luletë e verësë (The flowers of spring) appeared in Bucharest. 'Bardha of Temal,' though not written in Albanian, is, after Sami Frashëri's much shorter prose work 'Love of Tal'at and Fitnat,' the oldest novel written and published by an Albanian and is certainly the oldest such novel with an Albanian theme. Set in Shkodra in 1842, this classically-structured roman-feuilleton, rather excessively sentimental for modern tastes, follows the tribulations of the fair but married Bardha and her lover, the young Aradi. It was written not only as an entertaining love story but also with a view to informing the western reader of the customs and habits of the northern Albanians. Bardha is no doubt the personification of Albania itself, married off against her will to the powers that be. Above and beyond its didactic character and any possible literary pretensions the author might have had, 'Bardha of Temal' also has a more specific political background. It was interpreted by some Albanian intellectuals at the time as a vehicle for discrediting the Gjonmarkaj clan who, in cahoots with the powerful abbots of Mirdita, held sway in the Shkodra region. It is for this reason perhaps that Pashko Vasa published the novel under the pseudonym Albanus Albano. The work is not known to have had any particular echo in the French press of the period.

Though most of Pashko Vasa's publications were in French and Italian, there is one poem, the most influential and perhaps the most popular ever written in Albanian, which has ensured him his deserved place in Albanian literary history, the famous O moj Shqypni e mjera Shqypni' (Oh Albania, poor Albania). This stirring appeal for a national awakening is thought to have been written in the period between 1878, the dramatic year of the League of Prizren, and 1880.

 

O moj Shqypni, e mjera Shqypni

 

O moj Shqypni, e mjera Shqypni,
Kush te ka qite me krye n'hi?
Ti ke pas qene nje zoje e rande,
Burrat e dheut te thirrshin nane.
Ke pase shume t'mira e begati,
Me varza t'bukura e me djelm t'ri,
Gja e vend shume, ara e bashtina,
Me arme te bardha, me pushke ltina,
Me burra trima, me gra te dlira;
Ti nder gjith shoqet ke qene ma e mira.
Kur kriste pushka si me shkrep moti,
Zogu i shqyptarit gjithmone i zoti
Ke qene per lufte e n'lufte ka dekun
E dhune mbrapa kurr s'i mbetun.
Kur ka lidhe besen burri i Shqypnise,
I ka Kur ka lidhe besen burri i Shqypnise,
I ka shti dridhen gjithe Rumelise;
Nder lufta t'rrebta gjithekund ka ra,
Me faqe t'bardhe gjithmone asht da.

Por sot, Shqypni, pa m'thuej si je?
Po sikur lisi i rrxuem perdhe,
Shkon bota sipri, me kambe, te shklet
E nji fjale t'ambel askush s'ta flet.
Si mal me bore, si fushe me lule
Ke pas qene veshun, sot je me crule,
E s'te ka mbetun as em'n as bese;
Vet e ke prishun per faqe t'zeze.
Shqyptar', me vllazen jeni tuj u vra,
Nder nji qind ceta jeni shpernda;
Sa thone kam fe sa thone kam din;
Njeni:" jam turk", tjetri:"latin"
Do thone: " Jam grek", "shkje"-disa tjere,
Por jemi vllazen t'gjith more t'mjere!
Priftnit e hoxhet ju kane hutue,
Per me ju damun me ju vorfnue!
Vjen njeri i huej e ju rri n'voter,
Me ju turpnue me grue e moter,
E per sa pare qi do t'fitoni,
Besen e t'pareve t'gjith e harroni,
Baheni robt e njerit t'huej,
Qi nuk ka gjuhen dhe gjakun tuej.
Qani ju shpata e ju dyfeqe,
Shqiptari u zu si zog nder leqe!
Qani ju trima bashke me ne,
Se ra Shqypnia me faqe n'dhe!
E s'i ka mbetun as buke as mish,
As zjarm ne voter, as drite, as pishe;
As gjak ne faqe, as nder nder shoke,
Por asht rrexue e bamun troke!
Mblidhniu ju varza, mblidhniu ju gra,
M'ata sy t'bukur q'dini me qa,
Eni t'vajtojme Shqypnine e mjere,
Qi mbet' e shkrete pa em'n, pa nder;
Ka mbet e veje si grue pa burre,
Ka mbet si nane, qi s'pat djale kurre!
Kujt i ban zemra m'e e lan' me deke
Ket fare trimneshe, qi sot asht meke?
Kete nane te dashtun a do ta lame,
Qi njeri i huej ta shklase me kambe?
Nuk, nuk! Kete marre askush s'e do
Kete faqe t'zeze gjithkush e dro!
Para se t'hupet keshtu Shqypnia,
Me pushke n'dore le t'dese trimnia!
Coniu, shqyptare,prej gjumit coniu,
Te gjithe si vllazen n'nji bese shterngoniu,
E mos shikoni kisha e xhamia:
Feja e shqyptarit asht shqyptaria!
Qysh prej Tivarit deri n'Preveze,
Gjithkund lshon dielli vap'edhe rreze,
Asht tok' e jona, prind na e kane lane
Kush mos na e preki, se desim t'tane
Te desim si burrat qe vdiqne motit
Edhe mos marrohna perpara zotit.