The Franciscan Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi was and remained a living torch for the enlightenment of the history and culture of his Albanian nation, which became for him a spiritual endowment and resilience until he breathed his last.
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| Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi |
On October 14, we remember the anniversary of the brutal assassination of the great friar and scholar, Father Shtjefën Konstandin Gjeçovi, in 1929 in the village of Zym of Has, near Prizren.
A Franciscan regular and Catholic priest from Kosovo, an Albanian ethnologist and folklorist, Father Gjeçovi is considered the father of Albanian folklore studies, one of the colossal figures that Christianity gifted to the Albanian national culture. For his contribution, he is ranked alongside other geniuses of Christianity among Albanians, such as Monsignor Pjetër Budi, Monsignor Pjetër Bogdani, Monsignor Gjon Kazazi, Father Gjergj Fishta, Father Anton Harapi, and many, many others.
As soon as one recalls the name of Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi (1874-1929), even the most uneducated Albanian who has had the chance to attend even two grades of school will immediately think of the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini, collected and codified by the great friar. But Father Shtjefën was more than that.
One of the most multifaceted figures in the history of Albanian culture, Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi had an unquenchable thirst to delve into every field of knowledge. He impressed Faik Konica with his culture, who describes him with deep respect and sympathy in the preface of the Kanun; he astounded the young modern writer of the Northern Literary School, Dom Lazër Shantoja (also a martyr of Christianity during the dictatorship), who dedicated the most beautiful portrait ever written of him, ranking him alongside Fishta and Harapi. He remained in everyone's memory as one of the first Albanian historians, ethnographers, and archaeologists.
Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi was born on July 12, 1874, in Janjevë, Kosovo, into a deeply Catholic family. At baptism, he was named Mëhill, and was affectionately called Hilë. From a young age, he showed unusual signs of intelligence, so the Franciscan parish priest, with his parents' permission, took him by the hand one day and set off with him for Shkodër, to the Franciscan College. Gjeçovi was only 10 years old when he donned the glorious brown cowl of the friar. He continued his studies in Troshan, Fojnicë, Dërventë, Kreshevë, generally in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where a good part of the Albanian Franciscans, including Fishta, were trained. Later, the young Franciscans would take the roads toward Austria and Italy.
He began to take an interest in everything related to the history of his people: the beginnings of Christianity, archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, literature, and naturally, to write his first pieces, never forgetting that his main duty would be the preaching of the Gospel of Christ.
He returned to Troshan in 1896, at the age of 22, a young parish priest with a lively faith and profound culture. Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi preached the Gospel in Rubik, Pejë, Laç-Sebaste, Zarë, Sapë, Theth, Prekal, Vlorë, Shkodër, Gjakovë, and Zym, where he stopped for his final rest! He reached the peak of his creativity in the 1900s, becoming present in all fields of culture and education.
He wrote in all three literary genres, collected songs, fairy tales, myths, folk customs and traditions, and, above all, the work that would immortalize him, the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini, a monument to the language and culture of the Albanian Nation, for which the University of Leipzig awarded him the title "Doctor of Sciences in honoris causa."
We recall some of his works: “Dashnia e atdheut” (Love of the Homeland), the drama “Agimi i qytetnisë” (The Dawn of Civilization), “Shqiptari ngadhënjyes” (The Victorious Albanian), “Përkrenarja e Skënderbeut” (Skanderbeg’s Helmet), the publication of the Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini, the work “Trashëgime trako-ilire” (Thracian-Illyrian Heritage), “Jeta e Shën Luçisë, Shna Ndou i Padues, Atil Reguli" (The Life of Saint Lucy, Saint Anthony of Padua, Atilius Regulus) – a free translation of the 3-act drama by Pietro Metastasio, “Vazja e Orleans-it ose Joana D’Ark” (The Maid of Orleans or Joan of Arc) based on A.F. from Bergamo, and the final theological work “Shpërblesi i botes ase Jeta e Jezu Krishtit” (The Redeemer of the World or The Life of Jesus Christ), which he wrote with the aim of educating the people in the spirit of the Albanian language and the spirit of the love of Jesus.
Most of his works remained in manuscript. Even the Kanun was published only after that ominous day of October 14, 1929, when he fell to the bullets of traitors, consecrating with his own blood the lands for which he had spent his life, lands that were not for the first time being soaked with a friar’s blood.
He himself had gathered, according to all criteria, the data to raise another Albanian friar to the altar, Father Luigj Paliqi, a martyr of faith and nation. And among the numerous writings dedicated to Father Gjeçovi, we recall that a monograph titled “Shtjefën Gjeçovi: Jeta, vepra” (Shtjefën Gjeçovi: Life, Work) was written about him by Ruzhdi Mata. However, the most reliable writings about him are those signed by his Franciscan brethren who knew him closely, especially Father Pashkë Bardhi, the historian of the friars.
In commemorating Father Gjeçovi today, we have only made a quick sketch of a figure who erected an inexhaustible monument to himself with his works, because the Franciscan Father Shtjefën Gjeçovi was and remained a living torch for the enlightenment of the history and culture of his nation, which became for him a spiritual endowment and resilience until he breathed his last.
“The language of a nation cannot be stopped, nor can it ever be stopped.” “As much as the sun can be imagined without light, so much can a nation be imagined without language.” He informed his patriots of the values of our language, because it... “is something that cannot be bought, cannot be sold, and cannot be traded; it is something that must be kept like a precious stone, it must be kept as a special gift of God and as an inheritance from our ancestors... it must be kept as the light of the eye. This gift... is the Albanian language.” The paragraph concludes with this aphorism: “As much as the sun can be imagined without light, so much can a nation be imagined without language.”