-On February 28, 1903, the poet, linguist, esthete, essayist, folklorist and publicist Jeronim De Rada passed away. He is one of the most well-known writers of Albanian literature of the 19-th century and one of the most prominent personalities of the Albanian National Movement. He was born on November 29, 1814. He attended the College of Saint Adrian in Saint Miter Corona in Calabria, Italy, to then graduate from the Faculty of Law of the University of Naples, though his main interest remained folklore and literature. In Naples, in 1836, he published the first edition of his best-known Albanian poem, ‘Songs of Milosao’. In 1848 he published the first Albanian newspaper “L’albanese d’Italia” /The Albanian of Italy/. This bilingual, political, literary newspaper, with a circulation of 3,200 copies, was the first Albanian periodical that was published anywhere. De Rada played a major role in the history of Albanian literature. He is the first to write works with a national spirit. In 1883, De Rada founded in Italy, the bilingual monthly magazine “Fjamur i Arbrit” /Flag of Albania/, a periodical, which, despite the Ottoman and Greek censorship, was widely read by Albanians in the Balkans. De Rada was the first genius of the Albanian National Renaissance. De Rada, the great poet and “prophet of the future”, turned the Albanian literature to the European orientation.

-On February 28, 1954, the Albanian actor and play director Enver Petrovci was born in Prishtina. He studied acting at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. With a very successful career in the theater, the roles played on the stage, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar and other famous Shakespearean characters, as well as outstanding cinematographic interpretations, he has become known and appreciated as one of the most celebrated actors of the time. Enver Petrovci is one of the founders of the Dodona Theater and the Academy of Arts in Prishtina.

/a.p./